20 July 2016 — Wednesday
YESTERDAY in GOLD, SILVER, PLATINUM and PALLADIUM
It was a real nothing day in the gold market yesterday. The price chopped sideways until shortly before 9 a.m. in London — and then it rose a small handful of dollars. It was back below unchanged by shortly after 9 a.m. in New York, but ‘rallied’ until around 12:35 p.m. EDT — and didn’t so much after that. Nothing to see here.
The high and low ticks aren’t worth my effort to look up.
Gold finished the Tuesday session at $1,331.70 spot, up $3.20 on the day. Net volume was pretty quiet at around 111,500 contracts. Roll-over volume out of August was decent.
Silver was sold back below $20 the ounce the moment that trading began in New York at 6:00 p.m. on Monday evening — and was down a dime or so by 9 a.m. Hong Kong/Shanghai time. From there the price chopped sideways in a tight range for the rest of the Tuesday session, particularly during the New York session.
Like gold, silver’s high and low tick aren’t worth looking up, either.
Silver was closed in New York yesterday at $19.875 spot, down 14.5 cents on the day. Net volume was very much on the lighter side as well, relatively speaking that is, at just under 35,000 contracts.
The platinum price was down about 12 bucks by 11 a.m. Hong Kong/Shanghai time, but shortly after the London p.m. gold fix, it had gained a bit more than half of that back. Platinum finished the Tuesday session in New York at $1,091 spot, down an even 5 dollars from Monday’s close.
After getting sold down two or three bucks in Far East trading, the palladium price was back to unchanged by around noon Zurich time. Then, starting at 2 p.m. Europe time, the price began to rally in earnest, with virtually all the gains that mattered in by just after 11:30 a.m. EDT. The price didn’t do much after that. Palladium closed yesterday at $655 spot, up 13 bucks on the day.
The dollar index closed very late on Monday afternoon in New York at 96.55 — and didn’t do much of anything until shortly before noon HKT. At that point a rally began that developed some real legs starting minutes after 12 o’clock noon in London. Most of the rally’s gains were in by 8:35 a.m. EDT, an hour and half later, as the dollar index hit the 97.11 mark. It traded pretty flat from there, but began to develop a slightly negative bias at 3 p.m. in New York. It fell back to the 97.00 mark shortly before 6 p.m. EDT, but ‘gentle hands’ appeared at that juncture — and the dollar index was closed on Tuesday at 97.05 — up 50 basis points from its Monday close.
Here’s the 6-month USD index chart. Tuesday’s rally had all the hallmarks of a ramp job to run the shorts. I will watch with interest to see what the powers-that-be have in store now that the 200-day moving average has been breached to the upside with some authority, as I doubt very much that this breakout happened by accident. [There are no markets anymore, only interventions – Chris Powell, April 2008]
The gold stocks opened lower by less than a percent, before making a stab at positive territory. They made it into the green for about fifteen minutes around 10:30 a.m. EDT — and then fell back to their opening prices just minutes after 11 a.m. in New York. They didn’t do much after that — and even though gold finished in positive territory, the HUI closed down 0.84 percent.
The price pattern for the silver equities was fairly similar, but they continued to chop quietly lower as the New York trading session moved along on Tuesday — and Nick Laird’s Intraday Silver Sentiment/Silver 7 Index closed down by 1.04 percent. Click to enlarge if necessary.
The CME Daily Delivery Report showed that 269 gold and 38 silver contracts were posted for delivery within the COMEX-approved depositories on Thursday. In gold, the only short/issuer was ABN Amro — and the only long/stopper even remotely worth mentioning was JPMorgan with 255 contracts for its client account. In silver, ABN Amro was the principal short/issuer as well with 37 of the 38 contracts — and the only two stoppers that mattered were JPMorgan and HSBC USA with 15 and 14 contracts respectively for their own accounts. The link to yesterday’s Issuers and Stoppers Report is here.
As Ted pointed out in his Saturday column, JPMorgan has stopped over 3,000 contracts for its client account as of last Friday — and adding in the Thursday delivery number above, puts the July deliveries to its ‘client’ at 3,299 contracts. I would expect that he’ll have something to say about this in his mid-week column today, especially after adding in what happened in yesterday’s Preliminary Report in the next paragraph.
