NET CENTRAL BANK GOLD SALES TO REACH 700 TONNES IN 2000
See the third post down.
gold-eagle.com:3128/cgi-bin/gn/get/forum.html?date=2000%3A08%3A23%3A15%3A00%3A00
Hello, R. Personally, I think the number is/will be higher than that. Haven't been paying much attention to gold lately, but as best as I can tell what has been happening is this: In September of last year, when the Europeans announced their cap on gold sales, and the market went crazy, the US Treasury got various lesser central banks to turn over a boat load of gold to its bullion bank clients.
Although the worst was over for the bullion banks, they got their smart people to do some calculations and, lo and behold, determined that over time there probably wasn't enough central bank gold in "friendly" hands to cover everybody. Ever since then, they have been managing the price so as to minimize the physical offtake, hoping to get enough private dishoarding before the day of judgement. They could have driven gold below $250 many times, but that would be wasting what they now regard as a necessary cushion because of physical off take. On the other hand, if gold broke out of its curent range to the upside, that would generate unwelcome interest.
On a one or two day basis, they still have absolute control over the price. This is useful so that they can show us that gold won't respond to an event that, in fact, it must respond to in the longer term: like a falling dollar or some financial crisis.
P.S. Before you get too discouraged about how outrageously imbalanced the gold market is, if it will make you feel any better: the US stock market, the US Treasury market, the silver market, and the global currency market generally are all equally outrageously imbalanced. |
