17 August 2016 — Wednesday
YESTERDAY in GOLD, SILVER, PLATINUM and PALLADIUM
The gold price began to rally the moment that trading began at 6:00 p.m. EDT on Monday evening — and chopped quietly higher through all of Far East and part of London trading as well. It really took off to the upside minutes after trading began on the COMEX in New York yesterday morning, but about one minute after 8:30 a.m., the U.S. bullion banks got their stompin’ boots out — and the New York low came shortly after the equity markets opened. It rallied impressively from there, but got stepped on again at 11:30 a.m. EDT. It rallied a bit starting from 12:45 p.m. — and into the COMEX close — and at that juncture was sold down again until shortly before the equity markets closed at 4 p.m. EDT. After that it traded flat for the rest of the New York session.
The low and high ticks were recorded by the CME Group as $1,344.80 and $1,164.30 in the December contract.
Gold was closed yesterday in New York at $1,345.80 spot, up $7.20 from Monday. Net volume, including both October and December, was monstrous at around 208,500 contracts.
Here’s the 5-minute gold tick charts courtesy of Brad Robertson — and as you can tell, there wasn’t big volume during the rally that began at 16:00 Denver time on their Monday afternoon. All the volume that really mattered showed up on the engineered price decline that began ten minutes after the COMEX open, which is 6:30 a.m. MDT on the chart below. Once COMEX trading was done at 11:30 a.m. MDT/1:30 p.m. EDT, volume dropped off to practically nothing.
The vertical gray line is 10:00 p.m. Denver time, midnight in New York — and noon the following day in Hong Kong and Shanghai—and don’t forget to add two hours for EDT. The ‘click to enlarge‘ is a must here.
It was more or less the same price action in silver, except the it was somewhat more ‘volatile’ in nature, which is a cute way of saying that ‘da boyz’ had to step in more vigorously to contain the odd rally that broke out. But as you can tell from the Kitco chart below, the ceiling on the price was $20 spot — and the price pattern after the COMEX open was also identical to gold’s price pattern — and at the same times on the ticks as well. They even had the audacity to close silver down on the day. Nothing ‘free market’ about any of this.
The low and high ticks in silver were reported as $19.715 and $20.12 in the September contract.
Silver was closed on Tuesday at $19.71 spot, down 3 cents from Monday. Net volume was very heavy at just under 62,500 contracts.
The platinum chart is probably the egregious of the bunch, as JPMorgan et al hammered the price by almost 30 bucks in less than two hours. It recovered a bit from its 9:40 a.m. EDT low, but wasn’t allowed to get far. Platinum was closed at $1,116 spot — up 8 bucks from Monday, but 22 dollars off its high tick.
Palladium got off easy, as it made it back above $700 spot by a small handful of dollars, but was closed right at $700 spot — and up an even 10 bucks on the day.
The dollar index closed very late on Monday afternoon in New York at 95.58 — and then didn’t do much until 10:30 a.m. Hong Kong/Shanghai time on their Tuesday morning. The roof caved in at that juncture — and the 95.43 low tick came ten minutes after the COMEX open when ‘gentle hands’ appeared to save it — and they hit the precious metals hard at the same instant. The subsequent rally only made it back to the 95.00 mark by the 9:30 open of the equity markets in New York yesterday — and by 11:30 a.m. it was back at the 94.80 level — and that’s where it traded for the rest of the day. The index closed on Tuesday at 94.79 — and down 81 basis points on the day.
There can be little doubt that the powers-that-be were at battle stations in the precious metal market in order to prevent them from blasting to the moon and the stars — and wasted no time in hammering the crap out of them when the dollar index was turned upwards. They certainly don’t care how obvious they are, do they?
And here’s the 6-month U.S. dollar index chart. Once again the greenback was searching for its intrinsic value, but got halted in its quest shortly after the COMEX open.
The gold shares open in positive territory, albeit barely — and then sank back into the red, where they spent almost the remainder of the Tuesday session. The HUI closed down 0.73 percent. I was totally underwhelmed.
It was the same price pattern for the silver equities. Their respective low ticks came shortly after 11 a.m. in New York — and although they made it back to unchanged on a number of occasions, they couldn’t hold on. Nick Laird’s Intraday Silver Sentiment/ Silver 7 Index closed down 0.50 percent. Click to enlarge if necessary.
