"Real Change" - Canada sells 43.3% of its official gold reserves.

"Real Change" - Canada sells 43.3% of its official gold reserves. (pennyminingstocks).

According to the IMF (http://www.gold.org/research/latest-world-official-gold-reserves), Canada sold 1.3 tonnes of gold reserves (43.3% of its gold reserves) in January 2016.
Update: It seems the sale happened in December 2015. (See pictures below).

As of January 2016 Canada had 3.0 tonnes of Gold reserves and as of February 2016 only 1.7 tonnes.

Canada sold most of its gold in the 1990s with UK at the lowest price possible. Canada had 1,023 tonnes of gold reserves in 1965 the highest level recorded in its history.

Canada sold off half of its central bank gold holdings by 1985 down to 500 tonnes and then was a major participant in the western central bank collusion scheme to suppress the price of gold and sold gold at fire sale prices all through the 1990s up to 2002.

HT and source:

January/16 Canada sold 1/2 of Gold Reserves.

We're 99th just above Albania below Haiti.
You think that hurt our $ ? pic.twitter.com/ZIFutZ2gtx

— Manny Montenegrino (@manny_ottawa) February 6, 2016

Last time Canada sold off its gold reserves:
Low $ 65 cents
Liberal Government.
( see last tweet ) pic.twitter.com/0DeUMOATom

— Manny Montenegrino (@manny_ottawa) February 6, 2016

Source.

Russian Gold production: Too much of a good thing?

Russian Gold production: Too much of a good thing? (RBTH).

Russian gold producers may need to reduce their mining operations to prevent prices from falling further as the result of an increase in supply on the market.

Russia is the world’s third-largest gold-producing country. Over much of the past decade, the rising price of gold made it a safe haven for investors put off by the volatility of stock markets. But in 2013, gold prices began to fall, and many market forecasters today think this trend is set to continue – due in part to a glut of gold on the market. Russian gold producers remain undeterred. 

By the end of 2013, for the first time in 25 years, Russia surpassed the U.S. in the total output of mined gold, reaching third place among gold-producing countries. Gold mining in Russia has been growing rapidly in recent years. According to the Federal State Statistics Service, also known as Rosstat, the amount of mined gold was 12% in 2013 and 7% in 2012.

According to the Russian Gold Producers Union, gold extraction and production in the first half of 2014 increased 27% in comparison with the same period the previous year and exceeded 116.7 tons. 

“We see that the consumption of physical gold is stable,” says Nikolai Zelensky, general director of Nordgold. “It is mostly consumed by developing countries such as China and India.” 

In his words, for example, China’s demand for gold in 2014 is approximately 1,000 tons a year, which is about 25% of world consumption. 

“Bearing in mind that Russia has a series of projects that gold producers must implement in 2014-2015, gold production in Russia will continue growing in the upcoming four or five years,” adds Mr. Zelensky. 

Russian regions continue increasing their gold extraction. In particular, according to Vladimir Pechenyi, governor of the Magadan Region (the main gold-producing region in the Far East), the development of ore deposits will help the region mine up to 80 tons of gold a year. By comparison, in 2014, the region plans to mine only 24 tons. 

The increase in volume has done nothing to reverse the sharp fall in the price of gold in recent years. From 2012 to 2013, the average price of gold decreased 24%, while silver fell 38%. 

In his interview with the Kommersant business newspaper, CEO of Polymetal Vitaly Nesis stated that if the market price for gold falls below $1,000 an ounce, some production operations will have to be closed. 

According to Mr. Nesis, economic incentive to launch new enterprises only exists only when the price of gold rises to $1,500-$1,600 an ounce. Therefore the recovery of the market will take place only after a worldwide reduction in the production of gold and silver, Mr. Nesis concludes. Hmmm....Ok .....you are forewarned.

Putin's Russia Will Retaliate Over "Illegal And Absurd" Payment Block By "Hostile" JPMorgan.

Putin's Russia Will Retaliate Over "Illegal And Absurd" Payment Block By "Hostile" JPMorgan.HT: Zerohedge.

