The London bullion market is a wholesale over-the-counter market for the trading of gold, silver, platinum and palladium. Trading is conducted amongst members of the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA), tightly overseen by the Bank of England. Most of the members are major international banks or bullion dealers and refiners.
The physical characteristics of gold and silver bars used in settlement in market is described by the Good Delivery specification which is a set of rules issued by the LBMA. It also puts forth requirements for listing on the LBMA Good Delivery List of approved refineries.
Gold trading
Internationally, gold is traded via over-the-counter (OTC) transactions, with trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) and Tokyo Commodity Exchange (TOCOM).
Twice daily, at 10:30 AM and 3:00 PM (local time). the LBMA publishes the gold price in US dollars. These forward contracts are known as gold futures contracts. Spot gold is traded for settlement two business days following the trade date, with a business day defined as a day when both the New York and London markets are open for business.
Unlike many commodity markets, the forward market for gold is driven by spot prices and interest rate differentials, similar to foreign exchange markets, rather than underlying supply and demand dynamics. This is because gold, like currencies, is borrowed and lent by central banks in the interbank market. Interest rates for gold tend to be lower than US domestic interest rates. This encourages gold borrowings so that central banks can earn interest on large gold holdings. Except in special circumstances the gold market tends to be in positive contango, i.e. the forward price of gold is higher than the spot price. Historically this has made it an attractive market for forward sales by gold producers and contributed to an active and relatively liquid derivatives market.
Market size
The bulk of global trading in gold and silver is conducted on the over-the-counter (OTC) market. London is by far the largest global centre for OTC transactions followed by New York, Zurich, and Tokyo. Exchange-based trading has grown in recent years with Comex in New York and Tocom in Tokyo generating most of the activity. Gold is also traded in forms of securities, such as exchange-traded funds (ETFs), on the London, New York, Johannesburg, and Australian stock exchanges.
Although the physical market for gold and silver is distributed globally, most wholesale OTC trades are cleared through London. The average daily volume of gold and silver cleared at the LBMA auctions in May 2019 was 18.6 million troy ounces (2965 transfers, worth $23.9 billion) and 211.8 million troy ounces (978 transfers, worth $3.1 billion) respectively.
The Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee has claimed that clearing data substantially understates the true amount of gold traded due to the netting of trades in the calculation of Clearing Statistics.
Account types
Allocated accounts
Allocated accounts are accounts held by dealers in clients' names on which are maintained balances of uniquely identifiable bars, plates or ingots of metal 'allocated' to a specific customer and segregated from other metal held in the vault. The client has full title to this metal with the dealer holding it on the client's behalf as custodian. To avoid any doubt, metal in an allocated account does not form part of a precious metal dealer's assets.
Unallocated accounts
Unallocated accounts represent the most popular way of trading, settling and holding gold, silver, platinum and palladium. Transactions may be settled by credits or debits to the account while the balance represents the indebtedness between the two parties. Credit balances on the account do not entitle the creditor to specific bars of gold or silver or plates or ingots of platinum or palladium but are backed by the general stock of the precious metal dealer with whom the account is held. The client in this scenario is an unsecured creditor.