IMF to sell its Gold (That tech that Janszen Bloke)

[rtchoke]

http://in.reuters.com/article/busine...31847320080209

Why would they want to do such a thing? Is it an attempt to lower the gold price? Or just a public display that life is still grand without some gold?


***"The IMF is rich, if it wants to be," he wrote in a recent note to clients, issued before the G7's approval of the gold sales. "This is arguably a good time to consider selling some of these gold holdings and investing the proceeds in financial securities with positive yields."***

****Morgan Stanley analyst Stephen Jen said the Fund held 103.4 million ounces of gold worth some $92 billion at current market prices. That was up from $23 billion just five years ago.****

Any of this money expected to hit domestic financial institutions?

[grapejelly]

Re: IMF to sell some gold..

I think they are running out of funds...they are not receiving a positive cash flow and have enormous overhead.

[EJ]

Re: IMF to sell some gold..

http://in.reuters.com/article/busine...31847320080209

Why would they want to do such a thing? Is it an attempt to lower the gold price? Or just a public display that life is still grand without some gold?


***"The IMF is rich, if it wants to be," he wrote in a recent note to clients, issued before the G7's approval of the gold sales. "This is arguably a good time to consider selling some of these gold holdings and investing the proceeds in financial securities with positive yields."***

****Morgan Stanley analyst Stephen Jen said the Fund held 103.4 million ounces of gold worth some $92 billion at current market prices. That was up from $23 billion just five years ago.****

Any of this money expected to hit domestic financial institutions?

Our information is that the IMF will talk about selling gold but not actually do it. This is consistent with central banks which have for years announced gold sales but have not followed through with sales.

[idianov]

Re: IMF to sell some gold..

Rule of thumb when trading gold:

1. Buy when you hear IMF selling gold.
2. Sell when you hear China buying gold.

The Jim Sinclair at www.jsmineset.com covered IMF and their gold in detail. You can also search the iTulip forum for previous IMF selling gold "announcements".

Igor

[metalman]

Re: IMF to sell some gold..

Rule of thumb when trading gold:

1. Buy when you hear IMF selling gold.
2. Sell when you hear China buying gold.

The Jim Sinclair at www.jsmineset.com covered IMF and their gold in detail. You can also search the iTulip forum for previous IMF selling gold "announcements".

Igor

exactly. all imf/cb gold sale announcements mean: price is going up. the rumor of this "announcement" didn't even move the markets last week.

[Mega]

IMF to sell its Gold (That tech that Jansen Bloke)

http://in.reuters.com/article/busine...BrandChannel=0

Not sure it will KILL Gold price off, one suspects that it might dull for awhile.....i wonder what India/China/Russa will do?
Mike

[WDCRob]

Re: IMF to sell its Gold (That tech that Jansen Bloke)

Clearly the metals markets are rattled by this announcement. Gold is all the way down to $924/oz on the news.

[Mega]

Re: IMF to sell some gold..

Our information is that the IMF will talk about selling gold but not actually do it. This is consistent with central banks which have for years announced gold sales but have not followed through with sales.

Spot on EJ!
They tried to "Blag" everyone 3 years ago:-
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8c757556-7...00e2511c8.html

Selling Gold to help Africa..........are bless them (althought they didn't get round to it!)
Mega

[godraz]

Re: IMF to sell its Gold (That tech that Jansen Bloke)

11:37a MT Saturday, February 9, 2008

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:

Before panicking about the Reuters story appended here, reporting that the G7 conference in Tokyo likes the idea that the International Monetary Fund should raise money for itself by selling some of its gold reserves, consider a few things.

1) The prospect of gold sales by the IMF has been hanging over the gold market for years.

2) For almost a decade now central bank gold sales have been accompanied by higher gold prices, not lower prices. Gold demand has been exceeding gold production by about a thousand tonnes per year, the gap being covered only by central bank dishoarding. Even with the rising price gold production is declining, the price still not being high enough to make greater production generally profitable.

