The Financial Post reports in its Friday edition that gold prices have hit a record $4,000 per ounce, but Canada's central bank is resisting the trend of holding more bullion as a reserve asset (all figures U.S.). The Post's Gabriel Friedman writes that the Bank of Canada once held about 1,023 tonnes of gold but sold its last coins in 2016. Today, that amount would be valued at over $132.4-billion, surpassing Canada's $126.5-billion in foreign currency reserves as of October. However, the decision to sell gold, which began as formal policy in 1980 and continued for decades, may still have been justified. CPM Group director Jeffrey Christian says, "It definitely made financial sense back then and probably over the long arc of history, it was the right thing to do." He says it costs money to securely store and transport gold, and it does not pay interest. Mr. Christian notes that Canada was not alone in reducing its gold reserves, a trend common among central banks in the 1970s after the U.S. ended the gold standard in 1971, which enabled gold to be exchanged for $35 an ounce. Timothy Lane, former deputy governor of the BOC, says Canada primarily used its foreign currency reserves as a precaution against extreme tail events.