Rumors of Swiss repatriation vote sends gold and silver skyrocketing

When the futures markets opened earlier this morning on Nov. 14, gold and silver prices (spot) were down as much as $13 for the yellow metal at the same time as the dollar was rising to well above 88 on the index. However, halfway through the trading session news from Deutsche Bank on the Swiss gold repatriation vote has the metal reversing sharply, and skyrocketing up over $40 from its lowest point to its current price of $1190.

Switzerland's vote to repatriate their gold from vaults in Europe and the U.S. will follow this weekend's meeting of the G20 nations and the coming together of most major economic leaders in Brisbane, Australia. And with GDP data coming in earlier this morning showing several European countries still in recession, and the EU's largest economy Germany barely above the negative growth line, fears over the Euro, deflation, and recession are aiding in gold's movement upward, and could lead to the beginning of repatriation efforts elsewhere.

Even as the SNB has been scrambling to make the referendum seem like a non-event, with very little chance of passing, moments ago Deutsche Bank released a piece that roundly refuted everything the Swiss Central Bank has been peddling. To wit, here is a note just out from DB's Robin Winkler:

On 30 November, the Swiss will vote in a referendum to decide whether the SNB’s constitutional mandate should be changed to require the central bank to 1) never sell any gold reserves once acquired, 2) store all its gold on Swiss territory, 3) hold at least 20% of its official reserve assets in gold.

The likelihood of a yes vote is considerable. The proposal requires a simple country-wide majority to pass, as well as a majority in at least 50% of Swiss cantons. Current polling shows the ‘yes’ campaign with a narrow but clear lead and there are reasons to believe that factors on the day could be favourable for the amendment. If an affirmative vote was recorded, there is little political leeway to delay or dilute implementation. - Zerohedge

A yes vote to the referendum is expected to set in motion a chain of events which will increase pressure on the Federal Reserve and ECB to expedite the repatriation of Switzerland's offshore gold holdings. It will also push the U.S. central bank to have to find gold they assuredly have leased out over the past decade to fulfill this request, and judging from their inability to repatriate Germany's gold after last year's demand for its return, the ponzi scheme that has been done to use gold leasing to prop up the dollar may have dire consequences to the Comex, the Fed, and the global reserve currency.

While it is still 16 days until the official vote and referendum in Switzerland, the markets are reacting to the news as if it were assured that the vote will be yes, and that the Swiss people will push for an immediate return of their sovereign metal being held offshore in U.S. and other European vaults. And should these entities be unable to deliver this gold back to the Swiss in a reasonable amount of time, the result for gold prices could be a breaking away from paradigm of several years of manipulation, and cause the rest of the world's currencies to react negatively to the rising value of precious metals.