Flying Gold and Fort Knox Audit: 2 Must-Know Headlines

In the past decade or longer, I’ve never seen gold get this much attention in the mainstream press. It’s amusing – and maybe a little exciting – to see “gold gossip” reach the front page of the financial news.

Story number one involves what I might call “flying gold.” Specifically, U.S. bank JPMorgan Chase and U.K. bank HBSC are reportedly flying massive amounts of gold from London to New York. During the past few months, 8,000 gold bars have been flown from the Bank of England’s vaults to the U.S.

Fortune cited three reasons for this. First, there’s an arbitrage opportunity based on price differences between the London and New York gold prices. Second, JPMorgan and HBSC are apparently doing this to cover losses on short positions.

Additionally, the aforementioned banks fear that President Donald Trump will impose sweeping tariffs on imports from Europe. In other words, since Trump already imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum, they’re worried that gold might be next.

Investors really need to sort out facts from fears here. Currently, there’s no concrete evidence that Trump has any plans to impose tariffs on gold. Nevertheless, if unfounded tariff fears prompt a gold-price rally, this should be perfectly fine with steadfast gold holders.

Courtesy: @RandPaul

The other piece of must-know news is that, after Senator Rand Paul urged Elon Musk to review the gold holdings at Fort Knox, Musk agreed to have the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) audit the famous U.S. gold bullion repository.

Evidently, Fort Knox isn’t currently subject to an annual review/audit of its holdings. So, Musk reportedly wants to “make sure” that the gold is still at the Kentucky-based Fort Knox, which holds roughly 147.3 million ounces of gold.

Of course, physical gold was once the foundation of America’s monetary system. Since 1971, however, the U.S. government took the dollar off of the gold standard – and the dollar has lost much of its purchasing power since then.

It’s amazing, if you really think about it, that there haven’t been annual check-ups of Fort Knox’s bullion inventory. Is it possible that some or even all of the vault’s gold is missing?

Musk seems to believe it’s possible, as he wrote, “This gold is the property of the American people. I sure hope it’s still there!” and, “Who is confirming that gold wasn’t stolen from Fort Knox?” It would be quite scandalous, no doubt, if Fort Knox actually turned out to be empty.

For what it’s worth, Former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin visited Fort Knox back in 2017. As of this writing, Musk hasn’t set a specific time to visit the gold repository.

Courtesy: @TradesByDave

As you might imagine, these headlines have sparked a great deal of chatter and speculation on social media. Some commentators are even considering the possibility that there’s more gold at Fort Knox than anticipated.

Senator Paul acknowledged that some people “may not think” Fort Knox “needs to be audited all the time.” However, he added, “I think the more sunlight, the better, more transparency, the better.”

Paul also presented an important takeaway for investors, stating that the Fort Knox news story “brings attention to the fact that gold still has value and implicitly, not explicitly, but implicitly, gold still gives value to the dollar.” To that contention, I’ll offer my enthusiastic agreement and say that shining a light on gold’s value is undoubtedly a good thing.