The CME Daily Delivery Report showed that 11 gold and 119 silver contracts were posted for delivery on Thursday within the COMEX-approved depositories. In gold, the short/issuers aren’t worth noting but, once again, it was JPMorgan stopping 8 contracts for its ‘client’ account — and MacQuarie Futures stopping 3 contracts for its own account. The sole short/issuer in silver was International F.C. Stone out of its client account. The three largest long/stoppers were Canada’s Scotiabank, Morgan Stanley and ADM with 66, 29 and 23 contracts respectively. The 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 August declined by 284 contracts, leaving 921 still open, minus the 11 contracts mentioned above. Monday’s Daily Delivery Report showed that only 22 gold contracts were posted for delivery today, so that means that 284-22=262 gold contract holders in the August delivery month who were short, were let off the hook by the parties that held the long positions against them. August o.i. in silver rose another 8 contracts, leaving 206 still open, minus the 119 contracts mentioned in the previous paragraph. Monday’s Daily Delivery Report showed that zero silver contracts were posted for delivery today, so that means [obviously] that another 8 silver contracts were added to the August delivery month.
Gold open interest in September dropped 368 contracts, leaving 4,585 still around — and October o.i. in gold rose by 265 contracts, leaving 46,647 open.
After two weeks of withdrawals from GLD, there was deposit in that ETF yesterday, as an authorized participant added 57,262 troy ounces. And as of 7:51 p.m. EDT yesterday evening, there were no reported changes in SLV.
The folks over at Switzerland’s Zürcher Kantonalbank updated their website with the goings-on in their gold and silver ETFs as of the close of business on Friday, August 12. They reported adding a smallish 7,588 troy ounces of gold, plus 101,821 troy ounces of silver.
There was no sales report from the U.S. Mint once again.
In our discussion on the phone yesterday, Ted and I were talking about the absolutely horrific silver eagles sales — and the all but total collapse of retail investment demand. At the moment, the mint is, or says it is, producing a million silver eagles a week — and if that’s the case, they’re starting to stockpile monster boxes at an incredible rate. Ted was of the opinion that if JPMorgan et al had another engineered price decline lined up in silver, it’s possible that they whispered in the mint’s ear that “yes, don’t worry about your ever-increasing inventories of silver eagles, as we will buy them all eventually.” If and when that event occurs, and we see a monster spike in silver eagles sales at the end of it, you’ll know the reason.
There was very little movement in gold over at the COMEX-approved depositories on Monday. Only 397 troy ounces were reported received — and 3,864 troy ounces were shipped out. I shan’t bother linking this level of activity.
It was little different in silver, as nothing was received — and only 85,417 troy ounces were shipped out the door for parts unknown. I won’t bother linking this activity, either.
Over at the COMEX-approved gold kilobar depositories in Hong Kong on their Monday, they reported receiving 3,586 of them — and only shipped out 40. All of this activity was at Brink’s, Inc. — and the link to that, in troy ounces, is here.
I don’t have quite as many stories today as I had yesterday, so that will make your editing job somewhat easier.
CRITICAL READS
Mike Maloney Calls It: Recession Here Now
In this latest video, Mike Maloney gives conclusive evidence that shows that we are already in a recession.
It runs for 4:50 minutes — and was posted on the youtube.com Internet site yesterday. It’s worth your while if you have the time.
With $128 Billion in Equity Outflows, Barclays Asks “Who’s Buying Stocks” and Gives an Answer
It has been one of the greater paradoxes of the record S&P rally from the February lows: how has the market continued to rise even with unprecedented outflows? In other words, “Who‘s buying equities?”
Overnight, Barclay’s chief equity strategist Keith Parker asks that very question, pointing out that global equities have continued to rally despite $128bn of outflows from equity funds since mid-March. His answer: futures buying (which has traditionally been associated with central bank intervention), which since March ($60bn notional) has surpassed the amount of buying between October 2011 and May 2013,and which together with short-covering has more than offset the outflows.
He notes that with that dramatic shift in positioning basically done, retail and foreign investors are the incremental buyers/sellers of equities; S&P 500 returns have been 49% correlated with shifts in their combined ownership over the last 20 years. Active equity MFs are selling amid large retail redemptions while foreign investors are also selling US equities.
In other words, it may be all up to retail now: “A turn in retail/foreign sentiment and a resumption of equity inflows would get markets back to more of a grind since the positioning-driven bounce has played out, but still elevated active manager positioning leaves the market vulnerable to risks.“
This very long article showed up on the Zero Hedge website at 12:12 p.m. on Monday afternoon EDT — and it’s the first of two stories that I ‘borrowed’ from yesterday’s edition of the King Report. Another link to it is here.
