What The Tola Desk is, and what it is not

This page states plainly what the desk does, what it collects, and how it is paid. A reader deciding whether to trust the figures should read it once.

Independent desk, not a broker

The Tola Desk is an independent editorial desk. It is not a broker, not an exchange, not a licensed adviser, and it holds no client money. Its subject is one measurement, taken from named public sources and republished with the date and the hour it was read. The trade body publishes a suggested retail price per gram; every weight below is that price multiplied out, with the London metal beside it. The sources are named under every table, with a link, so a reader can check the figure at its publisher.

The desk's responsibility is to read those sources carefully and to republish the figure without alteration. Nothing on the site is investment advice, a recommendation or an offer. The figures describe what things cost, not what a reader should do. A reader who wants a broker, an adviser or a counterparty must look elsewhere; this desk is none of those things.

What the site collects

The site collects nothing of its own. It has no accounts, no login, no newsletter and no comment form. It sets no cookie of its own, runs no analytics and stores nothing in the reader's browser. A visitor can read every page without identifying themselves, and the desk does not ask them to. There is no form to fill in, no address to hand over and no preference to save.

The pages are served by a hosting provider which, like any web host, keeps its own technical request logs. Those logs exist so the provider can run its service, and the site's publisher does not read a reader's personal data out of them. No reader is tracked from page to page by this desk, and no reader profile is built.

How the desk is paid

The site links to one broker, FxPro, through an affiliate link, and is paid a commission if a reader opens an account there. The reader pays nothing to this site and nothing extra at the broker. The commission is paid by the broker, not by the reader, and it does not change the figures on any table. A reader who never follows the link costs the desk nothing and pays the desk nothing.

The broker's own site is operated by someone else, under its own terms and its own privacy policy, and following the link leaves this site. The desk does not run the broker, does not see the reader's account there and does not answer for the broker's conduct. The link is a commercial arrangement, stated plainly, and it is the only one of its kind on these pages.

Writing to the desk

Writing to the address on the contact page reaches the desk. Corrections are the reason the address exists: a figure that is wrong is corrected and the correction is dated. The desk reads the sources itself, on a fixed rhythm, and answers a correction when a reader finds an error. No person is named as the author; the desk is the author, and the desk answers.

A reader should write when a figure does not match its source, when a link is broken, or when a table is unclear. The desk cannot answer what a reader should buy, sell or hold, and it will not. But a data question has an answer, and the desk will either give it or correct the page. The address is [email protected].