IMF announces 400 tonnes gold sales

ZeroHedge has been on top of things and been the first to post. Here is the Official press release:

The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) today approved gold sales in a volume strictly limited to 403.3 metric tons, with these sales to be conducted under modalities that safeguard against disruption of the gold market. This decision is a central element of the new income model for the IMF that was endorsed by the Executive Board in April 2008 and will also increase the Fund’s resources for lending to low-income countries [...]

So the 403.3 metric tons of gold, "which is one-eighth of the Fund’s total holdings", or about 13,000,000 tr. oz are worth about $13 billion.

While I do not know how the gold market is going to react to this, here are a couple of interesting facts:

• $13 billion is a drop in the ocean of US dollars the Fed is printing, and a drop in the currency reserves of China. Let's hope that the Chinese Gov will be clever enough to just buy the whole lot in one shot.
• 13 million troy ounces represent about 130,000 gold futures contracts, which is the volume of one day of trading on the futures exchanges.