[Sam Gamgee]

It does make you wonder though. If Barrick Gold, for example, is such a gold believer, why don't they hold off on selling all the gold they mine right now, and wait until the price hits $2000 to sell it? Or in the least, have a trading desk set up that times the market to only sell gold on the top of overbought waves?

[Atlas Sneezed]

If Barrick Gold, for example, is such a gold believer, why don’t they hold off on selling all the gold they mine right now, and wait until the price hits $2000 to sell it?

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Because they’re in the MINING business, not the speculating business. They need to sell the gold to pay for the fuel, labor, and other extraction costs.

[agere_contra]

It does make you wonder though. If Barrick Gold, for example, is such a gold believer, why don't they hold off on selling all the gold they mine right now, and wait until the price hits $2000 to sell it? Or in the least, have a trading desk set up that times the market to only sell gold on the top of overbought waves?

Good question.

Barrick have bills to pay (especially with the issues at Pascua-Lama): they can't hoard that much of their product.

Gold Miners *should* store a portion of their product, whenever they can. But 'official' pessimistic pricing models used by their insurers/creditors and quoted against them by hostile shareholders can cause all kinds of problems.