David Fuller's view My thanks to several subscribers who have forwarded this article from Sprott Asset Management, on the basis that it is 'interesting'.

I mean no disrespect to the authors, not least as I am unable to prove or disprove their story. However, it has made the rounds several times over the last decade, in various forms, all claiming that the numbers do not add up, implying that central banks have either leased a large quantity of their gold which they cannot now recover, or that bullion funds never bought gold with their customers' money to begin with.

You know that I am bullish of gold, and long, but I am not a conspiracy theorist (Sprott prefers to call it "stupidity" on the part of central banks). I think this story is a Gold Bug's wet dream. Yes, scams do occasionally occur and if I am wrong it will not matter to me because gold will go up further and faster than I expect, and I would hope to ride the trend most of the way. Meanwhile, I would be concerned if lots of people were buying gold because of this unsubstantiated story because I associate delusional bull talk with market tops.