Plans for IMF gold sale firming up
More details are emerging about the International Monetary Fund's plans to sell off some of its gold holdings. You might recall a few days ago, finance ministers of the G7 countries agreed to a sale to shore up the IMF's balance sheet. The process would start sometime in April.
Now comes word that Team Bush has given the sale its formal blessing, pending the assent of Congress. David McCormick of the U.S. Treasury Department has even put numbers on the plan:
Mr. McCormick said
in an interview that the fund contemplated selling about 13 million
ounces, to raise about $12 billion. Mr. McCormick said that such a sale
would probably not disrupt gold prices, which are at record levels of
about $940 an ounce.
We shall see. The sales are scheduled to begin not long before bullion's traditional summer doldrums.
By the way, that's $12 billion out of IMF gold holdings that, by Morgan Stanley's reckoning, total $92 billion.
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