by Micki » Tue 07 Apr 2009, 22:06:02
I've seen the IMF card being pulled out about 112 times now since 2005.
First of all it wouldn't be done to benefit poor countries. Most of these countries benefit from high gold prices as it is good for their mining whilst low POG is disasterous. Even reasonably well off countries like SA has loudly complained when there has been gold dumping.
Otherwise just a few thoughts arounf the IMF sale.
1) It requires congressional approval. Before that is given there won't be any sale.
2) Several CB's have turned buyers. Wonder if the IMF gold would be sold on the open market at all or directly to CB or soverign fund.
One thought I've had is that they may make a sale to parties who already leased the gold, in order to protect them. IMF as you might now actually doesn't have the gold, it is just pledged by member nations. And if these in turn are running low on stock, it may be just a pure paper play with big headlines.
Anyway, with the physical demand in place now a dump like this would have a price impact but I doubt it would have any longer term impact at all. In fact it could be longer term bullish knowing that CB's have less ammo for surpression and may later have to become buyers again.
I am right now reading LeMetropoleCafe and here is a snippet about physical withdrawals from COMEX suggesting hign demand for physical.
Excuse the long quote but the article is protected and cannot be linked to.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'C')OMEX Warehouse Stocks April 6, 2009
The mass exodus of metal from the COMEX continues. Today April 6 2.1 Million ozs of silver were withdrawn from the dealer’s inventory. The dealers have now had 8.5Mozs of silver withdrawn in 4 days. This is truly phenomenal. The breakdown is as follows:
SILVER
2,092,227 ozs withdrawn from the dealer’s inventory.
496,039 ozs deposited in the customer inventory
Total dealer inventory 64,904,847 Mozs
Total customer inventory 52,848,067 Mozs
Combined Total 117,752,915 MOZ
GOLD
ZERO ozs withdrawn from the dealers (registered) category
63,249 ozs deposited in the customer (eligible) category
Total dealer inventory 2.695 Mozs
Total customer inventory 5.889 Mozs
Combined Total 8.584 MOZ
The drawn down in silver running at 2 million ozs each day needs to be watched closely. To put this in perspective 2 Million ozs is 10% more than all the silver mined in the world in a day! It is 62 tonnes, or 2000 times one thousand ounce bars which would need 4 tractor-trailers to move it. In reality it will not be moved by tractor trailer but by Brinks security trucks which probably can’t take more than 4 tonnes so 16 Brinks security trucks would be needed each day. This is a massive amount of silver withdrawal.
There are still 1.08 Mozs of gold delivery notices for April outstanding which is 40% of the dealer inventory. These physical moves are totally incongruous with the COMEX price action unless you know what GATA knows.
Cheers
Adrian…
Bill,
In our telephone conversation last night you mentioned that there may be a program purchasing and delivery schedule of some big entity on the silver side from COMEX. You may well be right. It could be that the amount being taken each day is the maximum that the COMEX warehouses can physically handle being limited by available secure trucks, time and manpower to load them.
In the last few days these were the withdrawals
4/1 Net withdrawal 2.193Mozs….. 1.2 Mozs from Dealers inventory 0.993 Mozs from Customers inventory
4/2 Net withdrawal 2.18Mozs ….. 1.2 Mozs from Dealers inventory 0.981 Mozs from Customers inventory
4/3 Net withdrawal 2.02Mozs…. 2.1 Mozs from Dealers inventory 0.094 Mozs added to Customers inventory
4/6 Net withdrawal 1.6Mozs …… 2.09 Mozs from Dealers inventory 0.496 Mozs added to Customers inventory
The gross amount of metal being handled each day is 2-2.5 Mozs.
This could get interesting!…
(LATE ADD, it sure is)...
COMEX Warehouse Stocks - ANOTHER 2 MILLION WITHDRAWAL SHOCKER!!!!
Bill,
COMEX Warehouse Stocks April 7, 2009
EVEN MORE STUNNING! Today April 7 we had yet another 2 Million oz withdrawal day from the COMEX warehouses. The breakdown is as follows:
SILVER
1656332 ozs withdrawn from the dealer’s inventory.
495,057 ozs withdrawn from the customer inventory
Total dealer inventory 63,314,243 Mozs
Total customer inventory 52,287,283 Mozs
Combined Total 115,601,526 MOZ
GOLD
1584 ozs withdrawn from the dealers (registered) category
ZERO ozs withdrawn from the customer (eligible) category
Total dealer inventory 2.692 Mozs
Total customer inventory 5.889 Mozs
Combined Total 8.583 MOZ
The drawdown in silver has no been running at 2 million ozs each day for 5 straight days. This MASSIVE demand is of course totally coherent with the price of silver being trashed recently (cough, cough!)
Cheers
Adrian
Delivery notices…
The COMEX April Contract delivery notices in silver just doubled today! They stand at 327 contracts or 1.63 Mozs. The delivery notices issued today were 166 contracts but yesterday there was only an Open Interest left in April of 49 contracts. Today the OI is has INCREASED to 196 contracts not decreased. Strangely the estimated volume in the April Contract is 5 contracts …it seems to me their estimated volume is very suspect! What this appears to me is that someone purchased 313 contracts in the April Contract and immediately stood for delivery on 166 of them to leave an OI of 196.
And what is interesting to hear is that Soros now agrees with me.
Well he didn't say it exactly like that. But in this interview he states that the increase we've seen in monetary base will have inflationary impact which the central banks will have difficulties in mopping up and this will result in STAGFLATION and it is positive for GOLD.
http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/ar ... &ccode=TBD