3) Mobilization of IMF gold suggests that individual central bank gold reserves are nearing exhaustion or that individual central banks are no longer willing to dishoard what they have left.

4) There's no assurance that the IMF has the gold attributed to it and no report as to where the gold its kept. Further, as the Reuters story here acknowledges, any gold sales by the IMF would require approval by the U.S. Congress, which has opposed the idea in the past. This opposition has been offered in the name of supporting developing countries whose economies rely to a great extent on gold mining, but given the secrecy and unaccountability around the gold reserves of various nations, including the United States itself, it is fair to wonder whether the opposition is not also a matter of concealing some impairment of the IMF gold.

5) Though it is never questioned by the financial press, the rationale that continues to be offered for selling the IMF's gold is plainly ridiculous. That rationale is, as the Reuters story here reports, that the IMF gold should be liquidated and the proceeds invested "in financial securities with positive yields." But what "yields" could be more positive than the "yield" acknowledged for the IMF gold, an increase in value of 400 percent in five years? Is the IMF supposed to be happier with government bonds paying 4 percent per year against inflation rates several times that?

6) Those who want gold restored as the independent arbiter of the international financial system should be thrilled if all central banks and the IMF dishoarded all their gold at once and got out of the gold market for good. Until then, there really won't be a market price for gold, just a desperately manipulated one, a price well below the cost of production -- still a bargain.

CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.

http://www.gata.org/node/5986

[bart]

Re: IMF to sell some gold..

http://in.reuters.com/article/busine...31847320080209

Why would they want to do such a thing? Is it an attempt to lower the gold price?

Plain & simple and in my opinion, yes.

In 1975, the IMF had about 4,700 tonnes of gold. In 1980, they had 3,200 tonnes. A metric tonne of gold is about 32,000 troy ounces.

The conclusion is pretty obvious, especially when the facts show they only had about 2,000 tonnes in 1969.

More recently, in 2000 the ECB (European Central Bank) had about 12,500 metric tonnes of gold and recent data show they have about 10,500 tonnes. The actual record of the gold (both paper and physical) buying & selling that they have done, per the data directly from them, is rather "illustrative".


We also have the data from the recent GATA ad in the WSJ:

The gold reserves of the United States have not been independently audited for half a century. Now there is proof that those gold reserves and those of other Western nations are being used for the surreptitious manipulation of the international currency, commodity, equity, and bond markets.

The Federal Reserve’s general counsel, J. Virgil Mattingly, acknowledged as much when he told the Federal Open Market Committee on January 31, 1995, that the Treasury Department’s Exchange Stabilization Fund had undertaken gold swaps.

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan acknowledged as much in testimony to Congress on July 24, 1998, when he said that “central banks stand ready to lend gold in increasing quantities should the price rise.”

Barrick Gold Corp. acknowledged as much in a filing in U.S. District Court in New Orleans on February 28, 2003, disclosing that the mining company was the agent of the central banks in shorting the gold market.

The Bank for International Settlements acknowledged as much on June 27, 2005, when the head of its monetary and economic department, William S. White, declared at a convention of central bankers in Basel, Switzerland, that a major purpose of international central bank cooperation is “the provision of international credits and joint efforts to influence asset prices — especially gold
and foreign exchange.”

Since last May the U.S. Treasury Department’s weekly report of the government’s international reserve position has cited loans and swaps from the U.S. gold reserves.

Since 2004 four major international investment houses — Sprott Asset Management, Cheuvreux, Citigroup, and Redburn Partners — have issued reports stating that Western central banks have been manipulating the gold market.
...

(edit/add)
Bottom line though is that in my opinion, just like the '70s, the central banks etc. will not be able to stop the fundamentals from coming to fruition.

