Word: gold
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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South Africa announced that it would sell 100,000 ounces of 22-carat gold at $38.20 an ounce through the London brokers Mocatta & Goldsmid. (On the basis of 24-carat or "pure" gold, the Fund's yardstick, that meant a premium of about $6.50 over the $35 rate.) South Africa said the gold was not being sold for monetary purposes but for industrial and similar uses, and was thus beyond the Fund's jurisdiction. The Fund thought differently. Since the brokers kept mum on the gold's destination, the Fund suspected that it was going to hoarders...
Fiction? South Africa's unsmiling old (67) Finance Minister Nicolaas Christiaan Havenga went right ahead anyway. He ridiculed the Fund's objections. Said he: "It is becoming increasingly clear . . . that . . . the fiction that gold is worth only $35 an ounce cannot endure much longer. This is an international problem and will soon be the touchstone of the success or failure of the Fund...
...found South Africa's economy, based primarily on its gold-mining industry, in deep trouble and short of dollars. Gold sales looked like the quickest solution. What disturbed the Fund more than the first sale was Havenga's apparent determination to make additional premium sales. If Havenga got away with it, there was no reason why other gold-producing countries, notably Canada, could not do the same thing...
...year. There was a greater threat. The Fund, controlled by the U.S., might persuade the Export-Import Bank to turn thumbs down on South Africa's application for a $100 million loan. In any case, the Fund had no intention of being pressured into boosting the price of gold...
...price of gold tumbled in panicky selling on the Paris free market early last week. The U.S. $20 gold piece, which has been sliding from its January high of over 28,000 francs (about $88 at the official free rate), dropped to 21,200 francs (or $66), down 2,500 francs in a week. A 2.2 pound gold bar, worth 837,000 francs a few weeks ago, dropped to 635,000. The Bourse was baffled by the reason for the plunge. But it seemed to be caused by rising confidence in France's currency...