The Dutch central bank (DNB) has confirmed that billions of dollars in gold has been taken out of north America and relocated to London, citing “increasing geopolitical unrest”.

DNB said on Wednesday that 86 tonnes of gold had been removed from the US and Canada in a complex operation that took several months. It is now being held by the Bank of England, where the precious metal can be traded more easily “in a crisis situation”.

Bank president Olaf Sleijpen said the move was “necessary to strengthen our resilience and preparedness”.

The decision comes amid an ongoing trade dispute between the US and Canada, with both countries announcing fresh tariffs on each other after failed trade talks.

DNB said the transfer, which took place between March and August, saw 27 tonnes of gold bars moved from New York and Ottawa to Zeist in the Netherlands.

A similar quantity and quality was then moved to London, with no need to melt the bars down.

Exactly how so much gold was transported across the Atlantic Ocean has not been revealed.

The rest of the transfer was carried out by selling the gold in New York, and repurchasing it in London, the bank said, external.

“Combining the processes of buying and selling and physical transport has allowed DNB to spread the risks associated with such a complex physical gold relocation,” the statement said.

DNB did not confirm what it was referring to with its mention of “geopolitical unrest” but the US economy remains in an uncertain position due to the country’s ongoing war with Iran, which has impacted global trade.

Canada, meanwhile, has been hit hard by US tariffs on its key sectors of steel, aluminium, lumber and automobiles as well as an additional 50% levy on about C$28bn ($20bn; £15bn) of Canadian goods announced in August.

DNB said that gold that is held with the Bank of England “is regarded as the world’s most easily tradable gold,” and therefore more readily available in a crisis than if it was still in the US or Canada.

Prior to Wednesday’s announcement, the DNB held 31.3% of its gold in New York and 19.7% in Ottawa. This has now fallen to 18.5% in both countries.

The total Dutch gold stock was 612.4 tonnes at the end of 2025 and has been valued at €72.2 billion, DNB said.

The bank’s share of gold in London has increased from 18.1% to 32.1% after the move, while it still holds 30.8% of its reserves in the Netherlands.

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NEW YORK — Shares of Pfizer Inc. climbed further Wednesday morning, trading at $29.09, up 54 cents, or 1.89%, as of 10:02 a.m. ET, matching a fresh 52-week high the pharmaceutical giant first touched earlier this week amid a wave of positive news for the company.

Pfizer’s stock has now gained approximately 20% since the start of the year, marking a significant recovery for the drugmaker as it works to move past two years of declining COVID-related revenues and reposition itself around a broader portfolio spanning oncology, cardiometabolic disease and vaccines.

The stock’s climb this week has been driven by a combination of factors, including a landmark drug pricing agreement with the Trump administration, a stronger-than-expected second-quarter earnings report, and the resolution of a major legal settlement tied to one of the company’s contraceptive products.

Pfizer was among the pharmaceutical companies that reached a new drug pricing deal with President Donald Trump’s administration as part of the White House’s push to align U.S. drug prices with those paid in other developed countries, a policy the administration has branded “most-favored-nation” pricing. Under the agreement, Pfizer said it would voluntarily align prices for its drugs in Medicaid programs with those charged internationally, while also offering medicines directly to consumers at steep discounts through a new government-run website, TrumpRx.gov.

Pfizer said the majority of its primary care treatments and certain other brands, including the rheumatoid arthritis drug Xeljanz, the dermatitis treatment Eucrisa and the post-menopausal osteoporosis medicine Duavee, would be offered to patients at average savings of around 50%, with some discounts reaching as high as 85%.

In exchange for the pricing concessions, along with a commitment to invest $70 billion in U.S. research and manufacturing, Pfizer secured a three-year grace period from potential pharmaceutical tariffs, a provision that removed a significant source of policy uncertainty that had weighed on the sector for much of the year.

The White House said the Trump administration has now reached similar drug pricing deals with 26 pharmaceutical companies in total, including Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk, building on agreements first struck with major drugmakers last year and expanded this week to include nine additional midsize firms.

Alongside the pricing news, Pfizer’s stock has also been buoyed by a strong second-quarter earnings report. The company posted adjusted earnings per share of 77 cents, beating analyst expectations of 68 cents, while total revenue reached $15.03 billion, ahead of the $14.42 billion Wall Street had anticipated and up 2.6% from the same period a year earlier. Trading volume surged past 8.3 million shares in the session following the report, well above the stock’s typical activity levels, reflecting heightened investor attention to the results.

Following the earnings beat, Pfizer raised its full-year 2026 adjusted earnings guidance to a range of $2.80 to $3.00 per share, with Wall Street analysts currently projecting the company will land near $2.98 for the full fiscal year. The company also lifted the midpoint of its 2026 revenue guidance by $500 million, to $61.5 billion.

Also contributing to the stock’s momentum this week was the resolution of a major legal matter facing the company. Pfizer reached a confidential settlement covering more than 6,000 federal lawsuits alleging a connection between its contraceptive injection Depo-Provera and intracranial meningioma, a type of brain tumor. While the company did not disclose specific financial terms of the settlement and maintained that it had not engaged in any wrongdoing, resolving the litigation removed a lingering legal overhang that had weighed on investor sentiment surrounding the stock.

Pfizer has also continued to expand its regulatory and clinical pipeline in recent weeks. The company and its partner BioNTech announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved their updated 2026-2027 Comirnaty mRNA COVID-19 vaccine formulation, tailored to the XFG variant, for use in adults. Separately, Pfizer reached a settlement extending the effective U.S. patent expiry for its cardiovascular drug Vyndamax to June 1, 2031, subject to the outcome of other related litigation, a development that helps push back one of the looming patent cliffs the company has faced in its cardiovascular portfolio.

Insider activity at the company has also drawn attention from investors in recent weeks. Pfizer’s chief executive was reported to have made a $1 million purchase of company stock following the second-quarter earnings report, a move some market watchers have pointed to as a signal of management’s confidence in the company’s direction even as broader concerns about long-term growth persist.

Despite the recent rally, analysts covering the stock remain cautious about Pfizer’s longer-term growth trajectory. Concerns center on a series of upcoming patent expirations across the company’s product portfolio, along with the pace at which its oncology pipeline, which includes drugs such as Ibrance, Xtandi, Padcev and Adcetris, can offset revenue pressure from products losing patent protection in the coming years. Pfizer has also announced plans for roughly $2.5 billion in productivity-enhancement savings between 2027 and 2029, part of a broader effort to control costs while continuing to invest in newer areas of its pipeline, including obesity, autoimmune disease and additional oncology programs.

Short interest in Pfizer shares currently stands at roughly 161.5 million shares, representing about 2.8% of the stock’s public float, according to data tracking short positions in the stock. While that figure has increased significantly since last September, the overall level remains relatively low, suggesting limited bearish sentiment toward the stock even amid ongoing questions about the company’s long-term growth outlook.

With shares now trading at the top of their 52-week range and above key technical moving averages, investors will likely continue watching closely for further details on Pfizer’s expanding pipeline of obesity, oncology and autoimmune treatments, along with any additional developments tied to the broader wave of drug pricing agreements reshaping the pharmaceutical industry’s relationship with the Trump administration heading into the final months of 2026.