02 September 2016 — Friday
YESTERDAY in GOLD, SILVER, PLATINUM and PALLADIUM
The gold price rallied a few dollars in early morning trading in the Far East on their Thursday, but began to head lower once a smallish dollar index rally began at 10:20 a.m. China Standard Time. The quiet sell-off ended shortly after 9 a.m. in London — and then the price rallied a few dollars until 11:30 a.m. BST. It then rolled over and hit its low tick of the day, which came a few minutes before 9 a.m. in New York. It began to chop higher from there, but judging by the saw-tooth price pattern, the rally attracted the usual cadre of ‘not-for-profit’ sellers. The rally was finally capped a few minutes after the London close, which was 11 a.m. EDT — and the price didn’t do much after that.
The low and high ticks were reported as $1,305.50 and $1,318.60 in the December contract.
Gold closed yesterday in New York at $1,313.60 spot, up $5.10 from Wednesday’s close. Net volume was on the heavier side at just over 172,000 contracts October and December combined, so it was obvious that this rally did not go unopposed. I was surprised to see that the 50+ basis point plunge in the dollar index that began at, or just before, the London p.m. gold fix, had no visible affect on the price.
Here’s the 5-minute tick gold chart courtesy of Brad Robertson. As is almost always the case, there was no volume to speak of before the 6:20 a.m. Denver time COMEX open — and the standout feature on the chart is the big 12,000+ contract volume spike that was traded at the p.m. gold fix between 10:00 and 10:05 a.m. in New York…8:00 to 8:05 a.m. MDT on this chart. Volume dried up to background shortly after the COMEX close, which is 11:30 a.m. Denver time on the chart below.
The vertical gray line is 10:00 p.m. Denver time, midnight in New York — and noon China Standard Time the following day in Shanghai—and don’t forget to add two hours for EDT. The ‘click to enlarge‘ is a must here.
The price pattern in silver was very similar, including the obvious presence of ‘da boyz’ during the morning rally on the COMEX. The only real difference was that silver’s high tick came at 12:40 p.m. EDT — as it was about to make a break above the $19 spot price mark. The price was sold down a bit into the COMEX close — and it traded almost ruler flat after that.
The low and high ticks were recorded by the CME Group as $18.65 and $18.995 in the December contract.
Silver finished the Thursday session at $18.855 spot, up 23.5 cents on the day. Net volume was, not surprisingly, pretty decent at just under 45,500 contracts.
Platinum didn’t do much of anything until the COMEX open on Thursday — and from that point it got sold down to its low tick of the day around 9:15 a.m. in New York. It rallied a small handful of dollars during the next couple of hours before chopping sideways for the rest of the day. Platinum finished the Thursday session at $1,045 spot, down 5 dollars from Wednesday’s close.
The trading pattern in palladium was very similar to that of platinum, except palladium’s low tick came just a few minutes before the Zurich close, which was 11 a.m. EDT. Palladium closed on Thursday in New York at $664 spot, down 6 bucks on the day. Looking at the last three days of trading in palladium on the Kitco chart below, they all have the same general daily pattern. This sort of thing only occurs in a managed market.
The dollar index closed very late on Wednesday afternoon in New York at 95.99 — and dipped to its 95.91 Far East low tick at 10:40 a.m. CST [China Standard Time]. It crawled back above the 96.00 mark in the next 5-odd hours of trading — and then bolted up to its 96.24 high tick a minute of so before 9 a.m. BST. It gave up all the gains in the next hour, but managed to struggle back to the 96.16 mark at, or minutes before, the London p.m. gold fix. The plug got pulled at that point, with the 95.60 low tick coming right at the 11:00 a.m. EDT London close. It bounced off the bottom for the next five hours or so, finishing the Thursday trading session at 95.65 — and down 34 basis points on the day.
I was amazed to see that there was no reaction in the prices of either silver or gold on that big dollar index drop, but maybe that huge 12,000+ contract price spike at the exact same moment was there to ensure that there wasn’t.
And here’s the 6-month U.S. dollar index so you can keep up with the ‘value’ of the world’s ‘reserve’ currency.
