[GoldNugget]

Here is an interesting article about the IMF gold sales:

About Those Proposed IMF Gold Sales
by Doug Casey

...with countries such as China, Russia and the nations of the Middle East itching to add to their reserves, even a large dump of physical metal onto the market is certain to be absorbed in short order.

Nor will countries be the only buyers. Beverly Hills investments manager Kenneth Gerbino wrote in 2005 about a similar IMF sales speculation, saying that any additional supply "would surely be snapped up by the bullion banks and mining companies that are 'short' somewhere between 10,000 and 12,000 tonnes, according to some very savvy analysts." There's no reason to think that's changed much in the interim.


Gerbino could have been writing about the IMF when he concluded, "Central bankers will most likely continue, as usual, to scare the price of gold down from time to time by statements of gold sales. But they are all too keenly aware of the growing number of people who realize that the gold, not paper and ink, is the real stable monetary element."


Finally, it is important to keep the relatively miniscule amount of gold sales we are talking about in perspective. In an era where over $1 trillion in derivatives trade globally each day, $6.6 billion in sales is just not that much money when compared to potential investor demand once the U.S. dollar goes into the free fall that Doug Casey, among others, now believe is imminent.

In other words, if IMF sales do happen, and if they depress gold's price, that's a buying opportunity... for bullion