When ordinary citizens feel that the financial crisis is coming, they start buying save haven currencies. The central banks do the same, but they demonstrate their preference for gold. Russia’s, Kazakhstan’s, and Mexico’s regulators are the ones that boosted their gold reserves considerably. Tajikistan, Serbia, Greece, and Ecuador are the runner-ups. Despite the huge demand, the global gold reserves keep contracting for the second month in a row and reached 1.022 billion troy ounces.
In early summer, the gold price rose at the fastest pace in four months due to the tough political situation developing in Ukraine, Israel, and Iraq. Bearing in mind the general unrest, investors opt for gold as the most popular safe haven asset. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission released a report showing that hedge funds almost doubled its purchases of gold. In June, Russia was ranked sixth in terms of gold reserves (35.197 million troy ounces). In total, Russian gold reserves fell by $39 billion to $472 billion.
The share of Russia’s foreign reserves in gold is about 9.3%. In the meantime, Turkey stepped up its gold reserves to 16.491 million ounces gaining the 13th position in the world. Germany, on the contrary, reduced the amount in May and June to 108.806 million and 108.805 million ounces respectively. Germany has the second largest reserves worldwide. Despite the fact that global central banks go on growing their gold reserves, investors like this precious metal less and less.
