Tuesday, November 24, 2009

THE VANISHING OF THE GOLD BASIS

The gold basis is defined as the difference between the nearby futures price and
the cash price of gold in the same location. A positive basis is called contango; a
negative one, backwardation. Since there were no organized futures markets in
gold prior to 1971, the history of gold basis is confined to the last 35 or so years.
Gold futures trading started on the Winnipeg Commodity Exchange in
Canada in 1971 at a time when ownership and trading of gold was still illegal in
the United States. Upon becoming legal the bulk of gold futures trading moved
to New York and Chicago. (more)

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