Ask AI · Does returning gold from Germany indicate a shift in reserve security?

National team buying gold at a low

The article two days ago mentioned Turkey, Russia, who are desperately selling off gold in emergencies. When someone is frantically selling, someone must be buying. So, who is buying?

One of them is the national team.

China’s central bank data shows that China’s gold reserves at the end of March were 74.38 million ounces, up from 74.22 million ounces at the end of February, marking the 17th consecutive month of gold accumulation.

Let’s look at the increase over the past 12 months:
April 2025: 2.18 tons
May 2025: 1.86 tons
June 2025: 2.18 tons
July 2025: 1.86 tons
August 2025: 1.86 tons
September 2025: 1.24 tons
October 2025: 0.93 tons
November 2025: 0.93 tons
December 2025: 0.93 tons
January 2026: 1.24 tons
February 2026: 0.93 tons
March 2026: 4.98 tons

We can see that when some institutions panicked and sold off in March, gold prices dropped close to below 4100, while the national team directly increased holdings to 160k ounces(4.98 tons), nearly five times the average monthly increase before.

The bottom-fishing level is quite comparable.

Additionally, France’s national team executed a top-tier operation with even greater skill:

At the beginning of the year, when gold prices hit a historic high in New York, they sold 129 tons of old gold bars stored at the Federal Reserve at high prices, then bought back an equivalent amount of new gold bars at low prices in Europe and shipped them back to Paris. One round trip, no gold was lost, and they made an extra €12.8 billion, turning losses into profits.

Currently, all newly purchased gold by the French central bank is stored in Paris.

Germany is also preparing to do the same. Germany, another major gold reserve country, has nearly 40% of its gold stored at the Federal Reserve. Seeing France’s operation, Germany has been calling for their gold to be brought back, as storing it in the U.S. is simply unsafe.

Writing here, I recall the history of 1965: when the dollar was linked to gold, the U.S. was fighting the Vietnam War while printing money wildly. French President Charles de Gaulle couldn’t stand it and directly sailed a warship to New York, exchanging his dollar bills for real gold and silver, ship after ship bringing it home. The U.S. was overwhelmed and finally, in 1971, Nixon unilaterally decoupled the dollar from gold, ending the Bretton Woods system.