Posthaste: Gold bars worth billions are being stashed on commercial flights in rush to get bullion to America
Donald Trump has sparked a gold rush, literally.
Deep under the streets of London in the vaults of the Bank of England a drama is unfolding that would rival fiction.
Hundreds of tonnes of gold are stored in these vaults — the second largest depository of physical gold in the world — but in recent weeks there has been a rush to move the precious metal out of its resting place to the United States.
Trump’s threatened trade war has thrown the precious metal market into turmoil. Traders, worried that tariffs will be imposed on gold, are anxious to get bars into the U.S. before the hammer drops. The fears have also caused the price of physical gold in London to fall and the price of gold futures in New York to rise, creating a rare opportunity for traders to make money off the difference by sending gold from London to New York.
Gold futures in New York have soared 11 per cent this year, hitting an high of US$2,935 an ounce, while the price of physical gold in London has dropped.
With gold worth substantially more in New York than in London, traders are scrambling in what the Wall Street Journal describes as the “biggest trans-Atlantic movement of physical bars in years.”
This has caused some commotion at the Bank of England. Deputy Governor Sir Dave Ramsden told the Telegraph that the bank has been swamped with requests after New York futures prices surged above the London cash price.
The wait to withdraw bullion stored at the bank has risen from a few days to between four and eight weeks, sources told the Financial Times.
“Gold is a physical asset, so there are real logistical constraints and security constraints,” said Ramsden. “You know getting into the bank for me this morning was a bit trickier because there was a lorry
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