The gold stocks opened down a percent, but by 10 a.m. EDT, they were back in positive territory to stay. Most of the gains that mattered were in by shortly after 12 o’clock noon in New York — and the shares chopped and flopped around from there into the close. The HUI finished the Thursday session up a respectable 4.35 percent.
It was more or less the same price pattern in the silver equities, except they started in a 2 percent hole — and Nick Laird’s Intraday Silver Sentiment/Silver 7 Index only managed to close up 2.18 percent. Click to enlarge if necessary.
The CME Daily Delivery Report for Day 3 of the September delivery month showed that 47 gold and 191 silver contracts were posted for delivery within the COMEX-approved depositories on Monday. In gold, Morgan Stanley issued 43 contracts out of its client account — and Canada’s Scotiabank stopped 42 contracts. In silver, it was a rather mixed bag. The largest short/issuer was International F.C. Stone with 119 contracts — and there were 11 different long stoppers, with the usual standouts being MacQuarie Futures and JPMorgan — picking up 52 and 30 contracts respectively for their own accounts. The link to yesterday’s Issuers and Stoppers Report is here.
The CME Preliminary Report for the Thursday trading session showed that gold open interest in September dropped by 52 contracts, leaving 566 left, minus the 47 mentioned in the previous column. Wednesday’s Daily Delivery Report showed that 84 gold contracts were posted for delivery today, so that means that 84-52=32 gold contracts were added to the September delivery month. Silver open interest in September declined by 302 contracts, leaving 2,201 still around. Wednesday’s Daily Delivery Report showed that 277 silver contracts were posted for delivery today, to that means that 302-277=25 silver contract holders in the September delivery month were given a free pass by those holding the long side of their contracts, as they obviously had no physical silver behind these short positions — and the longs didn’t want to push the issue.
Gold open interest in October dropped by 451 contracts, leaving 44,385 still open.
There was another fairly chunky withdrawal from GLD yesterday, as an authorized participant took out 171,756 troy ounces. And as of 7:55 p.m. EDT yesterday evening, there were no reported changes in SLV.
There was a decent sales report from the U.S. Mint to start off the new month. They sold 7,000 troy ounces of gold eagles — 1,000 one-ounce 24K gold buffaloes — and 140,000 silver eagles.
It was another quiet day in gold over at COMEX-approved depositories on Wednesday. Only 3,825.850 troy ounces/119 kilobars [U.K./U.S. kilobar weight] were received at JPMorgan. Of the amount shipped out, there was 3,215.000 troy ounces/100 kilobars [U.K./U.S. kilobar weight] shipped out of Canada’s Scotiabank, plus another 6 kilobars out of Brink’s, Inc. — for a total of 3,407.900 troy ounces. A link to that activity is here.
It was busier in silver, of course, as 603,462 troy ounces were received — and all of that went into CNT. There was also 421,717 troy ounces shipped out. Of that amount there was 316,556 troy ounces that came out of JPMorgan’s vault — and the remainder came out of Scotiabank. The link to that activity is here.
It was another busy day over at the COMEX-approved gold kilobar depositories in Hong Kong on their Wednesday. They reported receiving 1,866 of them and, after two consecutive large ‘in’ days in a row, they shipped out a chunky 7,214. All of the action was at Brink’s, Inc. as per usual — and the link to that, in troy ounces, is here.
Nick Laird passed around some charts yesterday evening. Here are the first two. They show monthly U.S. Mint sales for gold and silver eagles as of the end of August– and as you can tell at a glance, it’s been a while since silver eagle sales have been this quiet. And it should be noted that gold eagles sales also include gold buffalo sales in the monthly totals you see here. Click to enlarge.
The other set of charts that Nick sent out show gold and silver imports into Turkey, updated with July’s import data — and those numbers aren’t all that robust either. Click to enlarge.
By mid-day yesterday, I thought I was only going to have a few stories for you, but that’s changed now — and I have a lot once again. The final edit is up to you.
CRITICAL READS
August U.S. auto sales fall; carmakers say industry has peaked
U.S. auto sales fell 4.2 percent in August as some major automakers said a long-expected decline due to softer consumer demand had begun, possibly sparking a shift to juicer customer incentives and slower production.
