Commodity market The price of gold bullion fell dramatically on 12 April 2013 and analysts frantically sought explanations. Rumors spread that the European Central Bank (ECB) would force Cyprus to sell its gold reserves in response to its financial crisis. Major banks such as Goldman Sachs began immediately to short gold bullion. Investors scrambled to liquidate their exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and margin call selling accelerated. George Gero, precious metals commodities expert at the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) Wealth Management section reported that he had not seen selling of gold bullion as panicked as this in his forty years in commodity markets.
Latin American economy U.S. government pursued foreign-policy objectives. Post-war commodity prices were unstable, there was an oversupply of commodities, and some governments attempted to manipulate commodity prices, such as Brazil's attempt to raise coffee prices, which in turn caused Colombia to increase its production. Since most Latin American countries had been dependent of the commodity export sector for their economic well-being, the fall in commodity prices and the lack of increase in the non-export sector left them in a weak position. Manufacturing for either a domestic or export market had not been a major feature of Latin American economies, but some steps had