Shanghai Gold Exchange Withdrawals In 2015 Rise To 91% Of Annual World Gold Production

The situation is nicely captured in these two simple charts.

The strains on supply are obvious, although it does take quite a bit of work to estimate the shrinkage of the ‘gold float’ of available supply.

Nothing here that could not be remedied by higher prices, if they were simply allowed to rise in response to physical tightness.

Gold is trading with an unusual duality: as a synthetic derivative like those associated with the highly leveraged financial paper markets, and as a commodity susceptible to physical supply and demand.