Search
Search the whole magazine.
Full-text search across every article — headlines, decks, body copy, pull quotes, captions and FAQs — plus our editorial and legal policies.
26 results for “loco London”
Markets · 2 August 2026
Who Actually Sets the Gold Price
There is no single gold price. There is a London settlement number, a New York futures curve, a Shanghai premium and a jeweller's counter in Dubai — and the distance between them is where the market lives. · The headline gold price…
Ingrid Sørensen · 16 min read
Markets · 20 June 2026
Bring It Home: Central Banks and the Great Gold Repatriation
…and during the Cold War it was safer outside the likely path of an invasion. · What does 'loco London' mean? It designates gold held in accredited London vaults, the default location for wholesale settlement. A loco London price is a price for metal deliverable there, which is wh…
Ingrid Sørensen · 14 min read
Markets · 17 August 2026
Paper Gold: What You Own When You Do Not Own Bars
…itutions typically hold both. · What is the LPMCL and how does it affect my gold account? London Precious Metals Clearing Limited (LPMCL) is the clearing hub for the London bullion market. Most 'gold' held in bank accounts is an unallocated balance cleared through this system. It…
Ingrid Sørensen · 23 min read
Industry · 2 July 2026
Nine Nines: Inside a Modern Gold Refinery
…ar of manufacture. · That set of marks is what allows a bar to move between vaults in the loco London system without being re-assayed at every transfer. Accreditation is not permanent; refiners submit to periodic proficiency testing and can be suspended. The list of accredited re…
Tomas Herrera · 19 min read
Markets · 8 August 2026
Moving Bullion: The Logistics Nobody Prices
…ehouses and insurance clauses. It rarely makes news, and it is the reason a spot price in London can diverge from a bar in New York. · Allocated custody means specific numbered bars belong to you; unallocated means you are a creditor of the bank, and the difference only becomes v…
Ingrid Sørensen · 15 min read
Markets · 11 September 2026
The Last Audit: What We Actually Know About the World's Official Gold
…mpartments remain intact. · Why do countries store gold abroad? Practicality and history. London and New York are the two dealing centres for official gold, so metal held there can be sold, swapped or settled against without being shipped. Much foreign-held gold is a legacy of th…
Ingrid Sørensen · 22 min read
Industry · 20 August 2026
The Refiner's Ledger
…rown sharply in market share over the past decade. · Good Delivery status, awarded by the London Bullion Market Association, is a reputational credential as much as a technical one, and losing it can end a refinery's ability to sell into the wholesale market overnight. · Responsi…
Tomas Herrera · 17 min read
Markets · 18 August 2026
The Vault Beneath the City
…tral banks, monetary authorities and international institutions that pay to store gold in London because of its deep, liquid bullion market. The UK's own reserves, managed through the Treasury's Exchange Equalisation Account, form a much smaller share of the total and were themse…
Ingrid Sørensen · 22 min read
Craft · 3 August 2026
The Wedding-Season Bid: How Jewellery Demand Sets the Floor
…stalls on rallies, the inverse of investment flows. · Local premiums and discounts to the London price are the clearest real-time read on Asian physical appetite. · Import duty and hallmarking rules move demand between the formal and informal trade more than they move total consu…
Yusuf Demir · 15 min read
Science · 9 August 2026
The Metallurgy of Karat
…and marking since a medieval statute of 1300, administered today by four assay offices — London, Birmingham, Sheffield and Edinburgh — each stamping its own town mark alongside the fineness figure, the sponsor's mark and a date letter. France, Switzerland and much of the Gulf ru…
Tomas Herrera · 17 min read
History · 14 July 2026
The Gold Standard: How a Soft Yellow Metal Became Money
…andard but the metal, and a set of habits built around it. Gold is priced continuously in London and traded around the clock. It is held by states that trust each other imperfectly, by households in South Asia who have watched local currencies fail within living memory, and by fu…
Marguerite Adler · 14 min read
Markets · 8 September 2026
The Real-Rate Trade: Why Gold Moves When Bond Yields Do
