Central banks in the world pick up gold as reserves
A changing trend? World Gold Council thinks so.
Ruchika Shah / Mumbai May 17, 2012, 22:35 IST
Central banks across the world have started picking up gold as reserves, observed World Gold council in its first quarter gold demand review report released today.
Although down from buying in the first quarter of 2011, central banks continued to purchase gold as a reserve. In Q1 2012, central banks gold reserve demand was at 80.8 tonne.
A country's Central Bank maintains its reserves in a diverse portfolio ranging from foreign currencies, other country's bonds, gold, oil, government securities, and so on.
However, over the years, safe-haven US and Europe have fallen from grace and so have their currencies and bonds. The US now seems to be on a slow path to recovery.
However, the dollar index has only managed to strengthene a little over 10% from year ago. It was trading at 75.12 against the basket of six other currencies on May 16, 2011 and is now at 81.42 vs the six major currencies, an 8.23% increase.
This marginal rise in the dollar cannot be attributed to strength in the US markets. The real picture is rather quite contrary. Treasury 10-year yields reached a seven-month low today after the index of U.S. leading economic indicators unexpectedly fell in April and a regional manufacturing measure shrank in May.
The slight strength in the dollar index can be seen as result of wary investors holding the dollar to mark losses made by sudden crashes in the equity markets.
The rapid growth of foreign exchange reserves in a number of expanding economies has required many central banks to increase gold holdings in order to maintain the ratio of gold to their foreign exchange reserves, WGC said.
While for other counties, central bank concerns with the dominance of the euro and US dollar and their respective health as international reserves has prompted a renewed focus on diversifying reserve assets, the report said.
The lack of fundamental strength in the US dollar can be seen reflected in US 10-year Treasury note yields which was at 1.77%
Europe and UK also recapitulates the same story.
The euro was trading at 1.45 a dollar a year ago and is now trading at 1.27 against the greenback, while the pound was at 1.60 a dollar, now at 1.50 to a dollar.
The economic uncertainty in European counties pulled Spain and Italy's bonds higher along with Greece. Spain's bond yeilds rose by eight basis points to 6.35%, while the yield on Italy's 10-year rose by seven basis to 6.05%.
Safer Germany bonds touched a fresh all-time low of 1.422%, according to data from Tradeweb.
To offset these risky bonds and lack of adequate gains from major currencies, central banks across the world have started moving towards gold as reserves.
International Monetary Fund data showed Argentina increased its reserves by 7 tonne in September 2011 for the first time in seven years, taking its total holdings to 61.7 tonne.
Kazakhstan's central bank reported purchases of 14.2 tonne in the quarter. The central bank's governer announced in September that, starting in January this year, the bank planned to buy the country's entire gold bullion output over the 'next two or three years' to reduce its exposure to the US dollar, the WGC report said.
Mexico, bought 6.8 tonne of gold in March taking the total gold reserves upto 112.6 tonne. Its gold reserves now accounts for 4% of total reserves.
Consistent in its gold buying, Russia's central bank bought around 16.5 tonnes in March. Russia's gold reserves now amount to 895.7 tonne accounting for just about 10% of total reserves.
Phillippines also made net purchases throughout the quarter, the report said.
Other banks contributing to the 81 tonne demand include Ukraine (1.2 tonne), Tajikistan (0.2 tonne)
The report says that the 81 tonne is exclusive of the 14.3 tonne of gold added by Turkey as net reserve additions to Turkeys gold reserves. But the statistic was not included as it was done as a policy change by Turkish banks.
The trend, which has been established in recent years, of net central bank gold buying looks set to extend further this year as the main driving factors remain in place.