Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Gold news of note ( September 24 , 2014 ) -- Gold demand down some say ( 50 tonne gold smuggled into India in 10 days, 30% reached Mumbai ) ..... Options Expiration on the Comex Tomorrow - October contract for gold and silver ........ Venezuela opens gold vault to impromptu inspection -- So how about it, central banks ? China will take control of gold pricing, Sprott's Charles Oliver says ........Von Greyerz thinks Swiss gold referendum proposal has a good chance ......


http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-09-24/venezuela-default-looming-what-bofa-banker-wanted-look-first



With A Venezuela Default Looming, This Is What A BofA Banker Wanted To Look At First

Tyler Durden's picture
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 09/24/2014 22:00 -0400



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With a 66% chance of default/devaluation implied by the Venezuelan credit market, BofA economist Francisco Roriguez sprung an unusual question on the struggling socialist nation's central bank - Can you show me your gold?
As Bloomberg reports, the answer was "yes"...
He’d been itching to take a peek for years and now was the time to ask. With the government’s bonds sinking toward prices that indicate investors are bracing for the possibility of default, the country’s $15 billion of gold bars are crucial to ensuring debt payments are met.


His first impression once inside the vaults? Those bars don’t take up a lot of room.

“You picture that amount of money requiring a lot of space when, in reality, it all fits in five small cells that were not even full to the top,” Rodriguez, a Venezuela native who covers Andean economies for Bank of America Corp. in New York, said in a telephone interview yesterday.

He said he started counting frantically in his head, summing up figures scrawled out on signs near each pile of the metal. By his quick math, the gold was all there.
At least they have all their gold thanks to Chavez' repatriation, which is more than can be said about Germany.
Gold accounts for about 71 percent of Venezuela’s $21.4 billion of foreign reserves, according to the World Gold Council. About $13 billion of the gold is held at the central bank in downtown Caracas, with another $2 billion at the Bank of England, according to Rodriguez. Those gold assets have grown in importance as Venezuela’s overall foreign reserves plunged 34 percent in the past five years, the result largely of a drain of its more liquid assets.

The central bank didn’t reply to an e-mail seeking comment on the meeting. In a Sept. 23 note to clients,Rodriguez said the “rare” look at the gold was “largely symbolic yet reassuring.”

“It’s not that the majority of the people doubt that the gold is there,” he said by phone. “But it’s one of these things that linger, something that’s nagging you and makes you wonder: What if it’s not?”
*  *  *
As one commenter noted, "It's quite sad when Venezuela's Central Bank demonstrates more transparency with its assets than The Federal Reserve."














http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/mumbai/50-tonne-gold-smuggled-into-india-in-10-days-30-reached-mumbai/article1-1267634.aspx



50 tonne gold smuggled into India in 10 days, 30% reached Mumbai

Manish Pachouly, Hindustan Times  Mumbai, September 23, 2014
First Published: 22:01 IST(23/9/2014) | Last Updated: 22:05 IST(23/9/2014)
About 50 tonne gold has been smuggled into the country in the past 10 days, and subsequently pushed into the market to cater to a surge in demand for the precious metal in the festive season. There is a heavy demand for gold during Dussehra, for which booking and supply will start from Thursday, when shradh ends and Navratri starts.
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Market sources said that 30% of the smuggled gold has been supplied in Mumbai to unscrupulous jewellers, while the rest was distributed to different parts of the country.
Sources said that illegal gold is finding a place in the market because of below average import resulting from the 80:20 scheme and 10% import duty. Against the average monthly demand of 80 tonne, the import is presently around 51 tonne in the country.
Sources said that gold was smuggled into the country through the land route, via Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Pakistan. “This is because airports have tightened security, restricting the smuggling of gold by the air route,” said a market expert. The Mumbai airport customs, which has started a serious crackdown on gold smugglers, has seized around 529 kg gold from April to August this financial year.
Experts fear that more gold will be smuggled from similar land routes in days to come, as the demand will shoot up once the marriage season begins, in the later part of November. “There will be huge demand because of the festive season, and also the low price at which gold is presently being traded,” said Kumar Jain, vice-president of Mumbai Jewellers’ Association.
Jain said, “The government should immediately bring down the import duty and relax the 80:20 scheme, so that official import goes up. That will bring down the smuggling.”
Rajiv Popley, director Popley Group, said, “Smuggling of gold has been on the rise for the last eight months, due to irrational supply issues. The officially available gold was at a premium, which was higher than anywhere else in the world.”
Popley said that the demand for gold is increasing with the onset of festivities. “Both Dussehra and Diwali are auspicious festivities to invest in gold,” he said.
What is the 80:20 scheme* The Reserve Bank of India made it mandatory, in July 2013, for each importer to export 20% of gold that was imported into the country
* According to these norms, importers could bring more gold into the country only after this 20% was released to exporters
* The RBI move was an attempt to restrict gold imports, which were thought to be the biggest contributor to the widening current account deficit

