• April 17th, 2011 9:56 am ET

• http://www.examiner.com/precious-metals-in-national/university-of-texas-takes
• delivery-of-1-billion-gold-bullion-review

Mary Holloway Love

Precious Metals Examiner

The University of Texas took delivery of $1BILLION in gold bullion and had it stored in a vault in New York (we can only hope it is NOT a JPM affiliate so the bullion will still be there). The UT Endowment is the second largest behind Harvard. This move signifies that those Financial Experts responsible fot eh health of the Endowment Fund have lost confidence in the U.S.Dollar and the future of the American Economy. Since gold closed Friday at $1486/oz, and made a new high intra-day also , this seems like a sound and prudent move for the University to make; however, there are many detractors.

Silver also traded above the $43.00 mark to $43.05 intraday, but did not close there; however, though gold is moving to the upside by double digits, silver at it's lower price, is beginning to trade in parabolic move, and is the much better buy here. The technical charts on silver show a triple top breakout and had been forecasting $40.00 by the end of the first quarter of this year and $50-$60 by year end, which seems to be more of a probability now than a possibility.

Gold was forecast to hit $1450 by first quarter by many technicians and analysts and traders, but it was called too extravagent and said to be a year end price objective. Gold has surpassed the $1450/oz now and it appears as if the original call of $2000-$2500/oz by year end is completely achieveable. The charts look good on all the metals, though paladium, platinum and copper are due for a price correction which seems to have already started and should not last long before those three turn around and start back up again.

If the University of Texas Endowment cashing in and taking delivery of $1BILLION of gold bullion is not a wake up call for the rest of the financial managers, fund managers and Investment Advisors to rethink their positions, there is a strong possibilty that they may become the victims of a tsunami if they do not do their due dligence again and get in front of this strong wave of anti-dollar sentiment. Most of the financial broadcasts this weekend were devoted to the "What if" scenarios" with no real answers.

One other thing that led to the increased nervousness regarding the safety and the stability of the U.S. Dollar was the fact that the BRICS countries met on an island just off China to discuss how to replace the $ within their own trading with each other, something they have been doing for several years, but how to widen their sphere of influence and transactions. Also discussed was exactly how to replace the U.S. Dollar as the International Reserve Currency and with what to replace it. Those will notice that instead of the BRIC countries, it is now the BRICS. The "S" is South Africa, a new recruit to this organization, which has also extended a blanket invitation for any and all countries in Latin America to join forces with them. Time will tell.

It will take constant monitoring of the gold trades, here and overseas, to see if and how, the University of Texas delivery affects the market as most traders and analysts believe it will.

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Also:

8:19p ET Saturday, April 16, 2011

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:

Interviewed today by King World News, gold mining entrepreneur Pierre Lassonde predicts that the huge investment in gold by the endowment fund of the University of Texas will prompt other institutional investors to invest in real metal. An excerpt from the interview has been posted at the King World News blog here:

http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2011/4/16_Pi...

A Bloomberg News report about the investment is appended.

CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.

* * *

Texas University Endowment Storing About $1 Billion in Gold Bars

By David Mildenberg and Pham-Duy Nguyen
Bloomberg News
Friday, April 15, 2011

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-15/texas-university-endowment-hold...

The University of Texas Investment Management Co., the second-largest U.S. academic endowment, took delivery of almost $1 billion in gold bullion as the metal reaches a record, according to the fund's board.

The fund, whose $19.9 billion in assets ranked it behind Harvard University's endowment as of August, according to the National Association of College and University Business Officers, last year added about $500 million in gold investments to an existing stake, said Bruce Zimmerman, the endowment's chief executive officer. The holdings reached about $987 million yesterday, as Comex futures closed at $1,486 an ounce.

The decision to turn the fund's investment into gold bars was influenced by Kyle Bass, a Dallas hedge fund manager and member of the endowment's board, Zimmerman said yesterday at its annual meeting. Bass made $500 million on the U.S. subprime mortgage collapse.

"Central banks are printing more money than they ever have, so what's the value of money in terms of purchases of goods and services?” Bass said today in a telephone interview. "I look at gold as just another currency that they can't print any more of."

Gold reached an all-time high of $1,489.10 an ounce today in New York as sovereign debt concerns boosted demand for the metal as a store of value. Gold has climbed 28 percent in the past year on Comex.

The endowment, which oversees funds held by the University of Texas System and Texas A&M University, has 6,643 bars of bullion, or 664,300 ounces, in a Comex-registered vault in New York owned by HSBC Holdings Plc, the London-based bank, according to a report distributed at yesterday’s meeting in Austin.