Hidden beneath the cold streets of London a gold mine hidden.
It extends over more than 27,871 square meters, in the financial sector of the city.
Unawares, who pass through Threadneedle Street passing over a maze made up of eight vaults of the Bank of England, filled with gold bars worth $ 200,000 million.
Why accumulate this amount of gold in this way?
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golden protection
Gold is one of the most traded securities in the world.
Almost no place where no treatment is done with this mineral. Its price is considered one of the most effective thermometers consumer confidence.
When the weather is uncertain the price of gold rises, and so does when there are elections in the United States.
"Gold is a hedge against uncertainty," says Jonathan Spall, a trader with long experience in the market and company director G. Cubed Metal.
London Mine
Inside these chambers no smells or sounds.
His thick concrete walls enclosing gold bars whose weight is around 12kg, and its value is around US $ 500,000 each.
The ingots are different, because they have their own characteristics where they were made. Some appear breads and other have rounded edges to facilitate gripping and transportation.
A fifth gold of the governments of the world are here and elsewhere in London. In total 6,256 tons are worth US $ 248,000 million.
Only in the vaults of the Bank of England there are 5,134 tons, including reserves Treasury UK, and much of the huge volume traded in the city.
Gold 30 countries also located in these chambers, with which shelter about 25 banks.
These airtight rooms open with keys that can measure almost a meter, and uttering a password on a built to a security system for the door to open microphone.
Why in London
Part of this metal is kept in the city to keep close to the market where it is traded.
It is also a demonstration of safety that exists in the vaults of London.
The BoE rooms were built in the 1930s.
During World War II, the United Kingdom ingots were moved to Canada to pursue military confrontation if the Germans conquered British territory.
One of the cameras was used as cafeteria employees of the Bank of England, and later became a bomb shelter.
Since 1945 the vaults have been used only to protect gold.
How to move ingots
The bars come to London by surprisingly traditional ways. Some come by sea, envidas from refineries as PAMP in Switzerland or Rand, outside Johannesburg, South Africa.
They also travel as a regular passenger aircraft. "In the cargo area of commercial aircraft usually find gold, fresh flowers and corpses," says Ruth Crowell, executive director of the Association of London Bullion Market,
However, transport is more difficult to store.
Crowell explains that, because much of the London surface is clay, as gold is so dense substance, can only save some level bullion vaults otherwise would sink.
Other cities do not have this problem. For example, Manhattan have rock floor, so the Fed can store bar from the floor to the ceiling of the vault.
As a result there are restrictions on the limit of storage in the bedrooms of the bank.
On the upper level only bars can be placed up to a height of four pallets.
At lower levels one can be placed up to a height of six pallets.
That is why London need to distribute their gold to a large extent, to prevent it from sinking.
Thus, there are vaults in different secret places of the city. Banks such as JP Morgan and HSBC have security about seven locations under the M25 (motorway surrounding the British capital), including three in the vicinity of Heathrow Airport.
A secret market
Not only the vaults remain in secret places, the gold market is also a mystery.
The sale of this metal is full of traditions and rituals, including the pricing mechanism.
The value is determined in a market dominated by 12 direct participants, led by the UK, USA, Canada, China and France, which meets twice daily market.
When a quote meets supply and demand, the price is fixed.
2015 verbally transactions performed: a moderator quotes going over different participants, each of which, if the price was appropriate-bought or sold if said.
Between 1919 and 2004 the value was determined in person, in the financial sector of London, known as The City.
From 2004 onwards, the operations are performed through a conference call.
It was not until 2015 that changed to a more modern system of electronic auction, managed by the Intercontinental Exchange company, which also owns the platform of the Stock Exchange of New York.
His two rounds of daily negotiations serve as a reference for the rest of the transactions made worldwide, a global market where a total of about US $ 120,000 million sold to date.
mobile assets
In good times gold has little demand. But when hard times come this metal becomes the haven of safety for investors.
It's not like having money stashed under the mattress, but it is a very effective way to protect against market risks.
In August 2015, when the Dow Jones index fell 1,000 points, the average gold price kept growing during each morning session month, rising from US $ 1,000 in December to US $ 1,200 in March.
When international markets plunged at that time, governments and private investors dumped stocks and bought gold as China and Russia still do.
Despite this, only 32% of the gold metal is in the hands of governments, banks and investors.
12% is industrial purposes, such as the manufacture of electronic circuits, and more than half is used to make jewelry, mainly in China and India.
Only in India they are bought between 30 and 40 grams of gold for each of the 10,000,000 weddings performed every year.
Between China and
Gold is fashionable
With the recent volatility in foreign exchange and stock markets, it is not surprising that gold has returned to the outposts in fashion.
To show is the opening of the first showroom of gold in the commercial heart of London, held in January.
Sharps Pixley company is located in that area, and if you want to put a hand there you can buy bullion.
The price for a kilo bars around $ 40,830 and US $ 4,931 for a gram.
And as you can imagine, it seems that these values will continue to rise, so if you go to the store you'd better bring a gold credit card.
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