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To: LoneClone who wrote (111424)	3/21/2015 12:27:31 PM
From: LoneClone	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 195027

Sun sets on the UK's historic gold fixing tradition By Jonathan Jones March 19 2015, 1:17pm proactiveinvestors.co.uk The price setting tradition dates back to 1919 when early dealers met in a wooden-panelled room Rothschild’s office in London and raised union jacks to indicate interest. At 3pm today, for the very last time in a tradition spanning almost a century, traders from four banks will hammer out the gold price by actually talking to each other. Traders from Barclays ( LON:BARC), Bank of Nova Scotia, HSBC ( LON:HSBA) and Societe Generale will hold the last ever conference call to fix the price of the precious metal. The tradition, which started just after World War 1, is being changed for an electronic-based approach more fitting to today’s tech-savvy generation. The news follows a year of investigations by German and English regulators into possible price rigging and after Deutsche Bank’s decision to withdraw from the group last year. Nothing has come from those investigations yet, but it highlighted that the way the benchmark is set is outdated and vulnerable to abuse. Indeed, gold is the last of the precious metals to have its price fix system changed, after silver, platinum, and palladium all recently moved into the 21st Century. The London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) Gold Price will replace the London Gold fixing price and ICE Benchmark Administration (IBA) will become the administrator from tomorrow. Ruth Crowell, the LBMA’s chief executive, said: “Following the launches of the LBMA Silver Price and the LBMA Platinum and Palladium Prices in 2014, the launch of the new LBMA Gold Price means that all four precious metal prices will be on electronic auction platforms. “This ownership unifies and coordinates all London precious metal prices under one single entity and ensures continuity of these important benchmarks." Roughly US$18 trillion of gold circulated globally in 2013, according to CPM Group, a New York-based research company, and according to the LBMA, London is the largest centre for gold trading in the world. In future, all four precious metals will be on electronic auction platforms, allowing more firms to participate setting the market price and making the global market more transparent, said the ICE Benchmark Administration. The number of participants will rise initially from four to a six according to LBMA, although more are expected to join in the future. While the LBMA wouldn’t reveal the participants for the new pricing system until tomorrow, it is widely understood that China will participate directly in setting the new price fix. Julian Jessop, chief global economist at Capital Economics said the gold price would not be affected by the move away from tradition. He said: “The price of gold is not going to depend on how the fix is decided. More important is the level of the dollar, the US monetary policy and the changes in the Eurozone.” The price setting tradition dates back to 1919 when early dealers met in a wooden-panelled room in Rothschild’s office in London and raised union jacks to indicate interest. This changed in 2004 and has since been fixed by conference call at 10.30am and 3pm. The firms declare how many bars of gold they want at the current price based on orders from clients and themselves. The price is then altered until buy and sell amounts are within 50 bars, of each other, at which point the fix is set. The gold price was fixed at US$1,164 an ounce on Thursday afternoon.