- Much attention has been focused on U.S. gold reserves in recent days, especially the stockpile in Fort Knox. While Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent dismissed the possibility of revaluing the stash of gold to market levels, an analyst said that would be bullish for prices, which have already been on a tear.
Revaluing U.S. gold reserves to match current market conditions would add more momentum to prices as it would signal the precious metal isn't an anachronistic asset, according to a Wall Street analyst.
In an interview on Bloomberg TV on Friday, Francisco Blanch, head of commodities and derivatives research at Bank of America Securities, acknowledged that repricing the gold would be an accounting exercise but still result in an increase in the Federal Reserve's balance sheet.
"I think it would probably be bullish for the gold market because it would show that gold is no longer this barbarous relic that has been sitting in central banks and been dismissed a little bit, but now even the biggest central bank of them all is taking a renewed interest in gold," he said.
The Fed doesn't own gold anymore after transferring it to the Treasury Department under the Gold Reserve Act of 1934. In exchange, the Fed received gold certificates.
The U.S. owns 261.6 million troy ounces of gold, valued at a 1970s-era rate of $42.22 an ounce, producing a book value of $11 billion. At gold’s current spot price of about $2,950 per ounce, however, the value would top $750 billion.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent set off speculation earlier this month that a revaluation was possible when he said, "We’re going to monetize the asset side of the U.S. balance sheet for the American people." He later clarified that he didn't mean repricing gold reserves.
Still, America's stockpile of gold continues to come under extra scrutiny from elsewhere. On Saturday, President Donald Trump reiterated his intention to visit Fort Knox with Elon Musk to ensure that its gold is still being held there.
For his part, Bessent told Bloomberg on Thursday that he had no plans to visit Fort Knox, adding that "all the gold is there."
Gold has been on a tear in recent years and has doubled in price since the COVID pandemic. More recently, it has surged since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, triggering Western sanctions that froze Russia's dollar- and euro-denominated assets.
That fueled concerns among other countries that their dollar holdings may also be vulnerable one day, resulting in a shift toward gold. Now central banks are among the biggest buyers of gold. Meanwhile, investors and consumers have also been piling into gold as a safe-haven asset as fears about the economy mount.
BofA's Blanch pointed out that repricing gold would not contribute to the Trump administration's top priorities of weakening the dollar, lowering energy prices to bring inflation down, and inducing Fed rate cuts.
But Secretary of State Marco Rubio signaled last week the potential for U.S.-Russian economic cooperation, which Blanch thinks would likely involve Russian energy exports that could lower prices.
"There’s potentially an angle here, which is if Russia eventually gets sanctions relief, does that mean that we have a new stream of petrodollars flowing into the market?" he added. "And are those petrodollars potentially a source of funding for the U.S. government down the line as we seek this constant need to fill that $2 trillion budget deficit in Washington?"
