Wednesday 8 December 2010

Mirror, mirror, on the wall... who are the 'richest' of them all?

This (link below) is, I think, an interesting set of data from the CIA. It ranks 156 countries of the world by their reserves of foreign currencies and gold.

I note the UK is 25th on this list, right below Turkey, Denmark, Poland and Iran, who also are not in the top 20.

The top 5 may hold some interesting surprises for many, or more accurately I would think interesting absenses.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2188rank.html

If you wanted to break out how much of a country's reserves are gold from the data linked above, rather than foreign currencies, my friend Patrick rather handily provided a link this morning to a germane article on Zero Hedge.
(Thanks, Patrick ;-) )

3 comments:

Dave Narby said...

...How much do you want to bet the gold listed on the CIA's site as held in the US isn't MTM?

And do you happen to know how much of Germany's gold is held in the US? I can't recall (or find it!) at the moment...

DP said...

Hi Dave. Yeah, TBH there is little in the way of detail on the CIA's methodology isn't there? You may or may not have noticed in a comment thread on a post I put on FB earlier today, a Friend of mine on there has suggested he might be able to get some superior numbers for me at the end of the week when he is next in the office, a report from Morgan Stanley. So let's hope that turns up and is a veritable goldmine of more detailed information...

littlepeople mentioned the custodian thing at the Fed again today, as I'm sure you already saw, over at FOFOA's place. That's an interesting angle, but unfortunately I don't have anything more on that for you buddy. :-(

Anyone..?

Dave Narby said...

...How much do you want to bet the gold listed on the CIA's site as held in the US isn't MTM?

And do you happen to know how much of Germany's gold is held in the US? I can't recall (or find it!) at the moment...

More commentary at the Facebook page

Visit the page to find more news, commentary and community... (Like the page and you'll also see comments on links above - jus sayin.)

Twits can also apply here...