China’s central bank didn’t buy any gold in August

China’s central bank didn’t report any gold purchases in August, saying that reserves remain at 72.80 million troy ounces. Reported buying halted in May after many months of accumulation.

Reports afterwards suggested the PBOC had grown price sensitive.

• in February the PBOC bought 390,000 ounces
• in March, 160,000
• in April, 60,000

A few things:

1. Buying tapered above $2000
2. I’m not sure I would trust that the PBOC isn’t actually buying. To properly diversify, they need to buy and waiting for $2000 at this point isn’t going to get them there. It would make sense to hide purchases to limit front-running.
3. I take it as a bullish sign that gold has been able to rally from $2000 to $2500 with little support from the PBOC
4. Should they report new buys, I would expect big gains

When China first reported that it halted buys in May, that caused a decent correction in prices but dip buyers were waiting and gold has been remarkably resilient, including in last week’s market turmoil.

See: The very simple case for buying gold

This article was written by Adam Button at www.forexlive.com.