16 March 2016 — Wednesday
YESTERDAY in GOLD, SILVER, PLATINUM and PALLADIUM
The gold price traded flat for the first three hours in Far East trading on their Tuesday morning, but at 9 a.m. HKT the boyz and their algorithms showed up—and the low tick of the day was set sometime during the Hong Kong business day. The price rallied back to unchanged starting at the London open, but wasn’t allowed to go much higher than that for the rest of the day. It was even turned lower in the last hour of trading, or it would have actually closed up a bit on the day.
The low and high ticks aren’t worth looking up.
Gold closed in New York yesterday at $1,231.80 spot, down $3.20 from Monday’s close. Net volume was pretty decent at a hair under 160,000 contracts.
Here’s the 5-minute tick chart courtesy of Brad Robertson—and I’m only showing it because despite the lack of price activity in New York yesterday, there was a decent amount of volume associated with it. The volume spike at the 9:00 a.m. HKT price take-down on their Monday morning [19:00 Denver time on this chart] by the HFT boyz is more than obvious as well.
The vertical gray line is midnight in New York—add two hours for EDT—and although the ‘click to enlarge‘ feature doesn’t work with Internet Explorer, a right mouse click with Google Chrome or the Firefox browser should allow you to view it full-screen size.
It was almost the same price pattern in silver, except the [spike] low tick came a minute or so after 8:30 a.m. EDT in New York trading. Silver wasn’t allowed to trade much above the unchanged mark either.
The high and low tick in this precious metal was recorded as $15.20 and $15.42 in the May contract, so it’s obvious that the low price spike to $12.09 that occurred very early in COMEX trading, only occurred in the spot month.
Silver finished the Tuesday session at $15.25 spot, down 7.5 cents on the day. Net volume was wasn’t overly heavy at 36,500 contracts.
Platinum didn’t do much either, or wasn’t allowed to do much—you choose—as it traded six dollars either side of unchanged and finished the day down a buck at $956 spot.
Palladium got sold down three or four bucks at the outset of trading on Monday evening in New York—and then just sat there until shortly after Zurich opened on Tuesday morning. At that point it got nailed for another 10 dollars, but from its 11 a.m. Zurich low, it managed to pop back into positive territory by 1 p.m. in New York. However, like in silver in gold, it wasn’t allowed to close in the green, either—as it finished the day unchanged at $567 spot.
The dollar index closed late on Monday afternoon in New York at 96.57—and proceeded to do precisely nothing until 9 a.m. GMT on Tuesday morning in London. Then it had a four hour up/down 30+ basis point move that ended minutes after 8:30 a.m. EDT. It chopped a bit higher from there, but really didn’t do much, as it finished the Tuesday session at 96.62—up 5 basis points from Monday’s close. Nothing to see here.
And here’s the 6-month U.S. dollar index just so you can keep an eye on the intermediate term.
The gold stocks opened about unchanged—and hit their respective lows at, or just before, the London p.m. gold fix. From that point they began to chop quietly higher—and actually finished the day in the green, as the HUI closed higher by 1.36 percent.
Although the silver equities followed a similar path during the Tuesday trading session, their initial sell-off into the p.m. gold fix was much more severe. And despite the fact that they chopped mostly higher from there, they were never able to dig themselves out of their earlier hole, as Nick Laird’s Intraday Silver Sentiment Index closed down 0.98 percent.
The CME Daily Delivery Report showed that zero gold and 230 silver contracts were posted for delivery within the COMEX-approved depositories on Thursday. The two largest short/issuers were ABN Amro with 120 contracts out of its client account—and JPMorgan with 100 contracts out of its client account as well. There’s no prize for guessing the only long/stopper of importance—and that was JPMorgan with 209 contracts for its own in-house [proprietary] trading account. This is the umpteenth time that JPM has screwed over its own clients for the sole benefit of the company itself. How’s that for fiduciary responsibility, dear reader? I’m sure that Ted will have something to say about this in his mid-week commentary to his paying subscribers this afternoon. A link to yesterday’s Issuers and Stoppers Report is here.
The CME Preliminary Report for the Tuesday trading session showed that gold open interest in March increased by 5 contracts, leaving 135 still open. In silver, March o.i. declined by 99 contracts. leaving 946 still open. And since only 8 contracts were posted for delivery in Monday’s preliminary report, that means that 99-8=91 short/issuers in the March delivery month were let off the hook by the long/stoppers on the other side of their contracts yesterday. There’s no prize for guessing who that might be.