While everyone was gushing over the spectacle on TV of a pro-HFT guy and anti-HFT guy go at it, yesterday afternoon we reported what was by far the most important news of the day, one which was lost on virtually everyone if only until this morning, when we reported that "Monetary Blockade Of Russia Begins: JPMorgan Blocks Russian Money Transfer "Under Pretext" Of Sanctions." This morning the story has finally blown up to front page status, which it deserves, where it currently graces the FT with "Russian threat to retaliate over JPMorgan block." And unlike previous responses to Russian sanctions by the West, which were largely taken as a joke by the Russian establishment, this time Russia is furious: according to Bloomberg, the Russian foreign ministry described the JPM decision as "illegal and absurd."  And as Ukraine found out last month, you don't want Russia angry.
More:

The biggest U.S. bank thwarted a remittance from the Russian embassy in Astana, Kazakhstan, to Sogaz Insurance Group “under the pretext of anti-Russian sanctions imposed by the United States,” the ministry said yesterday in a statement on its website. Sogaz lists OAO Bank Rossiya, a St. Petersburg-based lender facing U.S. sanctions over the Ukrainian crisis, as a strategic partner on its website.

Interfering with the transaction was an “absolutely unacceptable, illegal and absurd decision,” Alexander Lukashevich, a ministry spokesman, said in the statement.

U.S. President Barack Obama announced the action against Bank Rossiya last month as part of a broadening of sanctions that targeted government officials and allies of Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose associates own Rossiya. The embassy’s transaction was for less than $5,000 dollars, a person with knowledge of the dispute said, asking not to be identified because such transfers aren’t public.

Did JPMorgan just move the second Cold War into semi-hot status? Very possibly:

“Any hostile actions against the Russian diplomatic mission are not only a grossest violation of international law, but are also fraught with countermeasures that unavoidably will affect activities of the embassy and consulates of the U.S. in Russia,” Lukashevich said.

As we reported yesterday, for now the JPM party line is to plead ignorance, as it does not want to incur the wrath of the US government, because apparently lying to Congress is less of an issue than transacting with Russian oligarchs.
Once again: watch this space carefully - should more western commercial banks (here's looking at you Citigroup, Bank of America, and Citi, and of course "money launderer to criminals everywhere" extraordinaire HSBC) just say no to more Russian hot money, things get really interesting.... if for nothing else, then certainly the ultra-luxury end of the Manhattan real estate market.
Finally, we certainly can not be the only ones looking forward to the epic battle prospect that is Vlad "Shootin" Putin vs JP "Fail Whale" Morgan. Especially if it involves more such sudden moves in gold as what just happened.Read the full story here.

China, gold prices & US default threats....Where there is Smoke there's 'Tungsten Gold bars?'

China, gold prices and US default threats...."Where there is Smoke there's 'Tungsten Gold bars?'(RT).

Since August 1971, when US President Richard Nixon unilaterally tore up the Bretton Woods Treaty of 1944 and told the world that the Federal Reserve ‘gold window’ was permanently closed, Wall Street banks and US and City of London financial powers have done everything imaginable to prevent gold from again becoming the basis of trust in a currency. 

On Friday, October 11, when there was no sign of any deal between US Congress members and the Obama White House that would end the government shutdown, the Chicago CME Group, which operates Comex - the Chicago Commodity Exchange, where contracts in gold derivatives are traded - announced that at 8:42am Eastern time the trading was halted for 10 seconds after a safety mechanism was triggered because a 2-million-ounce (56.7 million grams) gold futures sell order was executed.

Something rotten in gold market.  

The result of that huge paper gold sale was that at just the time when a possible US government debt default would send investors in a panic rush to the safety of buying gold, instead, the price plunged $30 an ounce to a three-month low of $1,259.60 an ounce. Market insiders believe the reason was direct market manipulation.

