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It’s not clear what Goldman Sachs plans to do with the bullion, said George Gero, a vice president and precious-metals strategist in New York at RBC Capital Markets.

“It’s really a puzzling transaction,” Gero said yesterday in a telephone interview. “The idea that there was a large sale and you don’t know when it will come out into the market is probably pressuring prices.”

Spot gold prices rose 0.3 percent to 1,247.14 an ounce at 8:15 a.m. in New York. Prices will fall to $1,240 by the end of the year, according to the median estimate of 34 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

Money managers cut their net-long position, or bets on higher gold prices, by 24 percent in the week ended May 27, based on U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission data. Short holdings, or bets on a gold-price decrease, surged 72 percent, the most in six months, the data show.

Last year, Goldman Sachs proposed a swap with Venezuela to provide $1.68 billion in cash to be backed by $1.85 billion of gold, documents obtained by Bloomberg News showed.

The deal, which wasn’t completed, would have carried an interest rate of 7.5 percent plus the three-month London interbank offered rate. Venezuela would have kept its exposure to gold, with the nation posting the precious metal or cash to a margin account if the price fell and Goldman Sachs posting U.S. dollars if it rose, the documents show.

Ecuador’s government will probably use the transaction proceeds to finance spending, said Martin Castellano, a senior economist for Latin America at the Institute of International Finance, a trade association of banks and money managers including Goldman Sachs. Given the country’s use of the greenback as its official currency, the government needs to ensure it has enough liquidity to avoid balance of payment problems, he said.

“The measure reflects the government’s willingness to pursue whichever financing option is at hand in order to avoid a fiscal adjustment,” Castellano said yesterday in a telephone interview from Washington.

Bloomberg.com