Maybe closer observers can comment on this more authoritatively, but the gold exchange-traded fund GLD, which the other day undertook something of a publicity campaign with CNBC to show that it has the gold it claims to have, only to put blinders on the CNBC reporter, take him to a mysterious vault, and assist him in displaying a gold bar apparently owned by someone else (http://www.gata.org/node/10368), today seems to be trading at a huge discount to real metal. That is, at 1:30 p.m. ET, gold was quoted at $1,872 but GLD, whose shares are meant to track the price of a tenth of an ounce of gold, was trading at about $183, or nearly $4 or about 2 percent less than ordinarily would be expected. Has the publicity campaign failed? Are questions about the exchange-traded fund and its custodian, the major gold short HSBC, gaining some respect?
