LBMA Data: Beyond The Smoke And Mirrors

``... in the clearing statistics, the category occupied by "physical transfers and shipments of gold by the six clearing members", patently cannot be in the order more than 1% of the trading statistics and by inference, cannot be more than 1% of the clearing statistics.  The LBMA clearing statistics therefore essentially represent huge daily trading through unallocated accounts, most of which is classified as spot delivery, but which is backed by very small physical metal foundations. The clearing statistics while interesting, need to be made more transparent and granular beyond the headline data. Otherwise they tend to obscure rather than illuminate.''