Yeah, more gold than China

The latest development in the reporting on the enormous (and still rapidly growing) gold holdings of the streetTRACKS Gold Shares ETF (NYSE:GLD) comes from John Spence at MarketWatch with this story.

Surging gold prices and ravenous investor demand have unleashed massive inflows at ETFs such as StreetTracks, whose booming holdings now surpass those owned by China and other sovereign nations. The stunning rally in precious metals appears to know no boundaries as gold futures continued an inexorable rise, with prices touching the vaunted mark of $900 an ounce on Friday for the first time.
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Indeed, the total amount of gold held in the StreetTracks trust stood this week at 642 metric tons, according to the fund. (One metric ton is equivalent to 1,000 kilograms or about 2,205 pounds.) That's more than the gold reserves held by many national governments, including China, Russia, the European Central Bank and the Netherlands, according to data compiled by the World Gold Council, the trade group that sponsors StreetTracks Gold Shares.

To put that figure into perspective, about 3,400 metric tons of gold is sold each year for commercial production, mostly jewelry, and industrial uses.

As opposed to last week's Wall Street Journal story, at least The Netherlands (is the "The" really necessary) got a mention.

And, by the way, it's much more fun to cross off the countries each time they fall down a position in the rankings, something that has been done here for some time now. The gold ETF has added 13 tonnes in just the last few weeks but it won't be updated here at least until it gets a little closer to Japan.

Full Disclosure: Long GLD at time of writing.

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