Hedging / barrick et Anglo gold dans la tourmente !

**marie** Skipper Inscription : 05/02/2005 Messages : 20140

rendez vous compte .. c'est Citigroup .. qui presse Barrick de réduire AGRESSIVEMENT son hedge book ! r.ire

Murphy a bien raison de se marrer qui en parle depuis 1999 !
d'autant plus que ça se gate avec le recul des ventes d'or du systéme WAg2 ... d'ou le tappage médiatique avec de forts hypothétiques ventes d'or par le FMI ... dont le montant représente en gros ce que WAG2 ne peut plus vendre ... troublante coincidence Wink

source Midas

South Africa: Hedge Book Weighs Heavily On Anglogold's Performance
Business Day (Johannesburg)

February 14, 2007
Posted to the web February 14, 2007
The group grew adjusted headline earnings to R10,22 a share from 481c in 2005. The figure excludes the effect of the group's hedge book but takes into account $100m of accounting adjustments arising from, among other issues, the introduction of an employee share ownership scheme last year and certain tax provisions. But if the effects of the hedge book are taken into account, the group posted a headline loss of 307c (271c) a share. The dividend was raised to 450c a share from 232c.
AngloGold is one of the few global gold producers to have a policy of selling gold forward to smooth earnings volatility but the policy is unpopular with the market when the gold price is rising. At the end of December, the marked-to-market value of the hedge book was a negative $2.9bn.
http://allafrica.com/stories/200702140351.html
-END-
Not good, eh!
Yet what’s that compared to Barrick’s bomb:
Citigroup urges Barrick to ‘aggressively’ reduce or repurchase entire gold hedgebook

BARRICK, NEWMONT
While Hill and Wark noted that while net production growth is not a realistic objective for Barrick, "improving the overall cost/quality/profile of the assets is. We regard the sell-down at Pueblo Viejo, divestiture of Paddington (Australia), and divestiture of the long-suffering South Deep (South Africa) to be net positives."

The analysts urged Barrick to "aggressively reduce the hedgebook. …Aggressive de-hedging could benefit Barrick in several ways: 1) Likely driving the gold price higher in the short term, with fabrication demand preventing full retracement; 2) Removing a longstanding barrier to ownership for thematic investors; and 3) Signaling to others that ‘the last bears have thrown in the towel.’"

Barrick’s mark-to-market liability as of December 31st is an estimated negative $4.3 billion. "At the current gold price ($660) we estimate the loss has been expanded to $4.6 billion," according to the analysts.
http://www.mineweb.net/mining_finance/628738.htm
-END-
A billion here, a billion there. What will the mark-to-market liabilities be of these two firms when gold takes out $1,000 per ounce?
Why the commotion now re derivatives and hedge books? My guess is The Gold Cartel and allies, such as Barrick and AngloGold, now realize the predicament they are in due to the lack of ECB group gold selling AND interest of other central banks on the buy side. Perhaps they realize that unless The Gold Cartel can pull a rabbit out of the hat, like making sure the IMF dumps some gold, their goose is cooked as far as their hedgebooks are concerned. What is a negative now for Barrick and AngloGold, could become catastrophic.
Not that GATA hasn’t told both of them so, not long after we were formed in 1999, and as we realized what the real deal was. While the following may not be of interest to a number of Café members, others might find some of the 1999 commentaries re Barrick and AngloGold to be worth the read. GATA has come a long way. Barrick and AngloGold continue to bang their heads against the wall, and surely don’t look to have any market acumen at all. Then again, when you are at the beck and call of The Gold Cartel, having sold your soul to them, one isn’t allowed to have market acumen. …

**g.sandro** Captain Inscription : 04/02/2005 Messages : 14576

La bourrique enragée écume... r.ire

...mais le fait que ce soit Citigroup ( pas le dernier des caballas associates) qui lui intime cet espèce d'ordre est à se pisser dessus r.ire

**marie** Skipper Inscription : 05/02/2005 Messages : 20140

un excellent commentaire de Adrian Douglas paru dans le Midas de ce soir .. héhé .. il a raison d'insister.. depuis le temps qu'on se foo de notre tête et de celle du Gata sur ce thème ... ça commence à être très coquet ! r.ire