Intermodal Shipping Traffic Suffers First Dip In 25 Quarters
North American intermodal volumes in second quarter 2016 fell 6.1 percent to 4.27 million units compared with the prior year, according to the Intermodal Association of North America’s (IANA) second quarter Intermodal Market Trends & Statistics report.
The second quarter decline followed 25 consecutive quarters of year-over-year growth.
Intermodal trailer volumes dropped 28.6 percent, continuing a multi-year downward trend, while international shipments fell 9.3 percent and domestic container loads grew 3.4 percent.
“The Q2 intermodal volume numbers reflected current market conditions,” IAMA President and CEO Joni Casey said. “Year-end projections are still tracking for growth in both the domestic container and international volumes, however.”
This story appeared on the americanshipper.com Internet site back on August 9 — and it’s another item I found in yesterday’s edition of the King Report. Another link to this article is here.
Foreign Holdings of U.S. Treasury Debt Rose in June
Foreign holdings of U.S. Treasury securities rose in June after falling in the two previous months.
The Treasury Department reported Monday that total foreign holdings climbed 1.1 percent in June to $6.28 trillion after declining 0.5 percent in May and 0.8 percent in April.
Japan, the second-biggest foreign owner of Treasury securities, increased its holdings by 1.3 percent to $1.15 trillion. That helped offset a reduction by China, the top foreign owner of Treasury debt, which trimmed its holdings in June by 0.3 percent to $1.24 trillion.
Ireland ranked third in foreign ownership of Treasury debt. It boosted its holdings 4.2 percent to $270.6 billion. The Cayman Islands, an offshore banking center, ranked fourth, expanding its holdings by 3.5 percent to $269.4 billion.
This short AP story, filed from Washington, was picked up by the abcnews.go.com Internet site at 4:30 p.m. EDT on Monday afternoon — and I thank West Virginia reader Elliot Simon for sending it our way. Another link to it is here.
Aetna to Cut Nearly 70 Percent of ‘Obamacare’ Footprint in 2017
In a move that will reduce choices for customers and could drive up prices, health insurance giant Aetna said that it will cut its participation in health care exchanges set up by President Barack Obama’s health care reforms.
The company will reduce the number of counties it serves on the exchanges from 778 to 242 for the 2017 plan year — a cut of about 69 percent.
The shift means Aetna will maintain a presence in only four states: Delaware, Iowa, Nebraska and Virginia. It is on exchanges in 15 states this year, according to The Associated Press. Next year, some states, including Alaska and Oklahoma, will be left with only a single provider selling coverage to individuals.
“In light of a second-quarter pretax loss of $200 million and total pretax losses of more than $430 million since January 2014 in our individual products,” Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini said in a statement, “we have decided to reduce our individual public exchange presence in 2017, which will limit our financial exposure.”
This is another AP story that showed up on the abcnews.go.com Internet site yesterday — and this one comes courtesy of Brad Robertson. Another link to it is here.
Puerto Rico’s Financial Woes Revive Calls for Independence
His ancient enmities are now fresher than ever because of the island’s catastrophic $72 billion debt, which has placed Puerto Rico into what amounts to federal receivership. A seven-member panel appointed by Congress and President Obama will soon hold sway over the island and its finances, which collapsed after years of long-term borrowing to cover rising short-term costs. To longtime nationalists like Mr. Cancel Miranda, it is yet more proof that colonialism is alive and well here.
This helps Mr. Cancel Miranda explain something odd that happened this summer. In June, the governor of Puerto Rico, Alejandro J. García Padilla, traveled to New York City and told a special committee of the United Nations that despite all appearances, Puerto Rico was still a colony of the United States. He sought the United Nations’ help in achieving self-determination for the island, which is a commonwealth of the United States.
“Puerto Rico is hungry and thirsty for justice,” Mr. García Padilla said.
The special committee has called on Washington to “allow the Puerto Rican people fully to exercise their inalienable right to self-determination and independence.”
This article appeared on The New York Times website yesterday sometime — and it comes courtesy of Patricia Caulfield. Another link to this story is here.
Iceland prepares to end currency controls
Iceland plans to significantly ease capital controls for individuals and companies, marking the end of a regime that was described as the crutch for the Icelandic economy following the 2008 crisis.
The Finance Ministry plans to put forward legislation on Wednesday to pave the way for the removal of capital controls for Icelanders who have been living with the restriction for eight years.
The recommendations will mean that outward foreign direct investment will be unrestricted, but still subject to confirmation by the central bank.