David Govett, head of precious metals at bullion broker Marex Spectron, calls the sudden huge futures sale suspicious. 
"These moves are becoming more and more prevalent and to my mind have to either be the work of someone attempting to manipulate the market or someone who really shouldn’t be trusted with the sums of money they are throwing around. There are ways of entering and exiting a market so that minimum damage is caused and whoever is entering these orders has no intention of doing that," Govett said.
UBS gold trader Art Cashin echoed the suspicion. 
“…if that happens once it could be an accident of technology, or it could be a simple error. But when it happens five times over a period of months, it does raise questions. Is it being done purposefully? Is somebody trying to influence the market?” 


That ‘someone’ market sources believe is the Obama White House, in league with the Federal Reserve and key Wall Street banks that would be ruined were gold to really rise.

Hmmmm.......According to unofficial calculations, the Peoples’ Bank of China today holds about 3,500 tons of monetary gold, surpassing Germany, to make it number two in the world after the Federal Reserve.

And there are grave doubts whether the Federal Reserve actually holds the 8,044 tons of gold it claims it does. 

The former International Monetary Fund director, France’s Dominique Straus-Kahn, demanded an independent audit of the Federal Reserve gold after the US refused to deliver to the IMF 191 tons of gold agreed to under the IMF Articles of Agreement signed by the Executive Board in April 1978 to back Special Drawing Rights issuance.

Immediately before he could rush back to Paris, he was hit by a bizarre hotel sex scandal and abruptly forced to resign. 

Straus-Kahn had been shown a secret Russian intelligence report prepared for President Vladimir Putin in which ‘rogue’ CIA agents revealed that the US Federal Reserve had no gold reserves and only lied that it did.

The stakes for Washington and Wall Street in depressing the gold price are staggering. Were gold to soar to $10,000 or more, where many believe current demand-supply pressures would find it, there would be a panic selloff of the dollar and of US Treasury bonds. China now holds a record $3.7 trillion of foreign currency reserves and the US Treasury bonds and bills are about half that.

That selloff would send US interest rates sky-high, forcing a chain-reaction of corporate and personal bankruptcies that have been avoided since the financial crisis broke in 2007 only owing to record near-zero Federal Reserve interest rates. That selloff, in turn, would be the end of the US as the world’s sole superpower. Little wonder the Obama Administration is manipulating gold. It cannot last very long at this pace, however. Read the full story here.


Like Nessie these 'Stories' pop up once in a while:



Related: Hmmm.....Flashback: MFS - The Other News - March 26 th :  "Not everything that shines is Gold !" Tungsten Filled 1 kilo Gold Bar Discovered in UK.
Within mere hours of this scam being identified – Chinese officials had many of the perpetrators in custody.
And here’s what the Chinese allegedly uncovered: Roughly 15 years ago – during the Clinton Administration [think Robert Rubin, Sir Alan Greenspan and Lawrence Summers] – between 1.3 and 1.5 million 400 oz tungsten blanks were allegedly manufactured by a very high-end, sophisticated refiner in the USA [more than 16 Thousand metric tonnes]. Subsequently, 640,000 of these tungsten blanks received their gold plating and WERE shipped to Ft. Knox and remain there to this day. I know folks who have copies of the original shipping docs with dates and exact weights of “tungsten” bars shipped to Ft. Knox.

Another "Swiss Gold Bars Scam" discovered - Tungsten-Filled 10 Oz Gold Bar Found In The Middle Of Manhattan's Jewelry District.

"The Great Bank Robbery" - Is a Cyprus Gold Confiscation the real Goal of Euro Group?

"The Great Bank Robbery" - Is a Cyprus Gold Confiscation the real Goal of Euro Group?HT: StratRisks. (RUVR).The European Union, the IMF and the ECB are pushing Cyprus into bankruptcy while risking a contagion effect that could lead to the meltdown of the eurozone. European leaders have already bailed out Greece, Portugal, Spain and Italy. Why is the Cyprus bailout so special? Why do the European leaders prefer to push the country into bankruptcy and raid the Cypriot bank accounts instead of saving it?

There are several possible reasons for such a behavior. Either the leaders of the Troika have made a mistake with terrible consequences or they have a plan which is not obvious to outside observers. If the bailout package, combined with a “solidarity levy” on the bank accounts is a bona fide mistake, why aren’t they willing to correct it? The European negotiators insist that Cyprus must provide 5.86 billion euros, knowing that the Cypriot government doesn’t have the money. So far, it looks like the Troika acts within a well established plan. What are they trying to achieve?