The top three sellers, General Motors Co, Ford Motor Co and Toyota Motor Corp on Thursday reported declines of at least 5 percent.
Of the seven top manufacturers by sales, only Fiat Chrysler Automobiles reported a gain versus a year ago, when sales were restated to about 11,000 fewer than originally reported.
Monthly spending on new cars and trucks is closely watched as the U.S. auto industry accounts for about one-fifth of U.S. retail sales.
This Reuters story, filed from Detroit, put in an appearance on their Internet site at 5:18 p.m. EDT on Thursday afternoon — and is the first of many offerings from Roy Stephens. Another link to this news item is here.
USDA Sees 2016 Farm Income Crashing as Farmer Leverage Spikes to 34 Year Highs
The plight of the American farmer has been a frequent topic for us over the past couple of months. A few weeks ago we pointed out how declining corn, wheat and soybean prices were leading to the first declines in farmland values in the Midwest since the 80s. We also questioned whether California farmland was overvalued by $70 billion as almond prices have been cut in half over the past year and drought conditions threaten farming sustainability in many regions of the Central Valley.
Most food grown in the U.S. has come under extreme pressure in 2016 due primarily to lower Chinese consumption resulting from the combined effect both a weak Chinese economy and a relatively strong U.S. dollar. This slack in demand has resulted in massive supply gluts for several commodities as producers failed to adjust supply quickly enough to meet new levels of demand.
Unfortunately, per the USDA’s latest farming income forecast for 2016 (released yesterday), conditions only look to be getting worse for farmers as demand still remains low but supply has been slow to adjust in the wake of improving yields. Below are a couple of the key takeaways from the USDA’s 2016 forecast.
They have, as Ted Butler has said for years now, “caught the silver disease” — as a lot of commodity prices, including the grains, are no longer correlated to either supply or demand. As he said in an e-mail to me on this story yesterday “Managed Money traders sold 450,000 contracts of corn on the price decline from over $4 to close to $3 and 100,000 contracts of soybeans on the $2+ drop this year. [I] don’t know why more don’t see it.” This important and worthwhile news item found a home over at the Zero Hedge website at 5:45 a.m. on Thursday morning EDT — and I thank Richard Saler for sending it along. Another link to this article is here.
Update on USA’s Economic Rollover – Mike Maloney
Mike Maloney provides an update on the various economic indicators that he has been tracking over the past months.
This 9:08 minute video clip was posted on the youtube.com Internet site yesterday — and it’s worth watching if you have the time.
Retreat From Empire: The Post-Imperial Voices of Nigel Farage and Donald Trump
Nigel Farage and Donald Trump embody the desire of their societies for a dignified and managed retreat from empire. By contrast, Hillary Clinton represents the last frenetic attempt within the U.S. to sustain its imperial role. Regardless of the outcome of the Presidential election, it is Donald Trump in the U.S., like Nigel Farage in Britain, who is closer to the deeper and longer-term aspirations and feelings of the American people.
A pint of ale, an old Jaguar, the monarchy, green and pleasant landscapes and red phone boxes which no one uses, all help Britain feel like she at least controls her own limited destiny. Brexit was a referendum on this feeling as much as it was a vote against the establishment.
Trump is calling for America’s exit from being a global superpower and wants to become something of a geographically vaster, post-Imperial Britain. Without being able to necessarily articulate the gestalt in this way, most Americans want the same.
Nigel Farage’s pint of bitter is Donald Trump’s baseball cap. Both are symbols implying that decline can be comforting and familiar rather than painful and revolutionary.
This amazing commentary, which is well worth reading, showed up on David Stockman’s website yesterday — and it’s the second offering in a row from Roy Stephens. Another link to this article is here.
Apple travesty is a reminder why Britain must leave the lawless E.U.
Europe’s Competition Directorate commands the shock troops of the E.U. power structure. Ensconced in its fortress at Place Madou, it can dispatch swat teams on corporate dawn raids across Europe without a search warrant.