The CME Preliminary Report for the Tuesday trading session showed that gold open interest in July rose an astonishing 275 contracts, leaving 344 still open, minus the 269 mentioned in the previous paragraph. Monday’s Daily Delivery Report showed that 10 gold contracts were posted for delivery within the COMEX-approved depositories today, so that means that 10+275=285 gold contracts were added to the July delivery month! [Note: I would suspect that Thursday’s big 269 contract delivery — and this 285 contract increase in open interest are directly related. – Ed] Silver o.i. in July dropped by 239 contracts, leaving 428 contracts still around, minus the 38 contracts mentioned in the previous paragraph. Yesterday’s Daily Delivery Report showed that 239 silver contracts were posted for delivery today, so the number work out perfectly.
There were no reported changes in GLD yesterday — and as of 7:27 p.m. EDT yesterday evening, there were no reported changes in SLV, either.
There was no sales report from the U.S. Mint.
There was some activity in gold over at the COMEX-approved depositories on Monday. There was 64,300.000 troy ounces/2,000 kilobars received at Canada’s Scotiabank using the British/U.S. kilobar weight of 32.150 troy ounces per bar. Nothing was shipped out. The link to that activity is here.
There was very decent ‘in’ volume in silver, as 1,189,222 troy ounces were received, with all of that amount going into the CNT Depository. Only 20,119 troy ounces were shipped out — and that came out of HSBC USA. The link to that activity is here.
It was fairly busy over at the COMEX-approved gold kilobar depositories in Hong Kong on their Monday. They reported receiving 2,066 of them, plus they shipped out another 5,005. All of the action was at Brink’s, Inc. as per usual — and the link to that, in troy ounces, is here.
Like the precious metal market, it was a very quiet news day yesterday as well — and I don’t have all that many stories for you.
CRITICAL READS
No U.S. rate hike until 2018 — and it’s the consumer to blame, Morgan Stanley says
Don’t look for a rise in U.S. interest rates until 2018, Morgan Stanley strategists said on Monday as they released their latest outlook.
The Federal Reserve won’t be able to hike rates this year or next year because U.S. economic growth will let down the bulls, according to these strategists.
“We think global growth really disappoints over the next 12 months — particularly in developed markets, particularly in the U.S.,” said Andrew Sheets, Morgan Stanley’s chief cross-asset strategist, on Monday.
His bank sees the U.S. economy expanding by 1.5% in 2017, while the consensus view is 2.3%, he said at a press briefing in London.
This news item was posted on the marketwatch.com Internet site at 2:35 a.m. on Tuesday morning EDT — and it’s something I found in yesterday’s edition of the King Report. Another link to this story is here.
Largest U.S. Pension Fund Suffers Worst Annual Return Since Financial Crisis Due to Heavy Stock Losses
While we have often documented the dramatic underperformance by the hedge fund industry over the past decade courtesy of a centrally-planned market in which it no longer pays to “hedge”, culminating with countless hedge fund closures and substantial redemptions (mostly by now redundant Fund of Funds managers), today we learn that “vanilla” asset managers were also hurt over the past year in which the S&P went nowhere, and not just in Japan where the gargantuan, $1.4 trillion GPIF recently suffered major losses, but in the U.S. as well.
Case in point: Calpers, the largest U.S. public pension fund which as The Wall Street Journal reports posted its lowest annual gain since the last financial crisis due to heavy losses in stocks.
The California Public Employees’ Retirement System, or Calpers, said it earned 0.6% on its investments for the fiscal year ended June 30, according to a Monday news release, barely turning a profit fro the full year. The last time Calpers lost money was during fiscal 2009 when the fund’s holdings fell 24.8%.
It was the second straight year Calpers failed to hit its internal investment target of 7.5%. In 2015, Calpers earned only 2.4%, which suggests that as a result of the dramatic two-year underperformance relative to the funds’ own internal target returns, public pensions in California are not only significantly underfunded as of this moment, and getting worse.
This Zero Hedge article appeared on their Internet site at 2:06 p.m. EDT on Monday — and it ‘s courtesy of Brad Robertson. Another link to this ZH piece is here.
U.S. financials’ bonds rally with earnings season
The start of the second quarter earnings season has seen U.S. bank credit regain all the ground lost in the wake of recent Brexit driven volatility.
Average tier one US banks’ CDS spreads now below 73bps for the first time in 12 months
Domestic banks’ bond spreads tightened below their pre-Brexit level on Friday
Subordinated financial bonds have rallied more strongly than senior peers
Last week heralded the start of the banking portion of the second quarter earnings season, which was heavily watched by market observers looking to gauge the impact of recent market volatility on the sector. Results coming from the leaders of the earnings pack, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo and JPMorgan, were largely upbeat with the latter beating analyst expectations by over $0.10 a share. Positive reactions saw average spreads across the sector tighten to new recent lows.