…he long-term unsustainability of the fiscal system itself. A senior macro strategist at a London bullion bank · The years the model worked · From roughly 2005 the fit was remarkable. Real yields ground lower through the financial crisis and the quantitative-easing years, and gold…
Ingrid Sørensen · 25 min read
Markets · 6 August 2026
Why Central Banks Started Buying Gold Again
…ber of central banks that have chosen to repatriate their gold from traditional hubs like London and New York. While the logistical costs of domestic storage are higher, the reduction in jurisdictional risk is deemed a worthwhile trade-off by many treasuries. The shift represents…
Ingrid Sørensen · 14 min read
Craft · 5 June 2026
The Alchemy of Craft: What Goldsmiths Know That Machines Don't
…ologises for a fingerprint left in the polish two steps before the end. Workshop manager, London jewellery quarter · The economics of a bespoke commission · Clients frequently assume the price of a commissioned piece tracks the gold price closely, and are surprised to learn how s…
Yusuf Demir · 16 min read
Industry · 6 August 2026
The Scrap Trade
…gap between them is where the scrap trade earns its living. A refiner quotes against the London benchmark and deducts for assay, refining, transport and its own margin. A wholesale buyer deducts again. A high-street shop deducts once more, and often quotes on an assumed karat ra…
Ingrid Sørensen · 16 min read
Industry · 7 August 2026
After the Cyanide
Every ounce of mined gold leaves behind roughly a tonne of processed rock and the water that carried it. What happens to that material after the last shift is the part of the industry with the longest…
Tomas Herrera · 16 min read
Mining · 5 August 2026
Grade, Cut-off and the Arithmetic of an Open Pit
A gold mine is not a hole with gold in it. It is a spreadsheet with a hole attached — and the single number that decides which rock is ore and which rock is waste moves every time the price does. · Mo…
Amara Okonjo · 20 min read
Craft · 22 July 2026
Hallmarks and Assay: How Anyone Proves Gold Is Gold
A hallmark is one of the oldest consumer protection technologies in continuous use. It is also, on close inspection, a small masterpiece of institutional design — and it is being quietly eroded. · A h…
Yusuf Demir · 15 min read
Industry · 7 August 2026
How Fake Gold Is Detected
Counterfeiting gold is not about making something that looks right. It is about defeating a specific test, and the industry's defences are an escalating conversation between forgers and instruments. ·…
Tomas Herrera · 16 min read
Mining · 19 August 2026
Nine Grams a Tonne
What does it actually cost to pull an ounce of gold out of the ground? The honest answer runs through grade decline, energy and water bills, permitting delays and the closure liabilities nobody prices…
Amara Okonjo · 18 min read
Industry · 4 August 2026
The Gold Inside Your Phone
Industrial demand is the quietest third of the gold market: a few tenths of a gram per handset, multiplied by billions of devices, chosen not for prestige but because nothing else conducts as reliably…
Tomas Herrera · 18 min read
History · 9 August 2026
The Hoard Problem: What Buried Gold Actually Tells Us
A field of gold torcs and coins is a spectacular find and a treacherous document. The people who buried it were not writing to us, and the reasons they had for putting it in the ground are exactly wha…
Marguerite Adler · 16 min read
Science · 8 August 2026
The Metal That Went Medical
Divide gold finely enough and it stops being gold-coloured, stops being inert in the way you expect, and starts doing work in places no bullion bar could reach — including the test strip that told you…
Amara Okonjo · 19 min read
Mining · 22 May 2026
The Other Supply Chain: Artisanal Mining and the Mercury Problem
A significant share of the world's gold is produced by people working with hand tools, informal finance and a neurotoxin. Formalisation is the stated solution. Nobody agrees on what it costs. · Artisa…
Amara Okonjo · 15 min read
Industry · 28 July 2026
Urban Mining: The Richest Gold Ore on Earth Is in Your Old Phone
A tonne of good underground ore holds a few grams of gold. A tonne of discarded circuit boards can hold two hundred. So why is most of it still going into landfill? · Concentration, not tonnage, is wh…
Tomas Herrera · 16 min read
Science · 10 August 2026
Where Gold Actually Comes From
Every gram of gold on Earth was manufactured in an astrophysical catastrophe, arrived here after the planet had already formed, and was then concentrated by hot water. Three separate accidents, none o…
Tomas Herrera · 17 min read
