It has been a while since the IMF sold gold directly to sovereign countries. Today that changed, as once again the IMF is either telegraphing it is happy with a gold price of $1,250 (although its sales last year did not prevent gold from surging to record highs as of two days ago), or that it is increasingly poorer (as it is now solely supporting a broke Europe, that would not be surprising). Dow Jones reports that the IMF just sold $403 million dollars, or 10 metric tons, to Bangladesh (yeah Bangladesh). As the IMF has sold 190 tons in off market transactions, and another 90 tons in the open market, the entity that has been pitching the SDR rather aggressively lately may soon hit its 400 ton quota. Although just like the US debt ceiling, that is merely a limit to be broken. Oddly enough, the direct buyers from the IMF continue to be monetary backwaters such as Mauritius, Sri Lanka and India... and now Bangladesh: at least ever more Asian countries are starting to get the gist of what is happening with the dollar. And once China is discovered to be directly or indirectly buying IMF gold, the all bets are off on the gold price hitting $1,600 in under two years. And this will happen even as Bangladesh realizes that it can't, gasp, eat the gold.

From Dow Jones

The International Monetary Fund said Thursday it sold 10 metric tons of gold to the Bangladesh's central bank worth $403 million based on Tuesday's market prices.



The IMF has been steadily selling a portion of its holdings in the market since early in the year, coordinating the effort with regularly scheduled sales by European central banks in order to avoid market disruptions.



The sales are part of the IMF's plan to offload 403.3 metric tons of gold to create a more stable income model and boost support for low-income countries.



About 212 metric tons were sold off-market to central banks of India, Mauritius and Sri Lanka last November, and the fund said in February it would begin phased sales to the market of the remaining 191.3 metric tons.



The IMF said, as of end July, a further 88.3 metric tons had been sold under the on-market sales announced in February.

h/t London Dude Trader