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

To: long-gone who wrote (32232)	4/20/1999 5:01:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116762

Gold quiet in Europe, ignores SNB sales remarks 06:44 a.m. Apr 20, 1999 Eastern LONDON, April 20 (Reuters) - Gold held below $285.00 in early European trade on Tuesday, not even flickering on a senior Swiss national banker's remarks that reserve sales would be impossible for a least a year. London gold fixed at $284.55 a troy ounce in the morning, just up on Monday afternoon's $284.20, having failed to react to comments by Swiss National Bank board member Bruno Gehrig. ''The earliest possible moment at which the SNB can sell the first kilogram of gold will be in one year's time,'' he told Reuters in an interview. Swiss voters agreed on Sunday to changes paving the way for eventual sales of around half of the SNB's 2,600 tonnes of gold. Gehrig said the constitutional changes agreed last weekend made it possible for the SNB to sell gold but did not yet allow it to transfer gold or sales proceeds outside the bank. ''They are so afraid of disrupting the market that they will probably sell it a lot slower than they might have,'' said one London dealer, who projected a 10-year programme for sales of up to 1,300 tonnes of Swiss gold. ''This will be overhanging the market for years when there could be assorted other sales around from the likes of the IMF and other central banks. Gold runs a danger of being depressed for a long time,'' he added. Dealers saw gold trading quietly for the duration on Tuesday, holding in a range of $286.00 to $282.00. Spot was last unchanged versus Monday's New York close of $284.60/284.90. Silver settled from Monday's run towards $5.20 bid, taking its cue from copper's quiet trade on the London Metal Exchange. ''Strong resistance is anticipated again at the $5.20 level basis spot. With the base metals having given strength to silver recently...any selling is also expected to impact upon silver,'' said one dealer. Spot was last just easier at $5.15/$5.17, a cent below New York's Monday close. Palladium set a fresh 11-month high with its London morning fix of $384.00 a troy ounce, its highest since May 20 and up $3.00 on Monday's previous record. One London dealer said trade-house buying on Japan's TOCOM exchange led the charge in spot price rises after yen-based palladium futures ended limit up in Tokyo. Platinum was up 50 cents on New York at $364.00/$366.00. ((Patrick Chalmers, London Newsroom +44 171 542 8057. london.commodities.desk+reuters.com)) Copyright 1999 Reuters Limited.

To: long-gone who wrote (32232)	4/20/1999 5:01:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116762

INTERVIEW-AngloGold brushes aside Swiss sales 12:28 p.m. Apr 20, 1999 Eastern By Ed Stoddard JOHANNESBURG, April 20 (Reuters) - South Africa's AngloGold, the world's largest gold miner, on Tuesday brushed off the likely sale of 1,300 tonnes of gold by Switzerland's central bank, saying such a move had long been anticipated. ''This is already in the pipeline,'' Kelvin Williams, an executive director with Anglo, told Reuters. ''The Swiss made the first announcement in this regard over two years ago. It is old news for the market.'' Swiss sale plans, yet to be finally sanctioned but given the blessing of voters at the weekend, would involve shedding up to half of the country's 2,600 tonnes of official holdings. This would drop Switzerland to sixth in the gold holding league behind the United States, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Germany, France and Italy. The market took the news in its stride, with gold fixing in London at $284.20 a troy ounce, unchanged from the same time on Friday. It was trading at $284.00 late on Tuesday. Williams said the fact that Switzerland's central bank planned to keep the glass half full was encouraging, noting that it had no incentive to see the value of an asset in its possession decrease. ''If they plan to keep half of their gold reserves, they will sell the rest in a gradual, orderly fashion,'' he said. ''They have no interest in driving the price of gold down to $50.'' ''And we feel the same way about the IMF sale...it is not a material amount,'' he said. The IMF has plans to sell off part of its 103 million ounces of gold, but no firm decision or date has been fixed yet. Williams also said Anglo had picked up strong signals from European central bankers that they were in no hurry to ditch their bullion reserves. ''We feel that European Union central bank sales have stopped for now. That is certainly the impression we have been given by the banking community,'' he said, adding that like Switzerland, Europe's central banks had no interest in seeing a valuable asset lose value. Anglogold's shares closed 1.42 percent lower at 278.00 rand on the Johannesburg bourse on Tuesday amid a generally depressed gold market. The gold index closed 2.08 percent lower at 1,010.6. Copyright 1999 Reuters Limited.