Point Out The “Slump” In Chinese Gold Imports On This Chart

Lately Bloomberg’s reporting group (now without access to client tracking) has been hitting it out of the park when it comes to cognitive schizophrenia-inducing news article headlines.

Last Friday it was the market somehow going up and down [8]at the same time.

Now, Bloomberg has shifted its deductive skills over to analyzing the gold market with the following article headline: “China’s Gold Imports From Hong Kong Slump on Quota Backlog [9]” in which Bloomberg says: “Mainland buyers purchased 126,135 kilograms, including scrap, compared with 223,519 kilograms in March, according to Hong Kong government data yesterday. Net imports, after deducting flows from China into Hong Kong, were 75,891 kilograms, from 130,038 kilograms a month earlier, according to Bloomberg calculations.” Now perhaps what would have made this “slump” more amusing is if BBG had also shown it in context. Which we are happy to do. Because the 126.1 tons of gold imports in April, or the month of the “great gold crash”, was only the second highest ever, and just shy of the all time record high of 223.5 tons imported in March.

 [10]

And the “slump” when observed year over year. Hmmm:

 [11]

Bloomberg was right about one thing however:

“Some qualified banks used up their gold import quota in the first three months and weren’t able to get the paperwork done fast enough to bring in bullion in April,” said Tian Rui, vice president of the precious metals division at INTL FCStone Trading Co. “We might see higher imports in May because demand surged after the rout.”

In other words, look for the unslump in May when a surge in even more buying sends gross imports from Hong Kong to what may be new all time highs.

In the meantime, YTD imports of 500 tons are more than double the 240 tons imported over the same period last year: the same amount as held by the ECB.

China has now imported 1,333 tons of gold since January 2012, or 30% more than its official gold holdings, and is on a run rate to import 1500 tons in 2013 alone.

At least someone is taking advantage of all that levered ETF paper gold selling…

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