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France pulls last gold held in US

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Re: France pulls last gold held in US

#111

Post by cloudbonsai »

mort96 wrote: post #76
tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the full press release: "In 2025 and at the start of 2026, while the volume of gold reserves remained unchanged, the Banque de France had to align a residual portion (5%) with technical guidelines, resulting in a significant realised currency gain. This exceptional foreign exchange income totalled EUR 11 billion for 2025." -- the keyword here likely being "realized"

Is the logic that it's "unrealised" while the gold is stored in the US but becomes "realised" once it is stored in Paris? Why?

Bank of France "transported" their reserve by selling the gold held in New York, and subsequently buying the same amount in European market.

They opted to do so because it's just more efficient. It takes a lot of efforts to physically move 129 tonnes of gold after all. And as a side effect of this relocation project, they ended up recording a capital gain. It's nothing-burger.

Re: France pulls last gold held in US

#112

Post by hypeatei »

u1hcw9nx wrote: post #105

>However, an operation to repatriate its gold holdings began in the 1960s leading up to the US termination of the Bretton Woods system, which effectively stopped foreign governments from exchanging dollars for gold. French-US monetary history after WWII: Under the Bretton Woods agreement (1944-1971), the US dollar was the world’s reserve currency, and it was pegged to gold at $35 per ounce. Other countries pegged the…

De Gaulle was ahead of his time. He was very skeptical of the control that the US had over Europe through NATO. He left the alliance to build an independent French nuclear program which is paying dividends today amid the current leadership situation in the US.

Re: France pulls last gold held in US

#113

Post by Rexxar »

cladopa wrote: post #25

This is not gain at all. At least in theory: You own some tons of gold at the start of the process, you have the same tons of gold at the end of the process. The only real gain is that you have gold in the US custody and the US can be tempted to just use it without telling you anything. In other words, you had "paper gold" or "virtual gold" that the US can confiscate anytime, for example after invading Greenland, bla…

It's probably just a technical accounting update. Old assets are often kept valued at their buy price and not reevaluated every year to avoid taxes (Banque de France is not exempt from taxes). As they swap a type of gold by another and do a sell/buy action, the new gold is valued to current market price while the old one was valued in accounting at an old value.

They had a deficit last year, so they can probably avoid to pay tax this year by balancing last year loss with this year profit.

Re: France pulls last gold held in US

#115

Post by atombender »

roenxi wrote: post #5
aucisson_masque wrote: post #3

Not done for political reasons.

Are you suggesting they did this for technical or economic reasons? Like what? Is the US charging an unreasonable storage fee? I'd read the article, but the site seems to be down.

They started the process in 2005 [1]. The goal has been to upgrade all their goal to modern purity standards (99.999% purity). The repatriation to France may have been done for national security reasons, but not political as in ideological.

[1] https://www.banque-france.fr/fr/actualites/resultats-2025-de...

Re: France pulls last gold held in US

#116

Post by c7b »

hypeatei wrote: post #112
u1hcw9nx wrote: post #105

>However, an operation to repatriate its gold holdings began in the 1960s leading up to the US termination of the Bretton Woods system, which effectively stopped foreign governments from exchanging dollars for gold. French-US monetary history after WWII: Under the Bretton Woods agreement (1944-1971), the US dollar was the world’s reserve currency, and it was pegged to gold at $35 per ounce. Other countries pegged the…

De Gaulle was ahead of his time. He was very skeptical of the control that the US had over Europe through NATO. He left the alliance to build an independent French nuclear program which is paying dividends today amid the current leadership situation in the US.

He also called Brexit before the UK had even joined.

Re: France pulls last gold held in US

#117

Post by moffkalast »

u1hcw9nx wrote: post #105

>However, an operation to repatriate its gold holdings began in the 1960s leading up to the US termination of the Bretton Woods system, which effectively stopped foreign governments from exchanging dollars for gold. French-US monetary history after WWII: Under the Bretton Woods agreement (1944-1971), the US dollar was the world’s reserve currency, and it was pegged to gold at $35 per ounce. Other countries pegged the…

De Gaulle of this man.

Re: France pulls last gold held in US

#118

Post by ur-whale »

u1hcw9nx wrote: post #105

>However, an operation to repatriate its gold holdings began in the 1960s leading up to the US termination of the Bretton Woods system, which effectively stopped foreign governments from exchanging dollars for gold. French-US monetary history after WWII: Under the Bretton Woods agreement (1944-1971), the US dollar was the world’s reserve currency, and it was pegged to gold at $35 per ounce. Other countries pegged the…

> De Gaulle initiated a systematic, aggressive policy where they converted USD into physical gold

The dude was a visionary for many things, but I didn't know about this. Borderline prescient. What a guy.

Re: France pulls last gold held in US

#119

Post by ur-whale »

cladopa wrote: post #25

This is not gain at all. At least in theory: You own some tons of gold at the start of the process, you have the same tons of gold at the end of the process. The only real gain is that you have gold in the US custody and the US can be tempted to just use it without telling you anything. In other words, you had "paper gold" or "virtual gold" that the US can confiscate anytime, for example after invading Greenland, bla…

> This is not gain at all. At least in theory: You own some tons of gold at the start of the process, you have the same tons of gold at the end of the process.

Correct. A better way to put it is you shorted the USD. Which is a smart move at any rate. So a gain indeed.

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