The universal tightening seen across the six largest U.S. banks, the three previously mentioned as well as Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley who are yet to release earnings, now stands at 72.5bps according to Markit CDS Pricing. The latest CDS spreads indicate that credit risk across large bank bonds has receded to the lowest level in nearly 12 months.
This credit story showed up on the markit.com Internet site on Monday sometime — and it came courtesy of Richard Saler. Another link to this article is here.
CIBC [Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce] sells negative-yield bonds for 1st time
Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce has become the first Canadian bank to sell bonds with a negative yield, and it had no problem selling the debt even though buyers are guaranteed to lose money if the debt is held to maturity.
The bank raised almost $1.8 billion via a bond sale of six-year debt that yields minus 0.009 per cent. That means anyone who bought the debt paid $100.054 for the right to get $100 back from the bank in 2022.
Despite the seemingly poor return, the bank had no trouble selling the euro-denominated bonds on Monday. The bond sale was two times oversubscribed, which means there were people willing to buy twice as much debt as there was debt available for sale.
The bond sale makes CIBC the first Canadian bank to dip into a current appetite for negative-yielding bonds. But the lender is far from the only one to be selling investments guaranteed to lose money.
This news item was posted on the cbc.ca website around 2 p.m. EDT — and it I thank David Caron for passing it around yesterday evening. Another link to this article is here.
IMF slashes U.K. growth forecasts after Brexit – but Britain will still outstrip Germany, France and Italy
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has slashed its forecasts for U.K. growth following the vote to leave the European Union, yet the British economy is still expected to grow faster than that of Germany, France and Italy next year.
U.K. GDP growth is now expected to slow to 1.3pc in 2017, some 0.9 percentage points below what had been pencilled in in the IMF’s previous round of forecasts. With the exception of Nigeria, the U.K.’s 2017 growth forecast received the sharpest downgrade of any of the 16 economies assessed by the IMF.
Maury Obstfeld, the IMF’s chief economist, said that the U.K.’s decision to withdraw from the E.U. had added “downward pressure to the world economy at a time when growth has been slow”.
He said that “the direct effects specifically due to Brexit are greatest in Europe, especially the U.K.”
That headline is certainly nothing to brag about. This news item was posted on the telegraph.co.uk Internet site at 2:00 p.m. BST on their Tuesday afternoon, which was 9:00 a.m. in New York — EDT plus 5 hours. I thank Roy Stephens for sending it — and another link to it is here.
Behind Volkswagen Settlement, Speed and Compromise
It was one of the fastest civil settlements in the history of corporate malfeasance, coming together in six months instead of the years usually required for such complex negotiations. But the path to Volkswagen’s $15 billion deal last month with American officials and car owners over the company’s diesel deception was fraught with pitfalls, including clashing egos and cultures, arguments over mathematical formulas and frayed nerves from late nights and lost weekends.
The negotiations, which began in January, threatened to unravel in March. Fixing half a million cars to comply with clean air rules looked increasingly impossible. And Volkswagen was balking at any plan to buy back and scrap every car, which the company said it believed would be exorbitantly expensive.
Looking to negotiate the differences, a group of Volkswagen executives and lawyers, led by Francisco Javier Garcia Sanz, a VW board member, headed to Washington to meet with officials at the Justice Department, according to three people briefed on the discussions. The company proposed fixing the cars as best it could, while reducing emissions in other ways, like installing cleaner engines in government trucks, buses and tugboats.
Government officials pushed back, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing the continuing legal action. The officials would agree to a partial fix, but Volkswagen would have to offer to buy back the cars, even if every owner took that option.
This longish news item showed up on The New York Times website last Friday — and I thank Patricia Caulfield for finding it for us. Another link to this story is here.
Volkswagen Scandal Reaches All the Way to the Top, Lawsuits Say
Three attorneys general on Tuesday directly challenged Volkswagen’s defense over its emissions deception, calling the decision to thwart pollution tests an orchestrated fraud that lasted more than a decade, involved dozens of engineers and managers and reached deep into the company’s boardroom.
The accusations, leveled in lawsuits by New York, Massachusetts and Maryland, contradict Volkswagen’s portrayal of the deception, representing a new threat to the carmaker’s finances, reputation and management. For the first time, the suits connected Volkswagen’s chief executive, Matthias Müller, to the scandal, saying he was aware of a 2006 decision to not outfit Audi vehicles with equipment needed to meet American clean-air standards.