Let’s take a look at the gold market. It has been known for several years, that the central banks of the developed world are operating a huge price suppression scheme in the gold and silver markets. The mainstream media is ignoring this fact, but several whistleblowers, like the former Goldman Sachs trader Andrew Maguire, have come up with facts and figures, supporting the hypothesis of a wide conspiracy to suppress the prices of gold and silver. For several years, well known traders and investors like Eric Sprott and John Sinclair have been trying to draw the press’ attention to this problem. According to the latest calculations made by Eric Sprott, it is likely that the US Federal Reserve has almost no physical gold available, so its ability to continue suppressing the gold prices is diminished. If this is true, the Cyprus crisis is a boon to the market manipulators.

Russia 24, the Russian state news channel, reports that under the current plan that is being discussed by the Cypriot parliament, the Central Bank of Cyprus will sell its gold reserves in order to cover a part of the 5.86 billion euros demanded by the Euro group. Other sources of financing the country’s “contribution” include such outrageous measures as a special levy on bank accounts and the expropriation of the money held by the Cypriot pension system, so everyone’s attention is diverted from the sale of gold. The gold reserves of Cyprus stand at 13.9 tons. While not a big amount in itself, these reserves represent “physical gold” not “paper gold” which makes it very valuable from a market manipulation perspective.

If the central banks and financial institutions that are suppressing the gold prices are running short on “physical gold”, then each ounce of real assailed, not rehypothecated gold is priceless. Time has shown that the gold market manipulators are extremely powerful and will go to any lengths to keep the gold and silver prices down. If they have to force a country into bankruptcy in order to get 13.9 tons of physical gold and use it to suppress the prices, they’ll do it. If they have to create a distraction for the media, like a “special levy on bank accounts”, they’ll do it. If they are successful, it is very likely that Italian or Spanish gold reserves will be targeted next.Read the full story here.

"Deutsche Gründlichkeit" - Germany to repatriate gold from US and France.

"Deutsche Gründlichkeit" -  Germany to repatriate gold from US and France.(RT).Germany’s central bank is set to reclaim some of its vast gold reserves held in the US and France, a German daily reported. The move follows an audit criticizing Bundesbank for mismanagement, stating the funds had never been “verified physically.”
Bundesbank voiced plans to withdraw its entire 450-ton store of gold bullion from the Bank of France in Paris, and a portion of the 1,500 tons currently held by the New York Federal Reserve, Handelsblatt reported.
The German government refrained from commenting on the reports ahead of its presentation of a new plan for the management of its gold reserves on Wednesday. Germany boasts the world’s second-largest bullion reserves at 270,000 gold bars ($177.5 billion), second only to the US.
Germany’s gold stockpile was relocated abroad during the Cold War amid fears of a possible Soviet invasion. There is no reason now to maintain overseas stockpiles, Bundesbank said – from now on, the bank will only keep small amounts of gold abroad for trading purposes.
About 30 percent of Germany’s gold reserves are currently being held in the country at the facilities of Frankfurt-based Bundesbank.
The move follows a damning report by the German Court of Auditors criticizing the management of Bundesbank’s foreign bullion stockpiles. Auditors said that the stores “had never been verified physically,” and were not under proper control.
Bundesbank was taken aback by the criticism, stressing there was no need for speculation on Germany’s overseas holdings and that "there is no doubt about the integrity of the foreign storage sites." The central bank is widely regarded as one of the most trustworthy institutions in German society.
Veteran gold dealer Jim Sinclair said that Bundesbank’s strategy marked a change in trends in the global gold market, heralding a move away from paper administration of funds.Read the full story here.

Related:  "German Efficiency" - Germany will physically inspect its gold reserves worldwide.

"Deutsche Gründlichkeit" - Why Germany Wants to See its US Gold.

Germans want to Check the 'fed reserve' Vaults about Their Foreign Gold Reserves.

Will the 'Gold Standard' make a comeback to the U.S. in 2013?