.. autrement dit les analystes de citi group, éminent cartel member:
- reprennent à leur compte, TOUT LES ARGUMENTS et TRAVAUX du Gata sur le rôle des hedgeurs ( dont barrick est le chef de file ) VS le "management " du prix de l'or
-et tirent la sonnette d'alarme .... game is over ... on a perdu les gars ... tirez vous vite fait !
pour + de facilité, j'ai souligné en couleur, les points essentiels
...
More from Adrian:

Bill,
http://www.mineweb.net/mining_finance/628738.htm
The Citigroup report on gold and Barrick is quite astonishing. Their metal analysts Hill & Wark trot out comments that are straight from the GATA storyboard. Take for example their main points as to why gold will go higher
QUOTE
"Key factors include solid physical and fabrication demand, despite higher prices, and net central bank sales likely to undershoot," he said. "Ultimately, this positive stance is tied to: 1) The vanishingly small size of the gold market; 2) Emergence of motivated Chinese and petrodollar-fuelled Middle Eastern buyers; 3) Absence of aggressive short-sellers in a post-9/11 world; and 4) A series of complex handoffs between fabrication and investment demand."
END
GATA has been pounding the table that the key to analyzing the gold market is to understand that a supply/demand deficit of physical gold will blow gold prices through the roof. We have also been saying that Central Banks have run out of gold to suppress the price. These analysts talk of solid physical and fabrication demand and central bank gold sales likely to "undershoot". What surprised me was the fact that they characterized one of the drivers as "The vanishingly small size of the gold market". Good grief! These are conservative bankers saying that the physical market is about to dry up and vanish! In their second point they emphasize that there are now "motivated Chinese and Middle Eastern buyers" …isn’t this identical to information obtained from the Midas "Stalker" input? They also cite the "absence of aggressive short sellers"…I would be inclined to say that given the Cartel’s daily shenanigans "absence" is somewhat exaggerated, but clearly hedging has been significantly reduced in recent years! In point 4 they refer to a "series of complex handoffs between fabrication and investment demand". This sounds to me to be a euphemism for derivatives which GATA has repeatedly warned about.
What also grabbed my attention like someone hit me around the head with a 2 by 4 was the following:-
QUOTE
The analysts urged Barrick to "aggressively reduce the hedgebook. …Aggressive de-hedging could benefit Barrick in several ways: 1) Likely driving the gold price higher in the short term, with fabrication demand preventing full retracement; 2) Removing a longstanding barrier to ownership for thematic investors; and 3) Signaling to others that ‘the last bears have thrown in the towel.’"
END
They categorically state that if Barrick were to de-hedge it would drive the gold price higher. The corollary of that is that hedging drives the gold price lower. I had many heated e-mail exchanges with Bobby Godsell at Anglogold who refused to acknowledge that obvious bit of economic theory. The WGC has steadfastly refused to agree that hedging was a gold price suppression scheme cooked up by the gold Cartel and the US Government. We have been called raving lunatics for claiming that the world was round, but now the flat-earth analysts trot out their analysis that just takes it for granted, without even any need for discussion, that the world is in fact round!
They openly encourage Barrick to reduce or buy back their entire hedge book. Again, GATA has been accused of being a bunch of crack-pots for not understanding how hedging was a necessary business tool to manage the risk of gold price fluctuations! These analysts now characterize Barrick as being "gold bears". In light of the previous discussion of hedging being implicated in the suppression of the gold price this not only characterizes Barrick as being a perma-bear on their own product but also implies that they were complicit in having brought about a gold bear market! (They must have at least been paying attention to the Blanchard v Barrick and JPMorganChase litigation)
Hill & Wark want Barrick to signal to all that "the last bears have thrown in the towel"…in other words the game is up.
GATA was laughed at for criticizing the supposedly brilliant margin-call-exempt perpetually short forward sales scheme of Barrick. The message from Citigroup is "you had better cover real fast because the jig is up"!
And I guess these two guys came up with these ideas all on their own! So far I haven’t seen any vitriolic responses posted anywhere that challenges their mental stability!
Cheers
Adrian ...Douglas , Midas

pour ceux qui veulent en savoir +, les épisodes précédents, c'est ici

on relira aussi avec délice le topo de Antal Fekete To Barrick or to be Barricked

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