After a big withdrawal on Monday, there was a 66,916 troy ounce deposit in GLD yesterday—and as of 6:15 p.m. EDT yesterday evening, there were no reported changes in SLV.
There was another sales report from the U.S. Mint yesterday. They sold 2,000 troy ounces of gold eagles—1,000 one-ounce 24K gold buffaloes—and another 258,500 silver eagles.
There wasn’t a lot of gold movement over at the COMEX-approved depositories on Monday. Nothing was reported received—and 4,822.500 troy ounces/150 kilobars were shipped out of Canada’s Scotiabank.
There was decent movement in silver, as 523,596 troy ounces were reported received—and all of that went into Brink’s, Inc. There was also 261,091 shipped out the door—and all of that came out of Scotiabank. The link to that activity is here.
It was relatively quiet over at the COMEX-approved gold kilobar depositories in Hong Kong on their Monday. They reported receiving 1,955 kilobars—and shipped out 1,412 of them. All of the activity was at Brink’s, Inc. as per usual—and the link to that, in troy ounces, is here.
I have very few stories for you today—and that suits me just fine.
CRITICAL READS
Here Comes the Big Flush: Recession Pending, Fed ‘Put’ Ending — David Stockman
Talk about sheep being led to the slaughter. The S&P 500 is up 11% from its February 11th intraday low (1812) because Wall Street still has inventory to unload. That much is par for the course.
Yet the signs of an impending macroeconomic and profits implosion are now so overwhelming that it is truly remarkable that there are any bids left in the casino at all. This morning’s release of business sales for January, for example, showed another down month and that the inventory-to-sales ratio for the entire economy is now at 1.40X—–a ratio last recorded in May 2009.
As Zero Hedge so aptly put it: “Look at this chart!”
Once upon a time, real economists, investors and traders knew that business sales, wages and profits are the heart of the matter. No longer. The self-referential sentiment surveys, financial conditions indices and bullish spin on Fed word clouds which animate today’s casino muffle the fundamentals almost entirely.
This must read commentary by David appeared on his Internet site yesterday sometime—and I thank Roy Stephens for today’s first story. Another link to this article is here.
Fed seen holding U.S. rates for now, leaving door open for June hike
U.S. Federal Reserve policymakers are seen leaving short-term interest rates unchanged at a two-day policy meeting that began Tuesday, but also to signal that a rate hike is not too far off as long as the job market and inflation continue to improve.
The meeting began at 1 p.m. EDT (1700 GMT), a Fed spokesperson said in an e-mail. The Fed is due to issue a statement at the conclusion of the meeting on Wednesday at 2 p.m. EDT (1800 GMT), and Fed Chair Janet Yellen will hold a news conference at 2:30 p.m.
The U.S. central bank lifted borrowing costs in December for the first time in nearly a decade, but uncertainty over the impact on the U.S. economy of slower growth in China and Europe since the beginning of the year has driven policymakers to hold off on any further rate hikes since then.
A recent string of stronger U.S. data, including faster-than-expected job growth in February, has eased fears in the past few weeks that headwinds from abroad, and the tighter financial conditions they sparked at home, could derail the recovery.
After reading the Stockman piece, I could barely choke down this bulls hit Reuters story. It was filed from San Francisco on Monday sometime, as it showed up in Tuesday’s edition of the King Report, but has obviously been updated since it was first filed. Another link to this ‘news’ item is here.
U.S.-Bound Combat Missiles Found on Passenger Flight
Serbia’s authorities are investigating reports that a cargo package bound for the U.S. containing two missiles with explosive warheads was found on a passenger flight from Lebanon to Serbia.
N1 television said the package with two guided armor-piercing missiles was discovered Saturday by a sniffer dog after an Air Serbia flight from Beirut landed at Belgrade airport.
Serbian media say documents listed the final destination for the AGM-114 Hellfire missiles as Portland, Oregon. The American-made projectiles can be fired from air, sea or ground platforms.
This short AP story was picked by the abcnews.go.com Internet site very early Sunday afternoon EDT—and I thank Roy Stephens for his second contribution of the day. Another link to this brief article is here.
SFO ends foreign exchange probe but admits wrongdoing occurred in City of London
The Serious Fraud Office has closed its investigation into the $5.3 trillion (£3.7 trillion) a day foreign exchange market after almost two years, having sifted through in excess of half a million documents.
