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Probably not market-moving, but a point of.......>

UK
UK: Probably not market-moving, but a point of interest for those wacky UK trade
balance figures that showed an extraordinary level of UK exports (but distorted
by gold trade) earlier this week - this from Sky's Ed Conway:
- "As far as I can divine here's the answer. A US bank with London gold vaults
shifted some of that gold from being "unallocated" to being "allocated".
Effectively it moved it on its balance sheet. The gold stayed in the same vault
but technically it shifted from UK ownership to US.
- In other words, a couple of clicks in a bank's spreadsheet caused the biggest
fluctuation in Britain's trade figures in modern history. At least that's the
most plausible explanation. Tho it raises further questions: why? Is the bank in
trouble? And who owns the gold anyway?
- Short answer: we may never know. No other sector is as cloak and dagger as
gold. What we do know is that crazy stuff is happening beneath Britain's
national statistics and it's time we started paying attention to it."
Full thread here: https://twitter.com/EdConwaySky/status/1228279347238313985

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