Is Russia Selling Their Gold Reserves?

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(Kitco News) - Analysts appear mixed as to whether or not Russia could be selling its gold reserves to prop up its faltering currency and economy.

Speculation started to rise on the size of Russia's gold holdings Thursday, after news agencies reported a drop in the Russian Federation's international foreign reserves. According to weekly data provided by the Central Bank of Russia, as of Dec. 5, it held $416.2 billion, down from $420.5 billion reported a week earlier.


Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation
However, the central bank's foreign reserves include foreign currencies, Special Drawing Right holdings, reserve positions in the International Monetary Fund and monetary gold. There have been no specific reports that Russia is selling its gold.

Russia has been a significant buyer of gold in 2014. According to IMF data, compiled by the World Gold Council, as of October the country has bought 133.6 metric tons of gold. It's biggest purchase was made in September when it added more than 37 metric tons of gold to its reserves.

Julian Jessop, head of commodity strategy at Capital Economics, said that the decline in Russia's reserves is probably the result of the central bank selling other "low-yielding government bonds" that it is holding.

"I haven't seen their foreign reserves but I don't think that Russia is selling its gold. The last thing they would do is sell their gold," he said.
Kitco
 
Russia is a significant buyer of gold. but maybe had to sell some recently... i think they realised they were low in cash from to much gold buying.
russia should join SS. it would fit right in.
 
ego2spare said:
Russia is a significant buyer of gold. but maybe had to sell some recently... i think they realised they were low in cash from to much gold buying.
russia should join SS. it would fit right in.
The avatar being a hammer and sickle?
 
Another example of how the dollar won't matter to the ruskies.
They will just open their wallet, hand over the gold and forget about some sanction.
They must be relieved to have access to what they need, and just heaps of gold.
It will be interesting, when they, will only take gold as payment for their energy !
And the dollar a laughing stock, as perceived by the rest of us.
Well played Russia.
 
Russia could sell their US dollars in exchange for anything else - e.g. CHF, JPY, RMB...

It would be hard to believe they're selling their gold.
I don't think Russia would be so stupid or desperate or, stupid & desperate to sell their gold.

They must still have a bunch of dollars and dollar-denominated assets. They could sell those to someone who wants them. But who'd want them?
China doesn't accumulate any USD reserves since November 2013, I doubt Japan would want some USD-denominated assets and what would Iran do with them?

Russia could sell their euros and dollars for some other currency.

...just trying to guess Russia's moves to take its revenge on the West.
 
Some Iranian secretary denied beginning of "barter trade" between Russia and Iran. Iran would supply Russia with oil and Russia Iran with goods.

I heard there is one joke in Russia getting more and more popular:
Next year everything in Russia will be related to number 63. It will be Putin's 63th birthday. Price of oil will be 63$. And rouble will be 63 (to $).
:P

If I'm not wrong oil is already bellow 63$.
 
So it was a rumour developed from a bad translation;

It turns out that the article was based on the text of a Russian language website someone was, it would seem, just too lazy to translate. The original report in Russian didn't say anything about selling gold, stating clearly that it was international currency reserves that decreased to $416.2 billion from $420.5 billion. I suspect that a picture of gold bars on the page was all it took for the author(s) to jump to a mistaken conclusion.
 
Yes, I know what that is like.
When Olga..or was it Svetlana....or was it Anna....texted me out of the blue in desperate need of help because .....rough interpretation...."she had been burglar and now had broken keyhole. Please need $70 to fix keyhole as too scared for sleep."
 
20141216_russia.jpg

When ya going to go bankrupt convert creditt into portable non seize able assets. Is this the start of GFC2 or is GFC1 still going??
 
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