It operates outside the normal judicial control that we take for granted in a developed democracy. The U.S. Justice Department could never dream of acting in such a fashion.
Known as ‘DG Comp’, it acts as judge, jury, and executioner, and can in effect impose fines large enough to constitute criminal sanctions, but without the due process protection of criminal law. It misused evidence so badly in pursuit of the U.S. chip maker Intel that the company alleged a violation of human rights.
Apple is just the latest of the great U.S. digital companies to face this Star Chamber. It has vowed to appeal the monster €13bn fine handed down from Brussels this week for violation of E.U. state aid rules, but the only recourse is the European Court of Justice. This is usually a forlorn ritual. The ECJ is a political body, the enforcer of the E.U.’s teleological doctrines. It ratifies executive power.
As he should be, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard is up in arms in this piece — and I love it when he’s got his knickers in a twist! It appeared on the telegraph.co.uk Internet site at 7:55 p.m. BST on their Wednesday evening, which was 2:55 p.m. in New York — EDT plus 5 hours. It’s another contribution from Roy Stephens — and another link to this story is here. It’s certainly worth reading.
Turkey’s new sultan drives Uncle Sam, Ivan and Ali up the wall — M.K. Bhadrakumar
Turkey’s display of strategic autonomy during its intervention in Syria has unnerved the U.S., Russia and Iran. Ankara can give three days’ notice to cancel access for the US to the Incirlik base. As the military balance changes, Iranian forces and Hezbollah have to get used to a superior military power with boots on the ground in Syria. Although Moscow has urged Ankara to undertake course correction, the future directions of the Turkish intervention in Syria remain unclear.
It cannot be a coincidence that Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Tuesday in an interview that the allegations that Turkey is turning its back on the West by normalizing relations with Russia lack basis and that its relationship with Russia is “not an alternative to its partnership and alliance with the West.”
In a series of statements, the U.S. conveyed that Turkish operations against Kurds are “unacceptable”. France has also echoed similar views.
On Wednesday, Moscow and Tehran calibrated their ‘distance’ from the Turkish intervention. But their accent markedly varied.
Indeed, the future directions of the Turkish intervention in Syria remain unclear – except that it is for the long haul. Turkey’s display of strategic autonomy has unnerved the three main protagonists – U.S., Russia and Iran.
One thing is absolutely clear — and that is that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is a certified nut job — a loose cannon of the first order of magnitude — and can’t be trusted by anyone. This longish commentary by career Indian diplomat M.K. Bhadrakumar is a must read, particularly if your a serious student of the New Great Game. I thank Roy Stephens for digging it up — and another link to this news item is here.
Japan focuses on closer economic ties with Russia
The visit of Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is expected to be the highlight of Russia’s Eastern Economic Forum. Tokyo wants closer economic links with Moscow in the face of a rising China, and restart talks over the Kuril Islands territorial dispute.
Abe is due to visit the Russian city of Vladivostok on Friday and Saturday. He will hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and participate in the forum. The two sides are expected to discuss the economic cooperation plan proposed by Abe in Sochi earlier this year.
The plan has eight target areas of cooperation, including energy, technology, development of industries and export bases in the Russian Far East, and better people-to-people contact.
On Thursday, Abe gave the job of economic cooperation with Russia to Japan’s Trade and Industry Hiroshige Seko, who will be with Abe in Vladivostok.
Former lawmaker Muneo Suzuki told Reuters that “broadening economic ties with an eye to the eventual resolution of the territorial row over the islands in the western Pacific made sense because Russia’s energy resources and Japan’s technological expertise and investment were a good fit.”
Putin may dangle the Kuril Islands carrot, but as long as Japan remains a U.S. vassal state, the Japanese flag will never appear on their soil, so I certainly won’t live to see it happen. This very interesting Russia Today news item put in an appearance on their Internet site at 11:00 a.m. Moscow time on their Thursday afternoon, which was 3:00 a.m. in Washington — EDT plus 8 hours. It’s the final contribution of the day from Roy Stephens — and another link to this news story is here.
