Just under a quarter went to publicly identified institutions, stoking speculation about mystery buyers.While most central banks inform the International Monetary Fund when they buy gold to supplement their foreign exchange coffers, others are more secretive. Few have the capacity to undertake the third-quarter buying spree, enough to soften the blow from investors selling bullion as the Federal Reserve hiked interest rates.
While it’s difficult to identify the gold market whales, only some central banks have the capacity for such purchases:The world’s No. 2 economy rarely discloses how much gold its central bank is buying. In 2015, the People’s Bank of China revealed a nearly 600-ton jump in its bullion reserves, shocking market watchers after six years of silence.
And while domestic demand has been strong, with citizens buying some 601 tons through the third quarter, it’s on track to fall short of 2021 levels. Earlier in the year, Covid-19 lockdowns hampered purchases of jewelry and bullion in one of the world’s top consumers. Russia’s reserves of dollars and euros were frozen by sanctions, making it less attractive for the central bank to add to them. Moreover, it doesn’t break out its holdings of gold separately.