Curious why every bank and their grandmother, and most recently Goldman today, has been lining up to push the price of gold as low as possible? Here's why:
- CYPRUS TO SELL 400 MLN EUROS WORTH OF GOLD RESERVES TO FINANCE PART OF ITS BAILOUT - TROIKA DOCUMENTS - RTRS
Or about 10 tons of gold. But... the bailout was prefunded and there was no need to provide any additional cash? What happened: was the deposit outflow discovered to have been even greater than the worst case scenario and thus Cyprus needed even more cash? As for the buyers? We will venture a guess: central banks buying at the lows.
Finally: congratulations Cypriots. You are now handing over your gold for the one time, unbeatable opportunity to remain a vassal state to the Eurozone. But at least you have your €.
The good news: Cyprus will have at least another 4 or so tons [6]after selling the 10 demanded now, before the Troika kindly requests that Cypriot citizens sell a kidney or two to pay for the ongoing deposit outflow from its insolvent banks, and indirectly, the endless bailout of the Euro.
[7]
Full story from Reuters:
Cyprus has agreed to sell excess gold reserves to raise around 400 million euros and help finance its part of its bailout, an assessment of Cypriot financing needs prepared by the European Commission showed.
The draft assessment, obtained by Reuters, also said that Cyprus would raise 10.6 billion euros from the winding down of Laiki Bank and the losses imposed on junior bondholders and the deposit-for-equity swap for uninsured deposits in the Bank of Cyprus.
Nicosia would get a further 600 million euros over 3 years from raising the corporate income tax rate and the capital gains tax rate.
Out of the total Cypriot financing needs of 23 billion euros between the second quarter of 2013 and the first quarter of 2016, the euro zone bailout fund will provide 9 billion euros, the International Monetary Fund 1 billion and Cyprus itself will generate 13 billion, the assessment said.