QE3 and interesting stats on Gold

Given that Fed­er­al Reserve Chair­man Ben "Heli­copter Make it Rain Dol­lar Bills" Bernanke just announced QE3 (quan­ti­ta­tive eas­ing) that sent the price of gold high­er, we were sent an inter­est­ing info­graph­ic with some facts on every­one's favorite pre­cious metal.

For years now, we've high­light­ed how many promi­nent hedge fund man­agers have owned gold in some capac­i­ty (either phys­i­cal­ly, or via prox­ies like exchange trad­ed funds GLD orIAU).

John Paul­son start­ed a gold fund as a bet against the US dollar.  Oth­ers bought gold as an uncer­tain­ty hedge.  Green­light Cap­i­tal's David Ein­horn con­tin­ues to own gold as a top hold­ing.  And Third Point's Dan Loeb con­tin­ues to own gold as his 2nd largest posi­tion. 

Here's some notable recent facts about gold: 



- Cur­rent mar­ket value of all gold is $8 tril­lion 



- All avail­able gold is equal to approx­i­mate­ly half of the pub­lic debt of the USA



- US gold reserves amount to 77% of the nation­al for­eign exchange reserves



- China's gold reserves account for only 1.8% of its total reserves 



- Annu­al gold con­sump­tion for invest­ment: 1,640 tonnes (about 50 mil­lion gold coins) 





And here's the info­graph­ic: