Goud de nieuwe wereldvaluta ?

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Op dinsdag 31 maart 2009 15:58 schreef dvr het volgende:


misschien moet ik er maar gewoon een lap grond van kopen, daar kunnen ze tenminste niets mee uitvreten (zal je zien dat er asbest in zit )

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G20 supports IMF's plan to sell 403 tons of gold

Endorsement signals plan likely to be approved by member countries this year
By Moming Zhou, MarketWatch
Last update: 3:30 p.m. EDT April 2, 2009

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) - Leaders from the Group of 20 nations Thursday endorsed the International Monetary Fund's plan to sell 403 tons of gold to raise funds to support the world's poorest countries.
The announcement from G20 leaders helped add pressures to Thursday's gold trading. Gold futures fell $20.30, or 2.2%, to $905.80 an ounce in recent trading on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. See Metals Stocks.
The G20 vowed in its statement to "use the additional resources from agreed IMF gold sales for concessional finance for the poorest countries." Read more on G20.
The endorsement suggests that the IMF's gold sales plan is likely to be approved by its member countries later this year.
The IMF has been planning to sell gold since as early as 2007 to diversify its revenues and strengthen its balance sheet. But the plan needs to be approved by an 85% majority vote from its 185 members.
The U.S., which has 17% voting power in the fund, essentially holds veto power. The U.S. government has informed the IMF that Congressional authorization by law is required before it is able to support the plan.
The U.S. Treasury announced last year that it will seek authority from Congress.
Hussein Allidina, an analyst at Morgan Stanley, said in a note Thursday that he expects the IMF to implement the sales over the next few years, "but do not believe that this presents a strong negative risk to gold prices - as it will be 'orderly' and maybe even off market."
The US administration has seemed supportive, both for expanding the IMF's role as well as helping its long-term funding challenges. This makes the proposed IMF gold sales much more likely, as the US Congress effectively has a veto on this decision, with the US having a 17% vote on an IMF decision that needs 85% to pass.
Minimize market impact
The IMF, which holds more than 3,200 tons of gold, is the third-largest holder in the world after the U.S. and Germany.
Most of the IMF's gold holdings come from the fund's member countries, which are required to commit 25% of their quota in gold. The fund can't sell those holdings into the markets.
But an additional 403.3 tons of gold the fund acquired through off-market transactions in 1999 and 2000 - such as interest payment from countries that received IMF loans - are not subject to the restriction.
If member countries approved the gold sales, the IMF can find ready buyers in countries with low gold reserves, especially Russia and some Asian countries such as China, Taiwan, and India.
China, with less than 1% of its $2 trillion reserves held in gold, has expressed interest in buying more gold, crude oil, and other strategic commodities.
According to the IMF's plan, the gold selling will be implemented in coordination with major central banks to minimize the impact on the market.

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Op zaterdag 4 april 2009 22:24 schreef Mendeljev het volgende:
Misschien niet het juiste topic, maar welke negatieve punten zou je kunnen bedenken om niet in diamanten te stappen boven goud? Het schijnt dat de hoogwaardige stenen met 'antwerp cut' het afgelopen jaar al met 70% in waarde zijn gestegen. Het is wel jammer dat de waarde afhankelijk is van iedere koper aangezien er een heel erg dunne handel en ook geen standaard is.

http://www.pricescope.com/diamond-prices.aspx

http://www.elsevier.nl/we(...)or-de-liefhebber.htm

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Op zaterdag 4 april 2009 23:02 schreef Mendeljev het volgende:

Voor punten 3&4, zijn synthethische diamanten dan ook van dezelfde kwaliteit als de high-grade diamanten? (helderheid, kleur etc..) En afgezien daarvan, beschikken over echtheidscertificaat hoeft toch geen reden zijn om niet te willen kopen?

