Gold, Amazing Gold!

The World Gold Council has provided us with a new report on key gold fundamentals: the market’s size, structure, and essential characteristics.

The total amount of gold above ground is estimated at 219,890 tons

We have selected a few key bullet points to share in this post as well as a link to the entire report:

• A US$31tn market: approximately 220,000t of gold are available above ground – making gold scarce but large enough to enable a wide range of participants, from consumers and investors to central banks.
• A deep and diverse financial market: investable gold, mostly in bullion form, amounts to more than US$15tn – US$9tn in physical bars, coins, gold ETFs and over-the-counter holdings by private investors; US$5tn managed by central banks and other official institutions, and nearly US$1.5tn in derivatives.
• Institutional-grade liquidity: gold traded a record US$361bn per day on average in 2025, equivalent to 3,000t exchanging hands daily– London is a key trading hub with more than US$160bn in over-the-counter volumes per day, mostly in the form of spot contracts, while COMEX leads in derivatives trading, followed by the fast-growing Shanghai Futures Exchange.
• An under-owned strategic investment: gold makes up 3% of global financial assets (excluding central bank reserves); however, it is not uniformly distributed and remains significantly underallocated in many investor portfolios.
• A core foreign reserve asset: central banks and official institutions collectively hold nearly 39,000t of gold, worth US$5tn, equivalent to 26% of global allocated reserves as of 2025. For developed countries, the average share of gold is larger at 30%, and although emerging markets are catching up, they still hold around 15%.

Here is a link to the entire World Gold Council report:
Gold Market Primer: Market size and structure.