Asia loosens London’s grip on FX trading
London is losing its grip on a global currencies-trading business that is tilting toward Asia, the latest benchmark survey of the industry from the Bank for International Settlements reveals.
The U.K. capital’s market share in this crucial but scandal-tinged business has dropped for the first time in more than a decade, reaching 37.1 percent from nearly 41 percent in the previous study in 2013.
New York’s slice grew slightly to 19 percent, while the combined heft of Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Singapore — the other three large global trading hubs — swelled to 21 percent from 15 per cent, underscoring the growing importance of the Asian region and of China in particular in global trade. The renminbi is now the world’s most heavily traded emerging-market currency, doubling its share of the global market and knocking the Mexican peso off its perch.
The above three paragraphs are all there is of this Financial Times story that’s posted in the clear. The rest is behind a subscription wall. It was something I found on the gata.org Internet site — and the above three paragraphs are worth reading if you haven’t already.
Australia must choose between United States and China: U.S. Army official
A senior U.S. soldier said on Thursday Australia must choose between a stronger U.S. alliance or closer ties with China, and urged Canberra to take a tougher stance against Chinese claims in the South China Sea.
The Pentagon, however, disputed the statement by U.S. Army Assistant Chief of Staff Colonel Tom Hanson, saying it did not represent the position of the U.S. government.
“I think the Australians need to make a choice … it’s very difficult to walk this fine line between balancing the alliance with the United States and the economic engagement with China,” Hanson said on Australian Broadcasting Corp. Radio.
“There’s going to have to be a decision as to which one is more of a vital national interest for Australia,” he said. Hanson said the comments reflected his personal view and were not necessarily that of the U.S. government.
What arrogance! I’d love to know how well his comments went over ‘down under’. This Reuters article, filed from Sydney, showed up on their website at 2:02 p.m. EDT yesterday afternoon — and my thanks goes out to subscriber ‘G.H.’ for sharing it with us. Another link to this article is here.
Stunning Chart Shows That Central Bank Liquidity is Now Driving All Asset Prices
If there is a reason why traders walk into their office every day in a state of zombified daze, no longer able to trade various asset classes based on fundamental data or incremental news flow, there is a simple reason for that: global central bank liquidity injections have never been greater, and as of this moment, have surpassed all previous post-financial crisis central bank intervention.
As Deutsche Bank’s Jim Reid points out, “it’s difficult at the moment to fight the central bank in the credit market, especially in Europe and the U.K. where they are a non price sensitive buyer of the asset class. Even outside of these asset purchase programs it’s fair to say that global policy continues to be remarkably loose. Of the main central banks the Fed has been largely neutralised even if they manage to add a fresh hike in September or December, and the ECB and BoJ have increased and expanded the scope of their QE programs with the BoE recommencing theirs after a nearly four-year break.”
Collectively this means central bank liquidity is actually close to being as high as it’s been at any point post GFC even with the Fed’s QE program having been halted two years ago.
As for Reid’s declaration to “not fight central banks”, he is of course right: while asset prices had disconnected with fundamentals many years ago, considering this unprecedented central bank step up in asset micromanagement, the only driver behind asset prices is the relentless wall of liquidity entering the global market at a record pace.
This brief 1-chart Zero Hedge piece is definitely worth your time, especially in light of the must read commentary by Ted Butler that follows this article. It showed up on the ZH website at 8:50 a.m. EDT yesterday morning — and another link to this very worthwhile item is here. It’s the second offering of the day from Richard Saler.
Ted Butler: How Prices Get Set
In commodities, it is assumed that prices are set by the broad array of consumers and producers on either side, with no one producer or consumer dictating price. Commodity prices are assumed to be set by the myriad countless daily interactions between the world’s producers and consumers in a free market atmosphere. And where a big producer or consumer does exert undue price influence, we rely upon antitrust and anti-monopoly law to balance things out. That’s how commodity prices are supposed to be set.
But something has occurred that has turned the world of commodity pricing on its head. The most shocking element is that while many see it, few recognize how the price discovery process for commodities has been completely upended. At least in the short to intermediate time frame (weeks and months), the usual interactions between the actual commodity producers and consumers of the world have come to matter little in establishing price. Let me be clear, I am saying that what used to set prices and is still thought by most to continue to set commodity prices, no longer sets price over the intermediate time frame. There has been a price setting revolution in some important world commodities.
