Offered a Metric Ton “Deal”?

Have you recently been offered or heard about special deals in gold dust or African, Hong Kong, Singapore gold?

You should know that these “deal opportunities” — measured in metric tons and coming from unknown circles — are commonplace in active markets like the one we are now experiencing.

Over the years we’ve explored a number of them and found that they have all been bogus. In fact, the professional traders on Wall Street dismiss them out of hand.
These deals always arise from someone “who knows a lawyer that has a client who does business with a guy who…, etc., etc.” In fact, We’ve never been able to ascertain who the principals actually are in any of these proposed transactions.

Think about it for a moment…25 metric ton of gold equates to 803,750 troy ounces of gold, which is valued today at approx. $727 million. By comparison, all of the gold vaults serving the New York Commodity Exchange report that they hold a combined total of just under 850,000 troy ounces today. So this proposal involves a gold amount nearly equal to all of that held on the New York Exchange.

Moreover, who do you know that would do a deal valued at 3/4ths of a billion dollars through someone they don’t know, but found through the internet, or through someone else “who knows someone who knows someone”?

Also, gold does not sell at a discount. Why would someone sell it for 3% less than they can get on the open market?

People learn of these proposals and get all excited about getting involved with them. We chased a few of them – for anywhere from 25 metric tons to 500 metric tons — in our early years in this business, but learned from the old salts on Wall Street that they are all just a waste of time.

We don’t mean to burst anyone’s bubble, but thought you ought to have this perspective.
We always consider the source of these proposals. We really don’t take any proposed deal of more than 150,000 troy ounces – which is just under 5 “metric tons” – very seriously anymore.