GLD gold vaulting is curious

... buried deep within the latest SPDR Gold Trust (GLD) quarterly filing (10Q), filed on 8 May, we see the following admission from the Trust’s Sponsor, World Gold Trust Services (the US subsidiary of the World Gold Council):

“Since April 15, 2020, gold was held by a subcustodian (the Bank of England), and the greatest amount of gold held on April 27, 2020 was approximately 45.91 tonnes or 4.4% of the Trust’s gold.”

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This means that during April, HSBC used nearly 46 tonnes of gold stored in the Bank of England gold vaults to add to the SPDR Gold Trust, instead of using gold at HSBC’s own commercial London vault.

And why is this important? It’s important because it implies that:

a) there isn’t enough gold in the HSBC vault in London to fulfill SPDR Gold Trust basket creation requests from GLD Authorized Participants (APs).

b) that gold which is ultimately borrowed central bank gold at the Bank of England is being used as a source of GLD gold holdings.

c) that there are physical gold float shortages in the London physical gold market as well as liquidity problems of LBMA market makers in the London paper gold market.
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... SPDR Gold Trust (NYSE: GLD) announced another custodian to hold its gold.

In a press release Thursday, the ETF said that as of Dec. 6, JPMorgan Chase will act as a second custodian and hold its gold in values in London, New York and Zurich. Currently, HSBC holds all of the fund's gold.

"The addition of JPM will change the current, single-custodian and vault operating model, to accommodate the activity of the fund in anticipation of future growth," the ETF said in a statement.

"The addition of JPM as a custodian, alongside HSBC, demonstrates our ambition for further growth of the fund and we are confident this change will be welcomed by investors," added Joe Cavatoni of World Gold Trust Service, a subsidiary of the World Gold Council
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Gold held by GLD will be stored in vaults located in London, New York and Zurich, according to the World Gold Council’s statement. Before gold was only held in HSBC’s London vault.

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Casey Jones said:

Not having any specific facts...I'd say, without doubt.

The "paper gold" market is going to tumble. It's times like these that bring down such pyramid schemes; and we're witnessing the Everything Collapse.

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Goldhedge said:

The 'fine print' in GLD & SLV prospectus' tell you there may not be any gold or silver at the end of the rainbow... and if you come up empty-handed you can't sue either of them.

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nickndfl said:

It sounds like a crypto ponzi scam.

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Conclusion

Revelations about when and how much gold the Bank of England vaults had been holding on behalf of the SPDR Gold Trust (GLD) had been a consistent feature of GLD reporting to the SEC over the last nearly decade. In fact, the SEC demanded that the GLD filings be transparent in showing this.

Then why did the GLD Sponsor suddenly stop providing this information, in Q1 2022 while telling interested parties to look at the www.spdrgoldshares.com website, where the GLD gold bar list file says nothing other than a vault location of ‘HSBC VAULT’? And why were these filing changes made during a quarter in which the GLD CFO had abruptly resigned mid way through the quarter?

Why were the 10-K and 10-Q report formats changed without any SEC authorisation and in a way that masked and suppressed the XRBL tags relating to subcustodians?

And why did the GLD Sponsor not want to be explicit in talking about GLD subcustodians during a period in which the Bank of England saw large outflows of gold and the GLD saw large inflows.

It should be the job of the SEC to ask these questions of the largest gold-backed ETF in the world. Instead it is left up to us.

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