The decision to close the costly probe – the bill for which is likely to have run into millions of pounds – comes despite the crime agency admitting it suspects offences to have taken place.
“There were reasonable grounds to suspect the commission of offences involving serious or complex fraud,” the SFO admitted.
However the fraud agency found, despite a detailed review of the evidence, that it does not have enough to secure the likelihood of convictions.
I would expect that this sort of criminal activity goes on in every large bank that deals in commodities or foreign exchange. Why should British banks be any different than their criminal partners in the U.S. at JPMorgan, Citigroup, HSBC USA, etc., as they have branches in London and all over the world. This news item put in an appearance on the telegraph.co.uk Internet site at 3:44 p.m. GMT on their Tuesday afternoon, which was 11:44 a.m. in New York—EDT plus 4 hours—and it’s courtesy of U.K. reader Tariq Khan. Another link to this story is here.
Europeans Staring at Total Failure in Ukraine
As the political situation in Ukraine continues to deteriorate – with the government paralysed as a result of the power struggle between Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk – the Europeans are becoming increasingly desperate.
They are also becoming increasingly frustrated with the Ukrainians whose intransigence is prolonging the crisis.
However the Europeans have no exit strategy and are staring at total failure.
The reason is the growing anger across Europe with the sanctions policy, and a growing sense that the diplomatic window for finding a face saving way to end the sanctions before European leverage completely runs out is closing fast.
This long, but very interesting commentary showed up on thesaker.is Internet site yesterday sometime—and it’s required reading, especially for any serious student of the New Great Game. I thank ‘aurora’ for bringing it to our attention. Another link to this article is here.
Power & Steel: The Russian Blueprint
Shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, certain shadowy forces moved to make Russia a vassal of the Atlanticist New World Order. At that dreadful time in history the once mighty Russian bear was crawling on the floor in total darkness ignorant of what direction to take and unsure if there would ever be a light at the end of the tunnel. It was then, at that moment of penultimate vulnerability, that David Rockefeller and his satanic ilk swooped in like vultures to ensure that boozehound Boris Yeltsin became the embarrassment, I mean embodiment, of new “reformist” Russia. Soon thereafter the familiar framework of Atlanticist demolition took shape. Once proud industries were dismantled, agriculture was sold off to multi-national corporations, the scientific profession was decimated, and the educational system of the country was brought to its knees. Russia’s standing was reduced to lackey status as Yeltsin’s “Young Reformers,” spearheaded by a trifecta of Western errand boys, particularly Andrei Kozyrev, made sure that Moscow remained a limp-wristed milquetoast. For all intents and purposes, Russia was reduced to a country in receivership to the Anglo-American Atlanticists and their Russo-Oligarch mafia pals.
Those were dark days in the Russian Republic, my friends, but much to the chagrin of the neocon puppet masters, Russia bounced back. The Atlanticists forgot that Russia is an extremely resilient nation. Her people have endured unimaginable hardship and always rebounded with greater strength and love for their nation and culture. Russia’s resilience in the face of globalist opposition today is a testament to the failure of the Anglo-American power brokers and a blueprint for nations seeking to free themselves from Western banker enslavement.
I don’t normally post items from what I consider to be ‘fringe’ websites, but I found this story so compelling, that I’ll certainly make an exception for this one. This short essay was posted on the roguemoney.net Internet site on Monday—and is a must read for any serious student of the New Great Game as well. I thank Larry Galearis for sharing it with us. Another link to this article is here.
Analysis of the Russian military pullout from Syria
Today’s declaration finally puts to rest the “most anticipated showdown” and other “game changer” theories. At least I hope so
The Russian intervention is a stunning success, that is indisputable. Vladimir Putin and the Russian military ought to be particularly praised for having set goals fully commensurate with their real capabilities. The Russians went in with a small force and they achieved limited goals: the legitimate authority of the Syrian government has been stabilized and the conditions for a political compromise have been created. That is not an opinion, but the facts on the ground. Not even the worst Putin-haters can dispute that. Today’s declaration shows that the Russians are also sticking to their initial exit strategy and are now confident enough to withdraw their forces. That is nothing short of superb (when is the last time the USA did that?).
Still, this leaves many unanswered questions.
This commentary appeared on thesaker.is Internet site on Monday—and it’s certainly a must read if you have the interest. I thank ‘aurora’ for his second offering of the day. Another link to this essay is here.
