I Am a Nobleman in England

London has replaced Amsterdam as the world's largest gold market since Britain defeated the Dutch "sea coachmen" in the 17th century.

Even though the British economy was gradually overtaken by the United States more than 200 years later, London still stubbornly maintained the crown of the world's largest gold market for more than a century, guarding the last twilight of the "Empire on which the sun never sets".

However, this afterglow may also have faded now, and the crown of the largest gold market will be taken away by New York.

In the London gold market, its gold transactions are mainly completed through market makers headed by the five major gold merchants. Different from the exchange model represented by the US gold market, gold trading on the London Exchange is mainly through centralized matching.

In the market maker mode, each market maker quotes the buying price and selling price according to its own strength and operating conditions. The transaction is more flexible, and the purity, weight, and delivery location of gold can be selected by customers.

Since the London gold market implements over-the-counter transactions, the specific transaction volume has not been accurately counted, and can only be roughly estimated through monthly liquidation data.

The trading volume of the London gold trading market has always been claimed to be higher than the clearing data, and it has advertised itself as the world's largest gold market.

However, during the financial crisis, as the requirements for the transparency of the London gold market became higher and higher, and more data outlined the true size of the market, traders found that the spot gold market was far less than imagined.

According to the current gold price, there are more than 30 million ounces of gold traded in London every day, which is nearly 940 tons.

In view of the fact that the total amount of gold produced by mines in the world is about 3,000 tons per year, it means that the average daily gold trading volume in London is close to one-third of the annual production.

Although this figure is not low, in contrast, the daily trading volume of gold futures in New York exceeds half of the global annual output, which is equivalent to at least 450 tons more trading volume per day than London.

Of course, even if it is overtaken by New York, the importance of the London gold market has not diminished.

After all, according to the data, 63% of gold transactions in the London market are used for spot transactions, 31% are used for swap or forward transactions, and the remaining 6% are used for options and leasing business . On the mobile phone, remember "→m.\\B\\iq\\u\\g\\\\o\\m" in one second to provide you with wonderful \\novel reading.

This means that the London gold market still plays a pivotal role in the trading of physical gold.

In contrast,

Although the New York market is larger, it is dominated by derivatives transactions, and physical delivery is insignificant.

From the perspective of the impact on physical gold, the London gold market may not be as large as previously expected, but it is as important as it has always been thought.

At present, the four major pricing gold banks in the London gold market are Rothschild International Investment Bank, Scotiabank, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, and Credit Suisse First Boston Bank withdrew from the London gold market in 2004. .

London gold, in short, is the narrow name for the 99.5-purity 400-ounce gold bars stored in the underground vault of the City of London. The broad sense of London gold refers to all spot gold traded.

35 million pounds, according to the current exchange rate, one pound is exchanged for 1.633 U.S. dollars, 57.155 million U.S. dollars. According to the current price of gold at 986 U.S. dollars an ounce, a total of 57,900 ounces can be purchased, and a total of 57.09 million U.S. dollars was spent.

Watching the account change from 35 million pounds to 60,000 U.S. dollars, Arthur's mood really has an indescribable feeling.

In London gold trading, investors do not need to extract physical gold, which saves the steps of gold transportation, storage, inspection, identification, etc. The difference between the buying price and selling price is smaller than the difference between buying and selling of real gold. In addition, some companies do not charge customers any commissions and handling fees, further reducing investors' investment costs.

It took less than ten minutes for the real pound to be exchanged for a pile of vouchers in the document bag in his hand. Apart from feeling that the document bag in his hand was a bit light, Arthur felt a little heavy in his heart. TV mobile terminal/

Without seeing the real gold, Arthur always felt empty in his heart, so he really wanted to go to the bank's underground vault to have a look. However, the bank naturally couldn't agree to this kind of request. They didn't dare to offend their big customers, so they had to ask the bank's treasury manager to explain to Arthur in person.

"Only a small part of the gold is stored here. Our bank's gold reserve is the third largest gold reserve warehouse in the world besides the Bank of England and Chase. The gold warehouse has always been private, and the confidentiality work has been done very well. So far no one knows where it is, hehe, the outside world even doubts whether it exists.

Your gold is there, very safe, you can rest assured. . . . . . "

The treasury manager of the bank put a black suitcase on the table with a smile on his face while explaining to Arthur.

Under Arthur's curious eyes, the other party opened the black leather case, which contained a document bag, two blue velvet bags with the bank's logo, and two white gloves.

The bank manager, who kept smiling all the time, opened the file bag first, then handed a stack of photos inside to Arthur respectfully, and explained: "This is a photo of our underground vault. You can see that there are 80 photos on each wooden shelf. A piece of gold brick, each 12.5 kilograms, that is to say, each wooden shelf is a ton of gold.

This photo is Melinstein Lee, a spokesman for the World Gold Council. . . "

Arthur looked at the photos of the vaults in his hand. The entire underground vault looked like an underground parking lot. The cuboid shelves were built of wooden boards and filled with yellow gold bricks. They were neatly stacked and the scale was shocking. .

"According to the current price, gold worth 18 billion U.S. dollars is stored here. I believe these records can prove that our bank's gold warehouse in the UK really exists..." The bank vault manager also laughed at himself humorously.

Arthur could only shake his head and laugh in agreement, then put down the photo and said, "I trust your bank, otherwise I wouldn't choose your bank to buy physical gold."

"Thank you for your trust." The bank manager bowed slightly with a professional smile, and then handed Arthur a pair of white gloves with both hands, and he picked up a pair and put it on himself.

With some difficulty, he picked up a velvet bag from the suitcase, untied the knot, and took out a gold brick contained in it. Arthur looked at the gold brick held in both hands, his eyes suddenly lit up, and pressed down. A little excitement in my heart.

It has to be said that gold is really a good thing. Even Arthur, who is worth tens of millions, still has the urge to hold it in his hand and take a good look at it when he sees the real gold brick.

The bank treasury manager held the gold brick in both hands and handed it to Arthur with fiery eyes, and said with a smile: "This kind of gold brick is printed with a serial number and the emblem of the processor. The word hallmark in English originally meant gold. This emblem on the brick.

Through the number of each gold brick, the gold brick can be registered in the name of the owner. This is called allocated. If this kind of gold brick is to be traded, you must go to the basement to find that numbered gold brick for delivery. Very inconvenient. . . "

While talking, the other party opened another velvet bag, took out another gold brick from it, and introduced it to Arthur: "That's why there are this kind of gold bricks that can be traded in the market. Most of them are not Registered gold bricks, this kind of gold bricks do not need to be marked, and can be delivered if the number of pieces is correct."

Arthur compared the difference between the two gold bricks in his hand, and at the same time, his heart beat a little faster. There was no way, gold is such a metal that people are so obsessed.

Gold is "the sun that can be touched." In Latin, gold is "the evening that shines." No matter who you are, you like to use gold to decorate yourself and life. No one in the world will be indifferent to gold, not obsessed with it, and not advocating it.

Gold has become a means for people to show their dignity and show off their wealth. Rich and powerful people made gold into daily necessities, and some even made gold into weapons.

Looking at the two gold bricks in his hand, Arthur became entangled. He had the urge to exchange a few gold bricks and take them home to play with. However, his reason quickly suppressed this unreliable impulse.

After all, the storage, inspection, identification, etc. of gold are really troublesome, especially in storage, and it is definitely a big trouble to keep it at home. Instead of being careful all day long and worrying about safety issues, keeping it in the bank is undoubtedly the most correct choice.

Gathering his mind, Arthur calmly handed back the two gold bricks in his hand to the bank treasury manager and said, "Thank you."