Thanks to its postal voters, Austria has narrowly avoided the ignominy of electing the first neo-Fascist chief of state in post-War Europe. Of course the postal voters, many of whom live outside the country, are less anti-foreigner than those inside Oesterreich proper.

Adrian Ash of bullionvault notes that the UK clients’ for gold buying YTD is up 80% from 2015 levels at the same time of year, which he attributes to fear of British voters opting to leave the European Union in their vote a month from now.

In contrast, US gold buying client numbers is up on 45% from last year and that of Eurozone up 35%. British customers also are buying more yellow metal, about a third more, and doing it right after creating their accounts, rather than waiting for a price drop. This has boosted the sterling price of gold by about 20% since 2016 began. However the price of gold in sterling is till below the level of the summer of 2011 when there were riots in England, when gold hit £1195/oz. It is only £903/oz now.

Adrian also remarks that UK residents are opting to keep their gold in foreign storage. Bullionvault has storage and trading facilities in Britain, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Canada, and the USA. If Britain has to impose exchange controls after a Brexit vote, settlement offshore will allow UK nationals to sell outside the country.

Congratulations to my daughter-in-law Kathy who gets capped as a PhD today. She is the fifth in her family including both her parents and her paternal grandparents to get to call herself doctor although you don’t want to call on her for medical help. For that you use either of her parents or her sister-in-law Rebecca.

*With a new more right-wing coalition in place and a Supreme Court ruling imminent, Israel has opted to ratify the outline natural gas plan which provides for the rapid development of the offshore Leviathan field by Delek Group (DGRLY) and its US partner. The Netanyahu govt opted to back a “stable regulatory environment” for the gasfield so that facility and the one for Tamar can be developed rapidly. Leviathan is located 29 miles of the earlier Tamar field which DGRLY must divest. The operator is Noble Energy of Texas, a 39.66% owner while Delek via 2 subs owns 45.33%. The field extends into Cypriot waters and the Andromeda field but since the Israelis started dithering, an even larger offshore gasfield was discovered in Egyptian waters. Delek is down on the new maybe because the field will only go live in 2019 under the latest plan.