SNB takes gold price hit

Switzerland’s national bank has seen the gold it owns lose value.


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By :  ,  Financial Analyst

The Swiss National Bank (SNB) has revealed it has taken a substantial hit as a result of the falling price of gold.

It announced that from January to September, it recorded a consolidated loss of 6.4 billion Swiss francs (£4.39 billion), partly due to the precious metal's poor performance.

The SNB revealed that its gold holdings dropped in value by 10.7 billion francs over the first nine months of the year.

But the bank stressed that during the same period, it made a 4 billion franc profit on its foreign currency positions.

SNB noted in a statement that "only provisional conclusions are possible as regards the annual result", adding "strong fluctuations" in its performance are to be expected because of its high levels of gold holdings.

Gold's value was recently damaged after Morgan Stanley advised staying away from the precious metal. The bank's analyst Joel Crane announced it is sticking to its 2014 average forecast of $1,313 (£820) per ounce of gold.

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