Gold Little Changed in Asia After G7 Approves IMF Bullion Sales

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Feb. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Gold was little changed in Asia amid uncertainty over the impact of possible sales of the precious metal by the International Monetary Fund.

Group of Seven officials, who met in Tokyo at the weekend, said they supported sales of gold from IMF reserves as part of its budget reforms. The IMF is the third-largest holder of gold reserves behind the central banks of the U.S. and Germany.

The IMF news ``had a mild tempering influence on the gold price,'' David Moore, commodity strategist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia in Sydney, said in a report today. ``However, the U.S. congress would still be required to vote in support of the gold sales.''

Bullion for immediate delivery fell 70 cents, or 0.1 percent, to $922.80 an ounce at 2:49 p.m. Singapore time. Silver added 0.2 percent to $17.52 an ounce at the same time.

Platinum for immediate delivery rose to a record high of $1,954.50 today and traded at $1,953.50 an ounce at 2:52 p.m. Singapore time, also boosting demand for other precious metals.

IMF gold sales ``may lead to some near-term profit taking'' but professional traders ``will be cautious in establishing short positions following repeated failed attempts to play corrections in gold of late,'' John Reade, analyst at UBS AG, said in a report yesterday.

The IMF has 3,217 metric tons of gold in its reserves, according to the World Gold Council.

Gold Resilience

``The resilience of the gold price in the past week was despite a firming of the U.S. dollar,'' Commonwealth's Moore said. ``Dollar fragility had been seen as an important factor behind the increase in the gold price over the past four months, with investors viewing gold as a hedge against dollar weakness.''

Gold has risen 11 percent since the start of the year and is only 1.5 percent below the record $936.92 an ounce reached on Feb. 1. Prices have remained firm even as oil has drifted below its early-January peak. Some investors favor gold as a hedge against inflation from rising energy and food costs.

Gold for April delivery was little changed at $925.80 an ounce at 3:12 p.m. Singapore time in after-hours electronic trading on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Gold for December delivery on The Tokyo Commodity Exchange rose by 20 yen, or 0.6 percent, to 3,194 yen a gram ($928 an ounce) at 4:13 p.m. local time.

The Shanghai Futures Exchange was closed because of the Lunar New Year holiday.

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原帖由 CDO 於 2008-2-12 08:24 PM 發表
Feb. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Gold was little changed in Asia amid uncertainty over the impact of possible sales of the precious metal by the International Monetary Fund.

Group of Seven officials, w ...

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