📊 FOREIGN CENTRAL BANK RESERVES : GOLD vs US TREASURIES

For the first time since 1996, foreign central banks hold a greater share of Gold in their reserves than US Treasuries.

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🚨 ALERT:: EIA Publications May Shut Down

"EIA is continuing normal publication schedules and data collection until further notice."

📢 CME Group #Metals Complex Reaches All-Time Daily Volume Record

:: 2,148,990 contracts

🚨 CME Performance Bond Requirements

Metals Margin -

Effective Friday October 10, 2025

GC :: INCREASE FROM $17K TO $18K

SI :: INCREASE FROM $16K TO $17.5K

https://www.cmegroup.com/notices/clearing/2025/10/25-320.html?source=rss

✅ ECB’s QT Has Knocked €3.28 trillion off its Balance Sheet (far More than the Fed’s QT) and Accelerated QT Further this Year

By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.

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Gold mark-to-market quarterly adjustment: +€158 billion for Q3 on gold's price spike, largest ever write-up.

The ECB has now shed €3.28 trillion ($3.81 trillion) of its QE assets, per its balance sheet today – far more, about $1.5 trillion more, than the Fed's QT of $2.38 trillion – and far more than anyone thought a central bank could ever shed when QT started. And the ECB's QT continues at the pace that was accelerated for 2025.

The ECB had conducted QE via two methods: Large amounts of loans to the banks for them to plow into whatever; and large amounts of bond purchases, mostly government bonds, but also corporate bonds, mortgage bonds, and asset-backed securities. Between 2015, when its serious QE started, and peak-balance sheet in mid-2022, the ECB's QE assets (these loans and bonds) had exploded by a factor of nearly 10, from €690 billion in 2015 to €7.16 trillion in mid-2022.

Then, in 2022 as inflation was raging, it flipped to QT, then accelerated QT in phases, accelerating it further for 2025, and now has shed €3.28 trillion, bringing its QE assets down to €3.89 trillion, from €7.16 trillion in June 2022. 

In other words, it has shed:

• 51% of the entire pile of QE assets added since QE started in 2015.
• 84% of the pile of QE assets added during the pandemic.

The two QE assets: Loans and bonds.

Loans to banks: nearly gone, -99%, to less than €20 billion, the lowest in the ECB's data going back to 1999. The ECB started changing the terms of the loans in 2022, thereby making them less attractive, and the banks paid them back (blue in the chart below).

Bonds: -$37 billion in September, to €3.87 trillion.

Bonds come off the balance sheet as they mature. During the early phases of QT, the bond roll-off was limited by preset "caps." The amount that matured above the caps was replaced with new purchases. But the last cap was removed effective at the start of this year. In some months, more bonds mature, in other months fewer bonds mature, but whatever matures comes off the balance sheet, and nothing is replaced.

In September, $37 billion in bonds matured and came off the balance sheet. On average, €47 billion a month matured and came off the balance sheet in 2025. Bond holdings have declined by 22% from the peak, to €3.87 trillion (red in the chart below).

The ECB's total assets.

The ECB has other assets on its balance sheet, including over $1.1 trillion of gold valued at market value.

Gold holdings mark-to-market: +€156 billion in Q3, or +16%, to €1.128 trillion.

The ECB values its holdings of "gold and gold receivables" at market prices in euros. Every quarter, it adjusts its holdings to market value in euro terms. The balance sheet released today includes the quarterly mark-to-market adjustment of gold, and the price of gold spiked in Q3!

The ECB marked up its gold holdings by €156 billion on this balance sheet, to €1.128 trillion, the biggest mark-to-market increase ever, bigger even than in Q1. In Q2, the ECB had marked down its gold holdings.

Mark-to-market adjustments of its gold holdings are paper adjustments at the end of the quarter and do not involve purchases or sales of gold, or money printing, or QE or QT or whatever.

From mid-2019 through Q3 2025, the ECB wrote up its gold holdings by €726 billion (+180%), reflecting the surge of the price of gold in euros.

Total assets: This €156 billion quarterly mark-to-market adjustment of gold on the current balance sheet caused total assets to jump by €138 billion this week, to €6.21 trillion. That little hook at the end:

And in case you missed it: The ECB is way ahead of the Fed, which has shed $2.38 trillion under its QT program. But even the big straggler, Bank of Japan has accelerated its QT this year.

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US Crude Oil Production : Update

US crude oil production surged to a record 13.6 million barrels per day in July.

Over the last 5 years, US oil production has risen +4 million barrels per day, or +40%.

Since 2008, production has more than TRIPLED.

Including other liquids, total US petroleum output reached a record 21.2 million barrels per day.

Meanwhile, global oil markets are on track for a record surplus next year due to slowing demand growth and rising supplies.

The US is drilling like never before.

Gold : Central Bank Stock Piling

GLOBAL CENTRAL BANKS ADDED 15 TONNES OF GOLD TO THEIR RESERVES IN AUGUST They continue to stockpile.

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Bitcoin Update

Copper futures surge over 4% to $4.77/lbs

Copper futures surged over 4% to $4.77 per pound, the highest in two months, after Freeport-McMoRan declared force majeure on supplies from its Grasberg mine in Indonesia, the world's second-largest copper source. 

The move follows a severe accident on September 8, which killed two workers and left five missing amid a mud flow of roughly 800,000 metric tons. 

Freeport cut its quarterly copper and gold sales guidance by 4% and 6%, respectively. 

The disruption highlights the copper market's sensitivity to supply shocks, compounded by Hudbay Minerals halting operations at its Peruvian Constancia mine due to protests. 

Grasberg alone accounts for 3.2% of global mined copper, nearly 30% of Freeport's copper output, and 70% of its gold production, showing the scale of the impact. 

Prolonged disruptions could further boost prices and strain the smelting industry.

US New Home Sales Soar

Sales of new single-family homes in the United States jumped by 20.5% from the previous month to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 800K units in August 2025, the highest level since January 2022, following an upwardly revised 664K in July and beating forecasts of 650K. 

Discounting and promotional offers were probably the main forces behind the surge. 

Sales soared in the Northeast (72.2% to 31K), the South (24.7% to 530K), the Midwest (12.7% to 89K) and the West (5.6% to 150K). 

Meanwhile, the number of unsold homes on the market fell 1.4% to 490K, equivalating to 7.4 months of inventory at the latest sales pace. 

The median sales price was $413,500, 4.7% higher than in the previous month. 

source: U.S. Census Bureau

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