Journal

Norwegian Gold

Gold from a Norwegian perspective — krone weakness, sovereign wealth, Norges Bank decisions, and what they mean for private buyers in Norway.

A central bank deciding it no longer needs gold is one of the more useful things a private buyer can read about, wherever they happen to live. The arguments a state makes when it sells — that the metal yields nothing, costs money to store and guard, and can be replaced by assets that pay a return — are the same arguments anyone faces holding physical gold, only written down and defended in public. The counter-arguments are equally instructive, because they are about what gold is for rather than what it returns. Read this category for that reasoning rather than for a verdict. Norway is a particularly clear case because the decision was announced and documented rather than inferred, which means the logic can be examined instead of guessed at.