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Going for gold: How the world's mints are coining it

The world's mints are coining it as unprecedented numbers of savers search for safer investments

LEONARD FOEGER/REUTERS
By Sarah Marsh in Vienna and Jan Harvey in London

Sunday, 5 April 2009


The Austrian Mint is producing more Philharmonic gold coins in a week than it normally does in a month


The Austrian Mint is producing more Philharmonic gold coins in a week than it normally does in a month

A few years ago his visits to the mint, founded more than 800 years ago, might have seemed eccentric. No longer. From the Russian Georgy Pobedonosets to the American Eagle, gold coin production is being cranked up in mints around the world to satisfy customers believing the assets may be immune to the global financial crisis.

Russia's state-controlled Sberbank says it has never seen such strong demand for investment coins. In Australia, the Perth Mint had to suspend new orders for gold coins because it could not keep pace with overseas demand. And, in America, the US Mint says sales of its one-ounce American Eagle gold bullion coins rocketed by more than 400 per cent to 710,000 ounces in 2008. "The demand for gold and silver," said US Mint spokeswoman Carla Coolman, "has been unprecedented."

Austria's Philharmonic, named after the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, was the world's best-selling gold coin in the last quarter and sales soared 544 per cent in the first two months of 2009. "There is no sign of demand abating," Austrian Mint's marketing director Kerry Tattersall said. Sales this year are expected to exceed 2008's record levels. "At present, production is struggling to keep up with demand."

Hans Dieter Rauch, who sells both collectors' and investors' coins in his boutique on Graben, one of Vienna's most exclusive shopping streets, said revenues rose 300 per cent last year. "It's the man in the street, not particularly rich people but normal citizens like you and me," said Mr Rauch, 65, monitoring the fluctuating price of gold on a screen in his back room.

Gold hit a record high of $1,030.80 (£700) an ounce in March 2008 and last month rose back above $1,000. Jewellery sales by cash-strapped Americans and Europeans have helped to slow the metal's rise in recent weeks.

The Czech Republic's Komercni Banka this month added gold coins and bars to its traditional portfolio of products. Even the Central Bank of Armenia is at it, issuing 10,000 gold coins with a Zodiac signs design. And, in New Zealand, Michael O'Kane, head bullion trader at the mint, said it was averaging a month's transactions in a day.

Wealthy investors are more likely to invest in bars than coins as the premium for production costs is lower, said Wolfgang Wrzesniok-Rossbach, head of sales at the precious metals group Heraeus. "If you buy a kilo bar you have to pay the surcharge for producing the bar, which is pretty low, only once" he said. "If you buy 30 1oz coins, which would be about equal to a 1kilo bar, you have to pay 30 times that amount."

Coins have the edge for small investors who want flexibility and appreciate their aesthetic allure. Demand is for more than physical products: in the past few years, gold has been sought after for speculative gains, with interest in gold-backed funds in particular soaring. But since the financial crisis accelerated last autumn, interest in coins and bars has increased, with investors seeking security rather than profit.

Other manufacturers are reducing output and jobs, but the Royal Canadian Mint quadrupled capacity to produce its bullion gold and silver Maple Leaf coins in late 2008, and the Austrian Mint is producing in one week what it usually churns out in a month. It has extended its shifts throughout the night and weekend and recruited more workers to cope with the surge in demand.

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China admits to building up stockpile of gold

SHANGHAI/BEIJING - China revealed on Friday that it had secretly raised its gold reserves by three-quarters since 2003, increasing its holdings to 1,054 tonnes - or a pot worth about US$30.9-billion - and confirming years of speculation it had been buying.

Hu Xiaolian, head of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, told Xinhua news agency in an interview that the country's reserves had risen by 454 tonnes from 600 tonnes since 2003, when China last adjusted its state gold reserves figure.

The confirmation of its surreptitious stockpiling is likely to fuel market talk about Beijing's ability to buy secretly and its ambitions for spending its nearly US$2-trillion pile of savings. And not just in gold: copper and other metals markets are booming thanks to China's barely-visible hand.

Speculation has gathered speed over the last year, since the tumbling dollar has threatened to weaken China's buying power - and give it yet more reason to diversify into gold, oil and metals.

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