From Andy Smith - "Foreign official gold...is crossing the Atlantic...at a rate of 30-40 tonnes per month...."
"...the reduction in the average term of Swiss lending to 4 1/2 months, down from an average 8 month tenor a year earlier, implies a sea change in lending behavior....[but]....Those expecting a...gold liquidity squeeze at end year...might be in for....a disappointment ....When Central Banks stand ready to print billions of dollars....it would be perverse indeeed to reduce gold liquidity to counterparties."
mitsui-gold.com
Lorne, perverse indeed!
These commentaries are great to read because they have some good factual info and the because they indirectly expose the increasing desperation of the shorts. This gives an even better idea of why the regulators of the world's largest gold market needed to find some gold, fast. With European lending winding down, lending terms are decreasing, forcing the shorts to find new lenders more often...
Smith's pitch is itself instructive. The main points appear to be:
1. Central Banks will (and should) lend gold at zero percent interest, effectively for free.
2. Gold, just a commodity, not a monetary reserve, will (and should) be increasingly mobilized, for whatever you can get; and
3. Even though gold is just a commodity, not a monetary reserve, the CB's have an obligation to provide gold shorts with ample liquidity. To do otherwise, would be "perverse." |