Investment in foreign currency financial instruments will also be allowed and individuals will be authorised to buy one piece of property abroad each calendar year, irrespective of purchase price.
Requirements, under penalty of law, to repatriate any foreign currency obtained abroad will also be eased and individual households will be given authorisation to buy foreign currency for travel. Iceland’s finance ministry said that next January the current ceiling on foreign investments will be raised.
This news story was posted on the telegraph.co.uk Internet site at 8:47 p.m. BST on their Tuesday evening — and I thank Roy Stephens for sharing it with us. Another link to this article is here.
Bank of England bond buying plan back on track
The Bank of England has successfully bought £1.17bn worth of government bonds as part of its £60bn buy-back programme to stimulate the economy.
Last week, the Bank failed to find enough sellers when it offered to buy the bonds, known as gilts.
But it found no shortage of sellers on Tuesday. The “reverse auction” was oversubscribed by almost 2.7 times.
Pension funds in particular have been reluctant to sell gilts, especially those with long maturities, because they bought them when they were cheap and offered a high rate of return.
This brief news item appeared on the bbc.com Internet site yesterday sometime — and I thank Patrik Ekdahl for sliding it into my in-box in the wee hours of this morning. Another link to this story is here.
Russian military options in Syria and the Ukraine
The past two weeks have been rich in military developments directly affecting Russia:
Syria:
1) Russia has announced that she will transform the Khmeimim airfield into a full-fledged military base with a permanently deployed task force.
2) Russia will deploy her heavy aircraft-carrying missile cruiser (often referred to in the West as an “aircraft carrier”) Admiral Kuznetsov to the eastern Mediterranean to to check the combat capabilities of the ship and its strike group and to engage, for the very first time, the state-of-the-art Ka-52K Katran helicopters.
The Ukraine:
1) Following the failure of the Ukronazis to infiltrate saboteurs on the Crimean Peninsula ,which President Putin called “stupid and criminal”, Poroshenko has now ordered a reinforcement of his military forces on border with Crimea and eastern Ukraine and placed its military on its highest alert.
2) The authorities in Kiev decided not to accept the credentials of the new Russian ambassador to the Ukraine.
This longish commentary appeared on thesaker.is Internet site yesterday — and is certainly a must read for any serious student of the New Great Game. I thank ‘aurora’ for passing it around yesterday — and another link to this article is here.
In a First, Russia Uses an Iran Base for Its Syria Campaign
Russia launched a fleet of bombers bound for Syria on Tuesday from an Iranian air base, becoming the first foreign military to operate from Iran’s soil since at least World War II.
Russian use of the base, with Iran’s obvious support, appeared to set back or at least further complicate Russia’s troubled relations with the United States, which has been working with Russia over how to end the Syria conflict.
While American officials said they were not surprised by the Russia-Iran military collaboration, it appeared to catch them off guard, with no solid information on the Kremlin’s intentions. “I think we’re still trying to assess exactly what they’re doing,” a State Department deputy spokesman, Mark Toner, told reporters in Washington.
The arrangement, permanent or not, enables Russia to bring more firepower to the Syrian conflict, and far greater military flexibility. Analysts said the new arrangement could also expand Moscow’s political influence in the Middle East and speed the growing convergence of interests between Moscow and Tehran.
This very interesting story, filed from Moscow, put in an appearance on The New York Times website on Tuesday — and it’s the second contribution of the day from Patricia Caulfield. Another link to this interesting article is here.
World Bank Approved as the First SDR Bond Issuer in China
The World Bank (International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, IBRD) announced today that the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) has approved the World Bank’s inaugural issue in the Chinese domestic market of bonds denominated in Special Drawing Rights (SDRs). The World Bank is the first entity to receive such approval and it marks the launch of the SDR bond market in the world’s second-largest economy.
“This is a landmark development for China’s bond market and for the SDR as an international reserve asset,” said World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim. “We are very pleased to support China’s growing role in global financial markets. World Bank issuance of SDR bonds in China will support the G-20’s objective of expanding the use of SDRs and help promote the development of China’s domestic capital market. It will also increase Chinese investors’ access to foreign currencies in the domestic bond market, while opening up new opportunities for international investors seeking high-quality investment products in the country.”
The size of the World Bank’s new issuance program is 2 billion SDRs (approximately equivalent to USD 2.8 billion). The bonds will be denominated in SDRs and payable in Chinese renminbi (RMB). The precise timing of issue and individual bond terms will be based on market conditions at the time of issuance.