Russia’s Military Aims Achieved, Putin Switches to Diplomacy — Paul Craig Roberts
It is a big risk for Putin to trust the neocon-infested U.S. government, but if Daesh (Islamic/ISIL/ISIS) renews the conflict with support from Washington, Putin’s retention of air and naval bases in Syria will allow Russia to resume military operations.
Astute observers such as Professor Michel Chossudovsky at Global Research, Stephen Cohen, and The Saker have noted that the Russian withdrawal is really a time-out during which Putin’s diplomacy takes the place of Russian military capability.
With Daesh beat down, there is less danger of Washington using a peace-seeking ceasefire to resurrect the Islamic State’s military capability. Therefore, the risk Putin is taking by trusting Washington is worth the payoff if the result is to enhance Russian diplomacy and elevate it above Washington’s reliance on threats, coercion, and violence.
This short commentary by Paul was posted on the sputniknews.com Internet site at 6:32 p.m. Moscow time on their Tuesday evening, which was 11:32 a.m. in Washington—EDT plus 7 hours. It’s the second offering of the day from Tariq Khan. Another link to this brief article is here.
Closer look at London Metal Exchange aluminum prices reveals anomalies
A first glance at aluminum prices on the London Metal Exchange yields few surprises, yet a closer look often reveals anomalies caused by one market participant holding large amounts of metal.
Sources at commodity trading houses, warehouses, producers, brokers, and banks say recently one such company is U.S. bank JPMorgan. Others have done so in past.
JPMorgan declined to comment.
While allowed under LME rules, holding a large, sometimes dominant position can to an extent have an influence on prices in the short term for contracts that will soon reach maturity.
“JPMorgan have been doing this on-and-off for a long time. The backwardation (or premium) doesn’t accurately reflect oversupply,” a source at a commodity trading firm said.
Gold, silver, platinum, palladium, copper—and now aluminum. Why am I not surprised? This Reuters article, filed from London, appeared on their Internet site at 3:11 a.m. on Tuesday morning EDT—and I found it embedded in a GATA release yesterday. But the first reader through the door with it was Alfredo Zilla, who sent me the Zero Hedge spin on it linked here. Another link to the above Reuters article is here.
Gold Fever Victim: Man Stumbles Upon a Gold Cache in Russian Forest
While hiking through a forest, a man stumbled upon a hidden cache containing 17 gold bars worth about $170,000. After keeping the gold hidden at his apartment for about a week, he tried to smuggle it out but was busted during an inspection at a weigh station.
For his misdeed the perpetrator received a suspended sentence of a year and a half, and all of the gold bullion was confiscated by the government.
The above two paragraphs are all there is to this tiny gold-related news item that put in an appearance on the sputniknews.com Internet site at 6:37 p.m. Moscow time on their Tuesday evening—which was 11:37 a.m. in New York—EDT plus 7 hours. I thank Tariq Khan for his third and final offering in today’s column.
Indian February gold bar imports at 23 metric tonnes, lowest on record
Imports of gold bars into India totaled 23.8 metric tonnes in February, down 61% on the previous month, to the lowest monthly inflow on record, Indian customs data showed Monday.
The Indian gold market, the world’s largest after China, has struggled with high international prices as gold continues to outperform in 2016, up more than 17% since the start of the year to just over $1,250/oz Monday morning.
The discount paid for physical gold in India to the international price has extended to record levels in recent weeks, heard at $30-35/oz countrywide Monday, as local investors continue to be deterred by steep prices and as a national strike by the country’s jewelers extends into its 11th day.
Indian jewelers called a nationwide strike March 3 in response to a 1% excise tax announced by the government in an attempt to curtail gold demand in a country almost entirely reliant on imports to meet its huge levels of consumption.
This story appeared on the platts.com Internet site on Monday afternoon GMT—and knowing the accuracy of previous gold-related stories that this website has turned out recently, I’ll wait for the official import numbers—and I recommend you do the same, dear reader. It’s an article I found on the Sharps Pixley website last night—and another link to it is here.
Moriarty says Rickards minimizes gold manipulation but Rickards actually proclaims it
No gold market analyst or mining stock tout is more determined to deny the manipulation of the gold market by central banks than Bob Moriarty, proprietor of 321Gold.com. Moriarty is always taking cracks, often gratuitous ones, at those who complain about that manipulation. But today Moriarty outdid himself.
