By Anne Vila Wetherilt of the Bank's Monetary Instruments and Markets Division and Graham Young of the Bank's Foreign Exchange Division.
This article examines bidding data for the 17 gold auctions held by the Bank of England on behalf of HM Treasury between July 1999 and March 2002. It employs information on auction participation to evaluate the outcomes of the auctions. Consistent with earlier studies it finds that the prices achieved at the auctions overall were in line with prevailing market prices. The article shows that uncertainty about future gold price movements was an important influence on the outcomes of particular auctions, although no single factor can explain why some auctions resulted in greater demand than others.
An analysis of the UK gold auctions 1999-2002