Volkswagen, which admitted late last year to equipping 11 million vehicles worldwide with software to cheat emissions tests, has maintained that the deception was limited to a small group of people. The company has said top management was not aware of the cheating software, known as a defeat device.
But the New York civil complaint, drawing on internal Volkswagen documents, emails and witness statements, depicts a corporate culture that allowed a “willful and systematic scheme of cheating.” The evidence paints the most detailed picture yet about how the deception unfolded and who was responsible.
This is the second New York Times story about Volkswagen in a row from Patricia Caulfield. This one is datelined yesterday — and another link to it is here.
Why the Pentagon and NATO Are Bluffing — Pepe Escobar
Let’s cut to the chase; as much as the Pentagon may have finally concluded that Russia holds undisputed conventional superiority in the European theater, the only possible rationale for NATO’s existence is unchanged; the U.S. must keep the military occupation of Western and Central Europe till the end of days. And the justification for the «project» must be anti-Russian hysteria.
Thus the perennial, bogus, «threat» narrative. The myth of imminent «Russian aggression» against the poor Baltic nations. These recurrent NATO talk fests staged as former Soviet – or Maoist – «party conferences». The impression/illusion sold by the lame duck Obama administration that they are benevolently «concerned» about European security. And, of course, the Russian counterpoint; the suspicion that NATO is no less than engaged in fabricating serial declarations of war.
The whole show might be derided as a juvenile mind game. Still, it’s taken seriously. «NATO has begun preparations for escalating from a Cold War into a hot one», sentenced Mikhail Gorbachev. There are indeed elements pointing to how serious the current geopolitical juncture is. The Obama administration won’t do anything – even as that hopeless nullity, deputy national security advisor Ben Rhodes, states that, «continued aggression by Russia would provoke a response by NATO and a greater alliance presence in Eastern Europe». Western corporate media, meanwhile, predictably surfs the hysterical monster waves of Russia demonizing.
The real action in fact is that multiple industrial military security surveillance complex actors in the Beltway are frantically jockeying for position in the next 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue set up, which might as well translate into a Clintonesque Gotterdammerung. As I stressed before, there’s been a frank admission by a US general in London that the Big Picture may spell out Hot War, as Putin, Professor Stephen Cohen and indeed Gorbachev have already warned.
This commentary by Pepe certainly falls into the must read category, even if you’re not a serious student of the New Great Game. I thank ‘aurora’ for passing it around yesterday morning — and another link to this article is here.
Vast Purge in Turkey as Thousands Are Detained in Post-Coup Backlash
The Turkish government’s crackdown after a military coup attempt widened into a sweeping purge on Monday, cutting a swath through the security services and reaching deeply into the government bureaucracy and the political and business classes.
The sheer numbers being detained or dismissed were stunning: nearly 18,000 in all, including 6,000 members of the military, almost 9,000 police officers, as many as 3,000 judges, 30 governors and one-third of all generals and admirals, as well as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s own military attaché.
The magnitude of the backlash by Mr. Erdogan suggested that the depth of support for the coup was far greater than it initially appeared, or that the president was using the opportunity to root out all perceived adversaries, or both.
As hopes faded that Mr. Erdogan would try to use the moment to unite the country, instead taking a security-first approach, Western allies began to express alarm at what looked like score-settling. On Monday in Brussels, Secretary of State John Kerry and the European Union’s top diplomat, Federica Mogherini, urged Turkey — a member of NATO and a candidate for membership in the European Union — to show restraint and preserve the rule of law.
This story, filed from Istanbul, was posted on The New York Times website on Monday sometime — and has been revised since it was first posted. It’s the third offering of the day from Patricia Caulfield — and another link to it is here.
How the Internet Saved Turkey’s Internet-Hating President
When I was stuck at the airport in this city in southern Turkey, on Friday night, I had many things to worry about. A coup attempt had just begun and the country was in turmoil. My plane to Istanbul had almost flown into the worst of the fighting, but luckily we were prevented from taking off at the last minute when the airspace was closed.
One thing I did not have to worry about, though, was running out of data on my phone. In the early morning hours, Turkey’s leading cellphone provider topped up the internet allowance of every subscriber. This was more than unusual. Turkey has experienced many crises recently, including deadly terrorist attacks, and they usually lead to a closing of information flows, not the government-aligned service provider’s making it easier to transmit information.
