China first delegated the management of gold policy to the Peoples Bank by regulations in 1983. This development was central to China’s emergence as a free-market economy following the post-Mao reforms in 1979/82.
For gold and silver it has been a week of two halves: first prices rallied to a peak on Tuesday, then declined to show net losses for the week on Wednesday for silver and Thursday for gold.
This week has seen highly volatile equities (mostly down), bond yields sharply lower, the oil price hard down, and gold side-lined but recovering after a miserable month or two.
In a radio interview recently I was asked a question to which I could not easily give a satisfactory reply: "If the gold market is rigged, why does it matter?"