Mostly: Classical

[amarksp]

Thanks Louis. Remember just trying to keep it simple...

Am concentrating on "new" supply. This consists of new gold mine production (2,500 tonnes per year) plus Central Bank Sales (500 tonnes per year) the way I look at it. We also have leased gold, paper gold, recycled gold, etc which can move the market but the real "new" supply is gold mine production and Central Bank Sales, IMO. Central Bank gold is in reality recycled gold but is best viewed as "new" since certain Central Banks think they have too much of it... Further, Central Bank selling (or lack thereof) tends to move the market.

What I like about the ECB data link you provided is that it is published weekly and gives you the number of central banks selling. I can adjust this data as necessary when GFMS/Julian Phillips/VirtualMetals provide a better number each month, then go about using the ECB data for the new weekly central bank sales and compare this to 41.6M tonnes cummulative monthly expected sales. Just want to determine whether central banks are significantly on schedule or behind schedule on their planned gold sales.

In regard to "markets perceived amount of gold sales", yes this is key. Central Banks often like to jawbone their gold selling to manage POG. However, appears to me central banks may now be trying to maximize price received on gold sales rather than managing POG as they did in the past...
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In regard to light sweet Texas crude traded at the NYMEX:
The contract is usually quoted as WTIC which stands for West Texas Intermediate Cushing, though some websites quote it as West Texas Intermediate Crude.
http://www.wtrg.com/daily/oilandgasspot.html

This is a light sweet crude but uses the term "intermediate". And the contract specifies delivery to Cushing, Oklahoma. http://www.nymex.com/CL_spec.aspx
Thus, $WTIC Texas oil goes to Oklahoma and is not intermediate...

There is a Midland delivery WTI but that contract has no volume whatsoever. The contract simply does not trade anymore. I have no idea why the NYMEX keeps the symbol active:
QCMF6.... QCM... WTI MIDLAND CRUDE OIL JAN 2006 NYMEX