The reason was simple: In the confusing hours after the coup attempt began, the country had heard from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan — and even learned that he was alive — when he called a television station via FaceTime, an easy-to-use video chat app. As the camera focused on the iPhone in the anchor’s hand, the president called on the people of Turkey to take to the streets and guard the airports. But this couldn’t happen by itself. People would need WhatsApp, Twitter and other tools on their phones to mobilize. The president also tweeted out the call to his more than eight million followers to resist the coup.
The effect was immediate. On my drive back into the city from the airport, I encountered throngs gathering in squares, waving Turkish flags. Everywhere, their screens flickered as they held their phones out, taking defiant selfies to share with their friends, inviting them to join the protests. Within hours, most of the soldiers backing the would-be coup had been overwhelmed. Despite Turkey’s deep political and social divisions, every opposition party, too, immediately came out against the coup. Most did so by posting statements on Twitter.
This opinion piece appeared on The New York Times website yesterday — and it’s the fourth and final contribution of the day from Patricia Caulfield. Another link to this commentary is here.
Turkey: WikiLeaks releases thousands of AKP e-mails
WikiLeaks has published 294,546 emails along with thousands of attached files from 762 mail boxes that allegedly belong to the primary email domain of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).
The most recent email in the trove released by the whistle-blowing organisation on Tuesday was sent on July 6, 2016. The oldest dates back to 2010.
“It should be noted that emails associated with the domain are mostly used for dealing with the world, as opposed to the most sensitive internal matters,” WikiLeaks said on its official website.
WikiLeaks said it obtained the emails a week before Friday’s attempted coup. “WikiLeaks has moved forward its publication schedule in response to the government’s post-coup purges.
This news story showed up on the aljazeera.com Internet site early Tuesday evening EDT — and I thank Roy Stephens for his second contribution to today’s column. Another link to this story is here.
U.S. Mint Lifts Allocation of Silver Eagles; Platinum Eagle Bullion Coins Coming July 25
The U.S. Mint will put an end to its allocation of American Eagle One-Ounce Silver bullion coins for the time being, according to Tom Jurkowsky of the Mint’s Office of Corporate Communications. Softening demand for the issues combined with consistent production on the part of the Mint has helped created a surplus that should allow authorized purchasers (AP’s) to place unrestricted orders for the coins without depleting the Mint’s available inventory.
Today, July 18, Jurkowsky said in an e-mail, “We are pleased to announce after 28 weeks of allocation in 2016, effective Monday, July 18, 2016, we have lifted allocation of American Eagle Silver Bullion Coins. Authorized Purchasers may purchase as many American Eagle Silver Bullion Coins (as) they desire. The United States Mint will continue to monitor its American Eagle Silver Bullion Coin demand and adjust its bullion coin production accordingly.”
The move is not a big surprise, as the Mint’s weekly allocations have been growing steadily of late. As noted previously, during much of 2016 demand for Silver Eagles absorbed most or all of the Mint’s stock of the coins, which tended to hover around one million pieces per week. But sales have slowed recently, leaving hundreds of thousands of pieces to be applied to each succeeding week’s allocation, allowing the Mint to build up a sizable inventory. Last week, for instance, the Mint sold only 445,000 of 3,649,500 available Silver Eagles, and the 3.2 million leftover pieces have now been added to the new batch of coins struck during this period.
No surprises here, as July silver eagle sales are horrid. When JPMorgan isn’t a buyer, this story shows what true retail bullion demand actually is — and with the exception of the odd flash here and there, retail sales suck big time. Ted Butler’s sources in the industry — along with mine — agree on this fact. This story showed up on the mintnewsblog.com Internet site on Monday sometime — and it’s courtesy of West Virginia reader Elliot Simon. Another link to this news item is here.
Gold Miners Set to Relax Death Grip on Spending as Caution Eases
With gold prices posting the best first half in almost four decades, the coming round of earnings reports may provide signs miners are preparing to ease their collective death grip on spending.
Big producers had focused on deferring projects, curtailing operations and otherwise slashing costs and debt as prices declined for three years in a row. That has raised concern companies won’t be able to maintain current output levels as mines get older and the smaller explorers and developers get squeezed.
The situation is poised to change, with gold futures up 25 percent this year and the potential for the rally to continue given economic uncertainties such as the U.K.’s decision to exit the European Union, according to Josh Wolfson, a Toronto-based mining analyst at Dundee Capital Markets.
“Historically there’s been a very high correlation — almost a one-to-one correlation — between costs and the gold price, implying that with higher gold prices you will likely see costs rise at the same time,” Wolfson said in a phone interview last week.
