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Gold/Mining/Energy : Gold Price Monitor -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Alex who wrote (10558)	4/24/1998 12:59:00 PM
From: marketbrief.com	Respond to of 116786

Hope to see you there. TA is a fun tool to use and we're never perfect so, everyone has something to contribute.

To: Alex who wrote (10558)	4/24/1998 4:32:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Respond to of 116786

SNB mulls managers for gold reserves 04:34 a.m. Apr 24, 1998 Eastern BERNE, April 24 (Reuters) - The Swiss National Bank may hire outside asset managers to administer excess gold reserves if voters approve a constitutional amendment removing the Swiss franc's official gold link, Chairman Hans Meyer said. In the text of a speech to SNB shareholders, Meyer recalled that a government advisory panel had found last year that the SNB could split off around 1,400 tonnes of its 2,590-tonne gold reserves that were no longer needed to conduct monetary policy. The government intends to raise seven billion francs by gradually selling part of the excess and using these funds to finance a proposed Solidarity Foundation that would aid victims of poverty, disasters and human rights abuses. ''The additional gold reserves not required for monetary policy should remain property of the National Bank and be managed along commercial lines,'' Meyer said. ''This task can be accomplished, it seems to me, in a way that rules out conflicts of interest between the administration of public property and the conduct of monetary policy. Third parties could administer these assets, but the National Bank would name the manager, set up guidelines and supervise the management activity.'' This plan would have to be part of revisions to the National Bank law, which would follow constitutional amendments. No date has been set yet for the referendum, but it is expected to be voted on next year. Under changes to the National Bank law that took effect in November, the SNB has begun gold lending operations as one way to boost returns on its foreign exchange reserves. ''At the end of 1997 lending transactions covered 99 tonnes of gold,'' according to the SNB's annual report. The average residual maturity of all such transactions was around eight months at the time. The deals earned the SNB 2.6 million francs in 1997, for an annual yield of around 2.2 percent. Berne announced plans for the Solidarity Foundation last year as a way to lift neutral Switzerland above a mire of accusations that it cynically profited from World War Two by dealing extensively with Nazi Germany. Public support for the plan was relatively strong when then-President Kaspar Villiger announced it last March, but has waned since then amid sustained foreign criticism of Switzerland and especially its big banks. ^REUTERS@