In commentary headlined “Reviewing ‘The New Case for Gold,‘” the new book by fund manager, geopolitical strategist, and author James G. Rickards, Moriarty writes — “One of the people I genuinely enjoy listening to at investment conferences is James Rickards, best-selling author of ‘The Death of Money’ and ‘Currency Wars.’ Well, he’s out with a new book to be released in another three weeks titled ‘The New Case for Gold.’ … He doesn’t start slobbering and howling at the moon with a cry of ‘manipulation.’”
And yet exactly simultaneously with Moriarty’s posting of his supposed review of Rickards’ new book, Rickards himself did “start slobbering and howling at the moon with a cry of ‘manipulation.’”
That is, just as Moriarty was posting his praise of Rickards for not complaining much about gold market manipulation, Rickards’ publisher, Agora Financial, posted an essay by Agora’s Dave Gonigan quoting both Rickards’ past assertions as well as assertions from his new book repeatedly affirming manipulation of the gold market.
“‘The manipulation of the gold market is not something that’s really debatable any longer,’ Jim Rickards said two years ago. ‘If I were running the manipulation, I would actually be embarrassed at this point because it’s so blatant.’
“‘The United States is letting China manipulate the market so China can buy gold more cheaply,’ Jim writes in his follow-up book, ‘The New Case for Gold‘ — set for publication three weeks from today. “The fact is, for now, both the U.S. and Chinese governments need a suppressed gold price.”
Bob is such a sweetheart of a guy—and firmly in the Doug Casey camp. They are soul mates on this issue. This absolute must read commentary appeared on the gata.org Internet site last night. I had many readers send me the Agora piece that Chris Powell refers to above, but the first person through the door with it was Mike Pierce. Another link to ‘all of the above’ is here.
“1% excise on non-silver jewellery will stay” Indian Finance Minister
Union finance minister Arun Jaitely stood firm on the government’s plan to impose 1% excise duty on non-silver jewellery, saying the measure was aimed at linking gold with the Goods and Services Tax (GST) which he hoped would be rolled out soon.
Replying to the debate on the Budget in Lok Sabha, the FM made it clear that the duty was not applicable on small traders and the government would ensure that tax officials did not harass jewellers.
Several lawmakers, allies and the opposition had mounted pressure on Jaitley to roll back the duty. Jewellers across the country had downed shutters for several days demanding a rollback.
This news item put in an appearance on The Times of India website at 4:47 a.m. IST on their Tuesday morning—and it’s another gold-related news item I found on the Sharps Pixley website last night. It’s worth reading—and another link to this story is here.
Tense time for gold bulls — Lawrie Williams
Gold, after a good week last week started turning down late Friday and was taken down further on Monday and this morning. Note the ‘taken down’ comment. There certainly does seem to be an important element of High Frequency Trading in the activity on these days – could this be the banks which have been making bearish forecasts like Goldman Sachs and Natixis trying to intervene surreptitiously to protect their own and their clients’ positions? If so have they gone far enough to create doubts in gold investors’ minds to bring about a downwards price spiral back below the $1,200 mark?
One clue here will be the ongoing performance of the SPDR Gold Shares gold ETF (GLD) which has been on a roll so far this year. But between Friday and Monday’s close we did at last see a significant outflow from the biggest gold ETF for the first time in a couple of months, with a large 8.63 tonne liquidation. If this is followed by more such then gold could be in for a bit of a short term price problem backtracking on its recent gains. The real question is how far could it fall before the next recovery sets in.
So far though, the price fall has been fairly well contained, but eyes will be on the U.S. Fed for guidance on thinking on the state of the U.S. and global economies and hints as to whether or not another interest hike, albeit another small one, is imminent. A hawkish Fed, coupled with a further recovery in global equities could set the cat among the gold pigeons – but the equities seesaw seemed to be on another downwards leg today, after a few days of recovery, and if this persists could give gold another new lease of life.
This commentary by Lawrie was posted on the Sharps Pixley website yesterday—and another link to this article is here.
The PHOTOS and the FUNNIES
The first photo is a head shot of grey crowned crane—and the second is of a Komodo Dragon, which is a member of the monitor lizard family.
The WRAP
I’ve brought this up in the past, but let me do so again. Because silver is both an industrial commodity and investment asset, most of the 155 million oz in the COMEX warehouses are held by investors. This goes back a long way, before the popular silver ETFs were introduced a decade ago and investor storage in the COMEX warehouses was one of the best ways to store metal. Today, JPMorgan owns close to half the total COMEX silver inventories in its own warehouse. I wouldn’t be surprised if more than 90% of the 155 million oz held in COMEX warehouses were held by long term investors (including JPM).