This gold-related Bloomberg news story was posted on their Internet site at 10:01 p.m. Denver time on Monday evening — and was updated about 9 hours later. I thank Richard Saler for his second offering in today’s column. Another link to this article is here.
Hong Kong’s new gold rush: ‘Big Mother’ investors from mainland China buy big as yuan falls and global economy shudders
China imported five times more gold from Hong Kong in May amid global and regional economic and geopolitical uncertainties, with gold traders expecting the trend to continue as prices keep rising and investors keep buying as a hedge to the falling value of the Chinese yuan.
Chinese customs data released last week showed imports from Hong Kong to the mainland increased in May mainly due to cross border shipments to meet mainland customer demand.
China’s total gold imports in the first half of this year amounted to 173 billion yuan (HK$200.6 billion). Of that, 45.8 billion yuan was gold imported from Hong Kong, up 5.5 times year on year.
Gold imports from Hong Kong represented 25 per cent of all imports of the precious metal into China in the first half of this year, compared with only 2.8 per cent in the same period last year. In comparison, the amount of gold China imported from Switzerland in the first half dropped 30.5 per cent year on year, South Africa fell 23.1 per cent and Australia decreased by 31.5 per cent.
This worthwhile news item put in an appearance on the South China Morning Post on Sunday evening local time — and was subsequently updated about 12 hours later. I found it on the Miles Franklin website yesterday — and another link to this gold-related news story is here. The photo alone is worth the trip.
The PHOTOS and the FUNNIES
No critter photos today, but I’ll have some tomorrow. This photo of a delphinium was taken with my 400mm lens as I was sitting on the patio having a beer after one of my outings last week. The shot was taken from about 10 meters/30 feet away. I didn’t know until I did some research, that this genus of plant is toxic to both human and livestock. Not that I was about to make a salad out it, mind you. The ‘click to enlarge’ feature does not help here.
The WRAP
Yesterday was a crashing bore — like watching paint dry, or grass grow. The only thing worth noting was that palladium was allowed to make a new high close for its current move up. Other than that, it was just another day off the calendar as Ted Butler is wont to say from time to time.
Here are the 6-month charts for all four precious metals — and JPMorgan et al made no attempts to set new lows for this move down in either gold or silver. Considering the fact that volume was very light, they certainly missed an opportunity…but that event may be yet to come.
And as I type this paragraph, the London open is less than ten minutes away — and I note that the gold price didn’t do much of anything for most of the Far East session on their Wednesday. But starting a few minutes before 1 p.m. HKT, some selling pressure appeared — and gold is down 3 dollars the ounce at the moment. Silver chopped sideways until shortly before 2 p.m. HKT — and at that point someone shaved a dime off the price. Platinum was sold off a bit in morning trading in the Far East — and is down 6 bucks currently. The palladium price was also softer by a small handful of dollars — and is down two bucks at the moment.
Net HFT gold volume is very chunky at a hair over 40,000 contracts — and roll-over volume out of August isn’t all that heavy. Net HFT volume in silver is around 6,250 contracts. The dollar index was up about 10 basis points in morning trading in the Far East, but is only up 6 basis points as London opens.
Yesterday, at the close of COMEX trading, was the cut-off for this Friday’s Commitment of Traders Report — and the price action yesterday won’t have made much difference to whatever may be in it. Just eye-balling the above charts I’d guess that we’ll see some improvement in the commercial net short positions in both silver and gold when the report shows up. As to how much, I’ll leave that to Ted, as he watches this far more closely than I.
And as I post today’s column on the website at 4:05 a.m. EDT, I see that all four precious metals are under more price pressure as the dollar index rallies a bit. At the moment, gold is down a hair over 6 dollars an ounce, silver is down 15 cents, platinum by 9 — and palladium by 4 bucks.
HFT gold volume is now up to a bit over 55,000 contracts, which is very heavy — and roll-overs are very much on the lighter side. Net HFT volume in silver is sitting at a hair over 8,900 contracts. The dollar index has continued to rally off its 2:20 p.m. HKT low — and is up 16 basis points at the moment.
I haven’t a clue as to what today’s price action in New York might bring, but with the cut-off for this Friday’s COT Report out of the way, they could use the next eight trading days going into the August delivery month in gold to really hammer the snot out of the precious metal prices if they choose to do so, as the COT configuration has been ripe for the picking for a long time now.
That’s all I have for today — and I’ll see you here tomorrow.
Ed
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