[rj1]

Re: IMF to sell its Gold (That tech that Jansen Bloke)

http://in.reuters.com/article/busine...BrandChannel=0

Not sure it will KILL Gold price off, one suspects that it might dull for awhile.....i wonder what India/China/Russa will do?
Mike

Actually, if I were the Chinese and were scared about my overexposure of the dollar in my reserves, this would not be a bad way to get rid of a portion of them.

[Slimprofits]

Re: IMF to sell its Gold (That tech that Jansen Bloke)

Date	GRA Purchases	SAF, TF, ESAF/PRGF Loans	Totals
December 31, 2007	6,036,146,757	3,796,945,581	9,833,092,338

Total IMF Credit Outstanding for all members from 1984 - 2007

That figure is down from a high of $72 million on December 31, 2003.

[godraz]

Re: IMF to sell its Gold (That tech that Jansen Bloke)

From all that I've read Russia is steadily but surely increasing its gold reserves. Middle East is buying, although this may be individuals rather than govts. China is a likely buyer of gold and perhaps even more so of silver! India's purchaces are individually driven I believe more so than by govt/cb. High prices may slow such personal demand but any fall in price will readily be seen as opportune times to buy.

If any such IMF sale goes thru, I don't see how it will not result in anything but a temporary price decline that will gladly be used by all to stock up and soak up whatever the west's cbs want to hand over! :p

[Gnosis]

Re: IMF to sell its Gold (That tech that Jansen Bloke)

So, would now be a good time to purchase gold? I seem a bit befuttled as to timing having missed "cheep gold" and now hoping that +1500.00 is in thecards. I wonder if there is anyone that follows this iTulip train that can direct me as a neophyte. My training is medical and much of the financial background necessary to grasp the detail of the investment proceedures is lost on me. I see the big picture, but need paint by numbers help to start. Ideas?

[Andreuccio]

Re: IMF to sell its Gold (That tech that Jansen Bloke)

So, would now be a good time to purchase gold? I seem a bit befuttled as to timing having missed "cheep gold" and now hoping that +1500.00 is in thecards. I wonder if there is anyone that follows this iTulip train that can direct me as a neophyte. My training is medical and much of the financial background necessary to grasp the detail of the investment proceedures is lost on me. I see the big picture, but need paint by numbers help to start. Ideas?

Lost here? Want help? Got a good education but none of it is useful here? Get in line.

Seriously, just what is it you want help with?

Is gold a good investment now? The consensus here seems to be that gold will go much higher, perhaps into the $2000-$3000 range. So if you agree with that, then yes, though you've missed the chance for 10x your investment, you could still do 2x or 3x.

Should you be investing in it? You need to look at 1. your overall financial situation, goals, needs, etc., and 2. what you think will happen economically. Do you agree gold will hit $2000? How fast? What are the risks? Tax implications for you? Are there other investments you could be in that you think will do better? If you decide to invest in gold, how much of your portfolio do you want in gold? What other scenarios do you think might happen, and can/should you be hedging against these?

If you're asking how to invest in gold, there are many different ways. You could buy physical gold that you hold yourself (coins, for example). You could buy physical gold held for you by someone else (e.g. bullion vault). You could buy a gold etf, like Streettracks Gold (GLD). You could invest in gold mining companies, or in a mutual fund that invests in them. Each of these has advantages and disadvantages.

My advice is to read as much as possible, and begin making decisions as you become more educated. I don't know about you, but when I buy an appliance, a computer, or a car, I spend a significant amount of time educating myself so I can make an informed purchase. It makes sense to me to do the same, but even more so, when deciding how to invest.

For what it's worth, my personal gold investments are as follows: I have a large (for me) stake in a mutual fund (because most of what I have available to invest is in my retirement account, and that's the only option for exposure to gold). I have a somewhat smaller stake in GLD in my IRA (I just added to it yesterday). I have a very small amount of coins, which I kid myself would be helpful in an emergency.

I hope this helps. Now get back in line.:mad: ()