The Gold Held by the FED May Not be There

I like that metaphor. Eric Sprott did an analysis that suggested that a fair amount of the gold putatively held by the Federal Reserve may not actually be in its vaults. Footnotes in the Fed's records indicate possession of about 8,000 tons but also suggest that some of that might have been loaned out. We don't know how much, but supply-and-demand numbers suggest it could be a very significant amount. I believe that the gold exchange-trade funds [ETFs] were raided because gold could not be found where it was supposedly held, so it was taken from the ETFs instead.

- Charles Oliver of Sprott Assets via Seeking Alpha