Gold import:
960 tonne - average annual import in good market conditions
Import in 2014-2015 (April to August) – 257 tonne
Import in 2013-2014 – 563.4 tonne
Import in 2012-2013 – 845 tonne

80 tonne - average monthly import in good market conditions
51 tonne - average monthly import at present

Rise in import duty:* Raised to 2% from the earlier Rs300 for 10 grams in January 2012
* Raised from 2% to 4% in March 2012
* Raised from 6% to 8% in June 2013
* Raised from 8% to 10% in August 2013

Seizure by Mumbai airport customs:
April to July 2014 – 403.5kg
April to July 2013 – 61.46kg

Recent gold price:
September 22 – Rs26,400
September 20 – Rs26,500
September 19 – Rs26,525
September 18 – Rs26,575
September 17 – Rs26,850
September 16 – Rs26,965
September 15 – Rs26,990

Recent big seizures in Mumbai (2014) 
* August 30: The Air Intelligence Unit (AIU) of Mumbai Customs seized 12.5 kg gold worth Rs3.2 crore at the Mumbai international airport, in two separate seizures. The gold was being smuggled from Hong Kong and Dubai.
* August 9: The AIU seized 10.8 kg gold hidden in packets in the form of a garland, worth Rs2.3 crore, at domestic airport. In two other cases, Customs seized 3.9kg gold worth more than Rs1 crore.
* May 11: In the biggest single-day seizure of gold at the city airport, the AIU seized 25.5 kg gold valued at Rs6.5 crore from two passengers from Dubai. The duo arrived in different flights, but belonged to the same cartel. Both of them tried to pass off as loaders working at the airport, by hanging identity cards around their neck, which were actually driving licenses.
* April 11 - Customs seized 9kg gold worth Rs2.3 crore being smuggled into the city from Dubai. The passenger had tied 9 gold bars, each weighing one kg, on the upper half of his body.



http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/2014/09/gold-daily-and-silver-weekly-charts_24.html



24 SEPTEMBER 2014


Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Options Expiration on the Comex Tomorrow


As a reminder, tomorrow is an option expiration for gold and silver October contracts on the Comex.

There was intraday commentary here. The gold that was smuggled into India the other week is greater than all the registered gold on the Comex. And there is much more upcoming for the festival season.  This is a world of tails wagging dogs.  But they think they have the tails to do it.

I get the sense that the pigmen are scared.  Now what they may fear is another question.  Perhaps they are afraid of spraining their knee from repeatedly kicking the markets in the ass towards whatever direction they prefer at that time. Or perhaps they are staring into the abyss once again, and feeling the edge growing nearer.  It is hard to say. 

There was further intraday commentary here introducing a video from Nomi Prins about why the Anglo-Americans have such a keen interest in certain locales like the Ukraine and Syria she calls 'gateways.'   

There was nothing much of interest happening yesterday on the carney game called the Comex, that paragon of transparent price discovery. hah!
The Gold/Silver ratio is an eye popping 68.9.   And silver is about as consistently oversold as I have seen it.  I will be looking for another buy point here for my silver positions.

It is hard not to suspect that there is more to many of these things than meets the eye.  We have been lied to so consistently that it does well to maintain a very active skepticism about all these things that don't add up, and seem to come at us out of nowhere.

The professionals have taken over the management of the country and the economy, and they are not inclined to discuss the issues with common shareholders, much less the unimportant person on the street who is walking around waving an empty wallet and a pretty much meaningless vote.

Time to get your hearts and heads right.

Have a pleasant evening.



GATA....


Venezuela opens gold vault to impromptu inspection -- So how about it, central banks?