This news item, filed from Washington, was posted on the World Bank’s website last Friday — and it comes courtesy of Bruce Brantley. In his covering e-mail, Bruce added a Jim Rickards comment that reads as follows: “The SDR market I predicted five years ago is taking shape before our eyes. Even this headline does not tell the whole story. Why is the World Bank issuing SDR bonds? It’s not because they have trouble borrowing. The World Bank is one of the best credits in the world. They can borrow whatever they want, whenever they want, in any currency they want. The reason is so that China can invest in SDR assets. How can China buy SDR bonds if no one issues them? The World Bank is just accommodating Chinese demand. And the Chinese want to invest in SDRs so they can stop investing in dollars. How much longer will investors sit in dollars waiting for the wipe out to come? It’s important to diversify into 10% physical gold to preserve your wealth before it’s too late.” Another link to this story is here.
Infographic: The Chinese Gold Market
This Chinese Gold Market infographic guides you through the largest physical gold trading market in the world, China.
An impressive 16,000 tonnes of gold are held within China’s borders.
Did you know that the Chinese wholesale demand for physical gold was an astounding 2,596 metric tonnes in 2015? This was supplied by China mining more gold than any other country in the world as well as importing more gold than any other country.
The chief architect of the Chinese gold market, the Chinese State, is continuously moving forward China’s position as the dominant market player for physical gold globally.
The Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE) is the largest market in the world for physical gold trading. It has 10 million institutional customers, 8.3 million individual customers and 55 certified gold vaults connected to it.
This was posted on the Singapore-based Internet site bullionstar.com on Monday. It should have been in Tuesday’s column, but I was already full up on stories, so this one got shunted into today’s column. It’s the third and final offering of the day from Patricia Caulfield — and another link to it is here.
Paulson Maintains Gold Position; Soros Cuts Barrick Holdings
Well-known hedge fund manager John Paulson maintained his holdings in the world’s largest gold exchange-traded fund in the second quarter, while Soros Fund Management LLC sold most of its stake in Barrick Gold Corp., according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Institutional investment managers must file a Form 13F, showing their major holdings, with the SEC within 45 days of the end of the quarter.
As of June 30, Paulson held 4.8 million shares in SPDR Gold Shares, the same as the end of the first quarter, the filings showed. This is the world’s largest gold exchange-trade fund, which trades like a stock but tracks the price of the commodity, with metal put into storage to back the shares.
Meanwhile, filings showed that filing showed Soros Fund Management sold more than 18 million shares of Barrick Gold, the world’s largest gold producer. The fund held 1.07 million shares at the end of the second quarter, compared to 19.4 million at the end of the first quarter.
This gold-related story appeared on the kitco.com Internet site at 8:56 a.m. on Tuesday morning EDT — and it’s the first of two in a row from Jerome Cherry. Another link to this news item is here.
British Billionaire Crispin Odey Places 86% Bet on Gold
One hedge fund manager, who is heading for his second consecutive yearly loss, has now put nearly all his eggs in the same basket – betting almost entirely on gold.
British billionaire Crispin Odey, whose fund is down nearly 30% year-to-date and down about 4.1% on the month, has managed to garner 2.2% returns for his shareholders thanks to the yellow metal.
And, he’s going to hold onto his winning bet.
Gold, which Odey calls the “original” currency, has strategically made it to the top of his list with the firm’s latest financials showing that over 86% of its assets under management lie in gold futures.
This guy must have some sort of death wish if he’s invested on the long side in the COMEX futures market in gold. His position would be a juicy prize for whatever bullion bank placed the order for him. Whichever one it was it would certainly be one of the Big 8 and maybe even the Big 4 traders. They know where his stops are, so it wouldn’t surprise me if they go gunning for them — and people like him. This is another story from the Kitco website — and the second of two in a row from Jerome Cherry. Another link to this article is here.
Rickards details the ‘paper gold’ fraud and speculates on its demise
In a new promotional video for his financial letter Strategic Intelligence, fund manager and geopolitical strategist James G. Rickards wonderfully exposes the fraud of “paper gold” and “paper silver” and speculates on the circumstances that will cause their demise and the explosion in the price of real metal.
More than 90 percent of gold and silver investments are not backed by real metal, Rickards says, and their owners won’t have metal when they most want it.
In the video Rickards interviews someone he says is an expert in the Swiss gold refinery business who concurs about the paper gold hoax and whose identity is withheld and whose face is obscured by fuzzing of the video. What the supposed expert asserts is only what GATA has been telling people for years, but the effect is theatrical and dramatic.
