On January 23 JPM gold reserves were depleted by a record 321,500 ounces of gold. This amount was tied for the largest withdrawal in their recorded history. The other one of exactly the same size was just over a year prior, December 13 2012.
Is there a signifcance to this amount?
To four significant digits (which is all they are reporting) it is 10,000,000 grams of gold. 10 metric tons = 10,000 kilos.
While precision weighing is now done primarily in grams world-wide, the West still uses toz as the primary trading mechanism. Who buys and sells in kilos and fractions thereof, which would require nominal 400 toz bars to be pulled in an exact metric ton amount? The East, especially China, where the kilo bar (and multiple or fractions thereof) is their preferred means of trade.
Just another sign that western gold is being recast into kilo sizes and sent east.