That means, if I am correct, that the real working silver inventories on the COMEX may be in the 15 to 20 million oz range. Please compare this amount to recent COMEX silver inventory turnover of more than 8 million oz a week, or more than 400 million oz annually. If the real working silver inventory is close to 15 million oz (as I believe it to be), that means the working inventory is turning over 25 times a year. That’s like supersonic inventory turnover. If the real working inventory is more than I suggest, then the annual turnover rate would be somewhat less, but still in the stratosphere compared to any other commodity.
A reasonable person would ask why this incredible turnover exists and, further, why it is unique to silver; and this is where I usually end up asking why there is a lack of commentary on data that are easily verified and quite remarkable on their face. But, I’ve grown tired of asking and will not do so today. Instead, I will state clearly that this highly unusual physical movement is an important window to what is an almost impossible to imagine tight physical supply in silver. And I don’t care if I’m the only one speaking of it. — Silver analyst Ted Butler: 12 March 2016
It was a nothing day yesterday, although it should be pointed out that new lows for this move down were set in all four precious metals once again. And even though they were mostly on the smallish side in both silver and gold, they were all slices off the salamis regardless.
And here are the charts for the four precious metals on their own. I’ve decided to drop the other three—and only post them in my Saturday column, or when there’s something outstanding to report.
Yesterday, at the close of COMEX trading, was the cut-off for this Friday’s Commitment of Traders Report. I’d guess that, eyeballing the charts above, there will be some sort of improvement in gold—and close to no change in silver. I doubt very much that there will be big changes regardless, because none of the really important moving averages [50 and 200] were violated during the reporting week.
Having said that, the 20-day moving averages was broken by a bit in gold—and on an intraday basis in silver. Both events occurred during the first two trading days of the current week.
And as I type this paragraph, the London open is less than ten minutes away—and I see that the gold price didn’t do much in Far East trading on their Wednesday, but does have a positive bias at the moment—and is currently up a couple of bucks. It’s mostly the same in silver as well—and it’s up 2 cents the ounce. Platinum is up 8 bucks—and palladium is down a dollar.
Net HFT gold volume is very quiet at just over 15,500 contracts—and that number in silver is 3,900 contracts. The dollar index has been chopping slowly higher since the open in New York on Tuesday evening—and is currently up 15 basis points as London opens.
If you read the Zero Hedge story headlined “JPMorgan Corners LME Aluminum Market, Leading To Strange “Price Anomalies”” in the Critical Reads section further up, the opening paragraph sums up the current situation nicely…
“While not nearly as exciting as JPM cornering and manipulating the gold or silver markets, over the past few years, Jamie Dimon’s bank appears to have cornered a very prominent commodity traded on the London Metals Exchange, aluminum, resulting in price “anomalies” which as Reuters politely puts it “mean prices do not always reflect fundamentals” and which as we put it, reflect outright manipulation, however because regulators are captured, have so far completely slipped through the cracks.”
As I’ve said for years, as long as the prices of the Big 6 commodities are controlled, the prices of all commodities can be kept in line—and it appears that JPMorgan has found it necessary to add aluminum to that list. So now it’s the Big 7.
I would think that Ted may have thing or two to say about this in his mid-week column to his paying subscribers this afternoon—and whatever he says, I’ll steal what I think I can get away with—and post his comments in this column in the next day or so.
Well, today’s the day that the smoke goes up the chimney at the Eccles building—and as I said yesterday, it really matters little, as central banking is now seen as a spent force everywhere—notwithstanding what ‘Super Mario’ had to say over at the ECB about ten days ago. I’m sure we’ll see some price ‘action’ in the precious metals—and whatever activity that is, will be far removed from free-market forces.
And as I post today’s column on the website at 4:00 a.m. EDT, I note that gold is down a buck, silver is now down 4 cents the ounce. Platinum is up only 4 dollars at the moment—and palladium is down three.
Net HFT volume in silver is up to 18,500 contracts—and in silver that number is 4,450 contracts. The dollar index continues to climb slowly and steadily—and is currently up 21 basis points.
That’s all I have for today and, like you, I’ll sit back and wait for what Janet has to say.
See you tomorrow.
Ed
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