While GATA has followed a policy of strict attribution and has abjured anonymous sources in the belief that this is necessary for credibility, a high principle of honest journalism, maybe GATA Chairman Bill Murphy and your secretary/treasurer would have been more persuasive all this time if we had put paper bags over our heads. (We’d probably have had more luck in dating anyway.)
But anything that truthfully impugns what Rickards calls the great gold hoax is perfectly jake, so while it’s a commercial promotion, his video is still a great service. It’s about 30 minutes long and can be watched at the Agora Financial Internet site.
I found this video embedded in a GATA release yesterday — and I thank Chris Powell for the above preamble. It’s certainly worth watching — and another link to it is here.
The PHOTOS and the FUNNIES
This shrub is a silver buffaloberry — and like all plants at this latitude and time of year on the plains of North America, has set its seed/fruit for the season. This is obviously the female version of the tree. I photographed this one beside ‘the pond’ when I was out there late last week. I thought the contrast between the leaf and the fruit to be quite striking — and attractive. The flowers in the spring are small, yellow and very underwhelming. Their only saving grace is that they have a wonderful fragrance, to the point of being sickly sweet. Click to enlarge.
The WRAP
There should be little doubt in anyone’s mind after yesterday’s price performance that JPMorgan et al are still around — and the price line in the sand for gold is about where it peaked out yesterday — and the $20 spot price mark in silver was strongly defended.
With the U.S. dollar index in the toilet on Tuesday, ‘da boyz’ were at battle stations to prevent a melt-up in the precious metals — along with the commensurate margin calls that would have certainly been the end of some the smaller of the Big 8 traders in gold. Of course a run-away silver price wouldn’t have helped either — and would have just added fuel to the fire, especially for some of the smaller silver traders in the Commercial category, Ted Butler’s raptors.
Like Ted said on the phone yesterday, it’s hard to know if the powers-that-be are barely hanging on to control of the precious metal market, or if they’re just toying with it until they’re ready to pull the pin on the Managed Money traders.
But the stakes have never been higher — and until this situation is resolved, nothing will change.
Here are the 6-month charts for all four precious metals once again, with their respective 50-day moving averages creeping ever higher. As a ‘for instance’ — silver’s 50-day moving average went from $19.08 on Monday, to $19.15 on Tuesday. The changes are similar on a percentage basis in gold as well.
In a few more weeks, as these moving averages continue rise, they’ll do ‘da boyz’ work for them, as the Managed Money traders will be forced to sell. It doesn’t matter how this moving average is broken — by design or by circumstance — as the technical funds will do what their black boxes tell them to do when the 50-day moving average is crossed — and that’s begin selling longs and going short. JPMorgan et al will be on the other side of both those trades.
And as I type this paragraph, the London open is less than ten minutes away — and I note that gold traded flat for the first couple of hours and change after the New York open on Tuesday evening, but shortly after 8 a.m. Hong Kong/Shanghai time, a little selling pressure showed up — and gold is currently down 4 bucks. Silver traded mostly above unchanged in the Far East on their Wednesday morning, but got rolled over in the last thirty minutes — and it’s down 6 cents the ounce currently. Platinum and palladium are trading lower as well, with the former down 3 dollars and the latter down 6.
HFT gold volume is just over 28,000 contracts — and that number includes October as well as December volume. In silver, HFT volume is just over 9,300 contracts, with no roll-over volume to speak of. The dollar index has been rallying quietly, but unsteadily since trading began in New York yesterday evening — and as London opens, it’s up 22 basis points.
Yesterday, at the close of COMEX trading, was the cut-off for this Friday’s Commitment of Traders Report — and after a wild and woolly Friday, coupled with yesterday’s price action, it’s a tough call as to what Friday’s report will show. Combine that with the fact that not all of yesterday’s price/volume action will show up in that report, I’ll pass on making a guess as to what it will be in it. Ted posts his mid-week column later today — and I’ll be more than interested to see if he takes a stab at it, or will pass as well.
And as I post today’s column on the website at 4:05 a.m. EDT, I note that all four precious metals have come off their former lows during the first hour of trading, but not by material amounts — and are mostly chopping sideways. Net HFT volume in gold is now up to just under 35,000 contracts, which includes October’s volume as well. Silver’s HFT volume is just under 13,000 contracts. The earlier rally in the dollar index has stalled a bit — and it’s only 16 basis points.
That’s all I have for today — and I’ll see you here tomorrow.
Ed
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