Submitted by cpowell on Wed, 2014-09-24 02:23. Section: 
By Isabella Cota
Bloomberg News
Tuesday, September 23, 2014
Francisco Rodriguez, an economist with Bank of America Corp., was at a routine meeting with Venezuelan central bank officials last week when he sprung an unusual question on them: Can you show me your gold?
He'd been itching to take a peek for years and now was the time to ask. With the government's bonds sinking toward prices that indicate investors are bracing for the possibility of default, the country's $15 billion of gold bars are crucial to ensuring debt payments are met. His first impression once inside the vaults? Those bars don't take up a lot of room.
"You picture that amount of money requiring a lot of space when, in reality, it all fits in five small cells that were not even full to the top," Rodriguez, a Venezuela native who covers Andean economies for Bank of America Corp. in New York, said in a telephone interview yesterday. He said he started counting frantically in his head, summing up figures scrawled out on signs near each pile of the metal. By his quick math, the gold was all there.
Rodriguez said that while he has remained optimistic about Venezuela's ability to keep servicing its debts, he has been getting nervous phone calls from investors amid the rout that sent the country's benchmark bonds to as low as 67 cents on the dollar last week. One client was even worried that the gold might have vanished from the vaults, a concern that Rodriguez said helped push him to ask to see the stockpile last week.
Gold accounts for about 71 percent of Venezuela’s $21.4 billion of foreign reserves, according to the World Gold Council. About $13 billion of the gold is held at the central bank in downtown Caracas, with another $2 billion at the Bank of England, according to Rodriguez. The total value of its reserves have dropped 34 percent over the past five years.
As the bond rout deepened earlier this month, President Nicolas Maduro sought to reassure creditors, saying Sept. 10 that the government will pay back its debt "down to the last dollar."
Investors aren't convinced. The cost to insure Venezuela's bonds against default for five years with credit default swaps is the highest in the world, at 15.47 percent. Standard & Poor's cut the rating on Venezuela's debt on Sept. 16 to CCC+, a level that indicates a 50 percent chance of non-payment within two years.
Rodriguez got his glimpse at the gold on Sept. 17, when, he said, he and four other people who attended the meetings at the central bank were led by an official in a white lab coat to a set of elevators with reinforced doors. Once it opened, some two or three floors underground, the vault was open for inspection under the watchful eye of security guards.
Inside were about five compartments, similar to jail cells but smaller, where different types of gold bars were stacked, Rodriguez said. Signs indicated how much gold was stored in each cell in ounces.
The central bank didn't reply to an e-mail seeking comment on the meeting with Rodriguez.
In a Sept. 23 note to clients, Rodriguez said the "rare" visit was "largely symbolic yet reassuring."
"It's not that the majority of the people doubt that the gold is there," he said over the telephone. "But it's one of these things that linger, something that's nagging you and makes you wonder: What if it's not?"



China will take control of gold pricing, Sprott's Charles Oliver says

Submitted by cpowell on Tue, 2014-09-23 12:47. Section: 
8:45a ET Tuesday, September 23, 2014
Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:
Sprott Asset Management gold portfolio manager Charles Oliver tells the Sprott Money News' Jeff Rutherford that China is well on its way to taking control of the monetary metal's price-determination mechanisms and building its gold reserves to a much higher level. The interview is 9 minutes long and can be heard at Sprott Money News here:
CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.




Arbitration awards $740 million to Gold Reserve for expropriation by Venezuela

Submitted by cpowell on Tue, 2014-09-23 12:27. Section: 
By Alexandra Ulmer
Reuters
Monday, September 22, 2014
CARACAS, Venezuela -- The International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes determined Venezuela must pay U.S.-based miner Gold Reserve $740.3 million for terminating its Las Brisas gold concession, the company said on Monday.
Socialist-run Venezuela in 2009 formally ended the concession in one of Latin America's largest gold deposits as part of a strategy to increase state control of key economic sectors.
Gold Reserve then sought $2.1 billion in damages at the World Bank's ICSID for what it deemed an expropriation. ...
... For the remainder of the report:




Koos Jansen: Chinese gold demand rises 5 percent as international exchange opens

Submitted by cpowell on Sat, 2014-09-20 13:05. Section: 
9:03a ET Saturday, September 20, 2014
Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:
China's gold demand, the offtake from the Shanghai Gold Exchange for the most recent week reported, rose nearly 5 percent as China bought the dip, gold researcher and GATA consultant Koos Jansen writes today. Jansen also reports the comments made at the opening ceremony of the exchange's international subsidiary, where the governor of the People's Bank of China said that China wants to become a major force in gold pricing. Jansen's commentary is posted at Bullion Star here:
CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.




Von Greyerz thinks Swiss gold referendum proposal has a good chance

Submitted by cpowell on Fri, 2014-09-19 14:07. Section: 
10a ET Friday, September 19, 2014
Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:
Swiss gold fund manager Egon von Greyerz tells King World News today that Switzerland's gold referendum proposal on the ballot in November has a good chance of approval, which might transform the gold market:
KWN also interviews United Kingdom Independence Party leader Nigel Farage about the West's counterproductive provocation of Russia over Ukraine:
CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.








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