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[amarksp]

Central Bank Gold Sales, I like Julian Phillips analysis on this subject...

Julian D.W. Phillips
Nov 28, 2005

Excerpts from the "Global Watch - The Gold Forecaster."

Last week's Gold Sales [under the Central Bank Gold Agreement]

Two weeks ago saw two Central Banks selling 4.01 tonnes of gold during the week ending the 11th of November.

Last week [ending the 18th November] saw three banks selling 16.93 tonnes of gold, within the Central Bank Gold Agreement.

This brings the total sold to date in this the second year of the Central Bank Gold Agreement to 87.19 tonnes.

Extrapolated, this equals 600 tonnes a year. With the "ceiling" at 500 tonnes a year, were the sales to continue at this rate, sales for the year would have to stop at the end of July.

This is what happened in the first year of the agreement, which led to the 'quiet' period for gold [July / August] being a time when gold prices rose unexpectedly.

It awaits confirmation but the most likely candidates appear to be France, Holland and Portugal. France appears to be selling around 7 - 9 tonnes a week on a fairly consistent basis, to date. With a commitment to sell 600 tonnes in the entire 5 years of the agreement, France appears to be running ahead of itself. Will it spread these sales over the 5 years? Or will it sell as much as it can in this price region [+$500]. It is difficult to isolate sales policy without any public statement from the banks, so we are limited to the exercise of extrapolation. But this does help us with the estimation of future gold prices. As the tonnage being sold weekly has increased fourfold in the last week, it appears that when "high prices" [Not if the price goes higher still] are seen in the market place, the Central Banks will sell greater volumes.
http://www.321gold.com/editorials/phillips/phillips112805.html