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France pulls last gold held in US

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Re: France pulls last gold held in US

#161

Post by corford »

c7b wrote: post #116
hypeatei wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

IIRC, De Gaulle & Churchill proposed a UK-FR union at one point (1940?) but it didn't get sufficient support within the French government. Interesting to ponder what the war and later EU trajectories might have looked like if that had happened.

Re: France pulls last gold held in US

#162

Post by jt2190 »

> 2. Improvement in income from non-monetary activities

> Net income from assets denominated in euro rose by EUR 2 billion, driven by an increase in outstandings. Income from assets held for own account rose by EUR 12.2 billion as a result of an exceptional item. 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.

> Net operating expenditure remained under control, falling to EUR 831 million from EUR 888 million in 2024. Since 2015, net operating expenditure has fallen by an average of 4.1% in volume terms.

> Overall, after transferring EUR 5 billion from reserves and booking a corporation tax charge of EUR 1.5 billion, net profit for 2025 totalled EUR 8.1 billion.

> A total of EUR 0.4 billion of this amount has been allocated to the special reserve, in accordance with regulations, while the remainder has been used to clear the deficit in retained earnings (EUR 7.7 billion) that was left after the allocation of the net loss in 2024

> After clearing these past losses in their entirety, the Banque de France’s net equity – comprised of own funds plus unrealised capital gains on asset holdings – is now extremely solid at EUR 283.4 billion, up from EUR 202.7 billion in 2024. The Banque de France’s net equity includes a revaluation reserve of state gold and foreign exchange reserves (RRRODE) of EUR 11.4 billion, to cover future monetary expenses

I assume that this increased equity makes selling bonds a bit easier?

From: “Net profit of EUR 8.1 billion, enabling the clearing of losses carried forward” https://www.banque-france.fr/en/press-release/net-profit-eur...

Re: France pulls last gold held in US

#163

Post by [deleted] »

H8crilA wrote: post #147
raincole wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you buy $100,000 of RAM and just hoard them, and a shortage happens, you won't update their value according to their market price, until you sell them. That's it. It has nothing to do with whether your RAM is stored in New York or Paris.

You treat your brokerage account this way? I'm sure that the retirement funds don't.

[deleted]

Re: France pulls last gold held in US

#164

Post by wolvoleo »

ezst wrote: post #139
wolvoleo wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh yes that's what I mean. I don't like calling it the Netherlands.

Why not?

Oh there's just some stupid 'rebranding' going on. https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-49921029

As I hate our government I don't play by their rules.

Besides, Holland is shorter and easier to pronounce.

Re: France pulls last gold held in US

#165

Post by w4yai »

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…

u mad bro ?

Re: France pulls last gold held in US

#166

Post by IAmBroom »

raincole wrote: post #156
H8crilA wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You treat your brokerage account this way? I'm sure that the retirement funds don't.

If you're a retail business that sells RAM then yes, this is the way. If you're a fund that holds RAM in some indirect manner (like you hold hypothetical RAM futures) then it depends on whether your country's laws ask for market-to-market value for that specific kind of security.

France didn't pay taxes on the gold, so it didn't keep it "on the books" at decades-old prices. It tracked the real-time value.

However, that doesn't mean there isn't profit possible, even over a supposedly super-liquid asset like gold.

Re: France pulls last gold held in US

#168

Post by codethief »

worldvoyageur wrote: post #125
codethief wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That makes more sense, thank you! Though do gold assets on the books really never get adjusted? I guess that's up the central bank to decide but I would find it surprising.

It's the rules of how they must account for the value of the gold they have. Gold is valued at the price paid. Then, it is valued at the price sold. If there is no sale for more than a century, it stays on the books at the price paid. Once a transaction happens, the numbers update. Then, the gain that everyone knows is there is 'realized'. It's like if you mined Bitcoin in the early days. Your gain is only 'realized'…

What I was trying to get at is that there are other ways to update asset valuations besides daily (market-to-market) and once (price paid) – those are just the extreme ends of a spectrum. What makes sense really depends on the asset class and how long you're holding the positions. As for "It's the rules", I'm aware that there are strict accounting rules for companies and regular banks, but do those really apply to the central bank in the exact same way? (A central bank typically operates on a much longer time scales.)

Re: France pulls last gold held in US

#169

Post by benreesman »

Iulioh wrote: post #135
okanat wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just like the majority of the classical economists and policymakers, you would call him a blithering idiot and overzealous nationalist two decades ago. It was thought that this kind of behavior caused world-wars. I mean it did cause them. It is just we're speed running the next one that changed the narrative.

This behavior is economically inefficient, that's why it's criticized. And it's undeniable But the point is that "economical efficiency" is not the only metric that matters, stability and power do not come cheap.

[dead]

Re: France pulls last gold held in US

#170

Post by IAmBroom »

daneel_w wrote: post #92
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…

Paper/virtual gold perhaps bought ages ago at a far lower price point, now turned into real, solid gold in parity with today's price point. To me this sounds like the implied gain.

If it were that simple, the gain would be much more. Gold sold at $35/troy ounce then; over $4000 now.

EDIT: Wow, gold prices!

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