On December 17, ZeroHedge asked Will Putin's Next Step Be To Sell Gold?
On December 18, ZeroHedge answered his own question wrongly with Russia Has Begun Selling Its Gold, According
To SocGen.
I did not believe that when I saw it yesterday, and I sure don't today after
viewing a few charts from Nick at Gold
Charts "R" Us.
Russia Gold Reserves Up 600,000 Ounces for November
In US dollar terms, Russia's gold reserves are worth about $0.4 billion less.
Russia Gold Reserves in US Dollars
Of course, Russia may have started selling in December, but that's not
precisely what happened either.
Gold Chat Debunks Russia Selling Gold Rumor
Please consider this snip from the December 19 Gold Chat article ZH fail on Soc Gen fail on Russia selling
its gold.
As is common in internet land, people
pick up stuff by others without doing basic drilling down to the source. The
reason you have to do this is because people often misinterpret the source.
Other times the source is wrong.
ZH quote the following from Soc Gen: "It appears possible that the
Central Bank of Russia has started to sell off some of its gold reserves in
December, with some sources reporting that official gold reserves dropped by
$4.3 billion in the first week of the month."
Now that is a very specific figure, $4.3b. It seems that Soc Gen got it from
this Business Insider
republication of a Vesti Finance article which said
"On Thursday, the Central Bank of Russia announced that gold reserves
dropped by $US4.3 billion in just one week, reports Vesti Finance."
However, if we check the [Vesti] source link [using Google Translate]
we get the following:
"Russia's international reserves for the week from November 28 to
December 5, decreased from $ 420.5 billion to $ 416.2 billion, the central
bank said on Thursday. ... For the previous week, from 21 to 28 November,
gold reserves increased from $ 420.4 billion to $ 420.5 billion. On November
14th the size of gold reserves stood at $ 420.6 billion, on November 7 -
$421,400,000,000 rubles."
Now the decrease they are talking about is $4.3b in total reserves but the
headline mistakenly assumes it is all gold. The gold specific figures they
mention show completely different numbers.
Link Sloppiness
This this precisely what happens when you are sloppy with links.
My major criticism is not that ZeroHedge posted something inaccurately, but
that he frequently fails to link to stories.
On many occasions ZeroHedge states things like "Bloomberg says"
and I spend 15 minutes looking and cannot find anywhere Bloomberg said
anything remotely close to what was being attributed.
I realize sometimes there is no link. On such occasions, I will say something
like via email, no link available.
In this case it appears the source of this misrepresentation was Business
Insider who also got the story amazingly wrong.
On December 12, Business Insider reported Russia Is Fighting Its Financial Problems By
Selling The Gold They Have Been Hoarding.
Russia is finally using all that gold
they have been hoarding.
On Thursday, the Central Bank of Russia announced that gold reserves dropped
by $US4.3 billion in just one week, reports Vesti Finance.
Which isn’t all that surprising. ....
In the third quarter alone, Russia added more gold to its reserves than any
other nation, according to the Telegraph. And over the last decade, Russia
has tripled its gold stocks, according to data from the World Gold Council.
Until recently, Russia hasn’t dipped into these enormous reserves.
But now that the ruble is getting pummelled following the decline in oil
prices and sanctions imposed on Russia’s economy by the West, Russia’s
central bank is apparently selling off some of its gold reserves to fight
inflation and the ruble’s decline.
Business Insider Sloppy Reporting
Russia is not selling gold, rather the US$ value of its international
reserves fell by $4.3. Billion. Here is the opening sentence "Russia's
international reserves for the week from November 28 to December 5, decreased
from $ 420.5 billion to $ 416.2 billion, the central bank said on
Thursday."
Gold Chat ended with ...
"Editor's Note: Earlier it was reported that the Central Bank's gold
reserves decreased by $4.3 billion, quoting Vesti Finance. However, in
actuality, it is international reserves assets that have decreased — not
gold. Appropriate changes have been made."
Now how hard was that fact checking Soc Gen and ZH?
ZeroHedge messed up another gold story as well. Please consider the December
17 Gold Chat article Zero Hedge fail on undocumented gold supply
story
This kind of nonsense is precisely why I am meticulous with links. I want
others to carry the same standard.
Bloomberg is also terrible. In fact, mainstream media is horrendous in
general.
Many mainstream media news outlets only link to themselves. And when that
happens there is no way to check the facts. Then nonsense like this happens.
I rest my case.
Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