All revolutions involve a sweeping out of the old and the ushering in of the new. If the price influence of the real commodity producers and consumers has been swept aside, as I claim, then a new force must have taken its place. That new force is the collective influence exerted on price by the traders in the managed money category of the Disaggregated COT report and their counterparties (the commercials). So overpowering is the collective managed money/commercial buying and selling that it obliterates any price influence from real producers or consumers.
This must read commentary by Ted appeared on the silverseek.com Internet site yesterday morning Denver time — and another link to it is here.
Are the Central Banks Manipulating the Price of Gold? — Dennis Miller
I was in a panic. I was living off the interest from our Certificates of Deposit (CDs). The government passed the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), and interest rates tanked. My world went topsy-turvy as the banks redeemed my CDs. The new, lower rates won’t pay the bills. Not even close!
Isn’t high inflation caused by increasing the currency supply resulting in the value of each dollar (or currency unit) rapidly losing buying power?
I had two problems. How do I generate enough income to pay the bills? How do I protect our nest egg from inflation? I saw my parents lose a lot of buying power during the high-inflation Carter years.
I bought some gold. When the price hit all time highs, I congratulated myself on my profound wisdom. The TARP bill was followed with even more money creation. Despite the government flooding the banks with trillions of dollars the gold price dropped almost 50%.
This commentary includes a Q&A session between Dennis and myself. It put in an appearance on the milleronthemmoney.com Internet site yesterday — and another link to it is here.
Deutsche Bank refuses clients’ demand for physical gold
Clients of Germany’s biggest bank who have invested in the exchange-traded commodity Xetra-Gold are facing problems when they want to obtain physical gold, according to German analytic website Godmode-Trader.de.
Xetra-Gold is a bond on the Deutsche Börse commodities market, and Deutsche Bank is a designated sponsor. ON the website, Xetra-Gold says its clients have the right for physical delivery of gold.
“Physically backed: The issuer uses the proceeds from the issue of Xetra-Gold to purchase gold. The physical gold is held in custody for the issuer in the Frankfurt vaults of Clearstream Banking AG, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Deutsche Börse. In order to facilitate the delivery of physical gold, the issuer holds a further limited amount of gold on an unallocated weight account with Umicore AG & Co.,” says Xetra-Gold.
However, despite claims that every virtual gram of gold is backed by the same amount of physical gold, clients have been refused the precious metal upon demand.
This amazing story was posted on the Russia Today website Thursday afternoon at 1:01 p.m. Moscow time, which was 5:01 a.m. in New York — EDT plus 8 hours. I thank ‘aurora’ for being the first one through the door with this news item. Another link to it is here. It also appeared on Mark O’Byrne’s website goldcore.com. That iteration is headlined “Avoid Paper Gold – “Gold Delivery” Refused by Gold Exchange Traded Commodity” — and it’s linked here.
Central bank gold buying – what the media reports don’t really tell you — Lawrie Williams
There’s been a fair amount of media coverage of the reduction in net central bank gold purchases seen so far this year, but the writers of these seem to treat all central banks as one. The implied suggestion as a whole is that this group of gold holders are all cutting back on purchases. But this has, in reality, been the case all along. There have only been three central banks which have consistently added to their gold reserves on a regular basis over the past year – Russia, China and, to a smaller but significant in total effect, extent Kazakhstan. Since China began publishing its monthly gold purchase data in July last year it has, according to IMF data, added 174 tonnes of gold, while Russia has added even more at 230 tonnes. Kazakhstan has added some 35 tonnes.
While observers will point out that the number of central banks adding gold into their reserves has diminished, this is largely irrelevant as, apart from the three central banks mentioned above, movements of gold into other individual central bank reserves has been minimal over the past two to three years.
While Russia’s and China’s monthly reserve additions appear to have been being cut back of late, one can’t really read too much into this in terms of a concerted reduction in central bank gold buying given the somewhat erratic nature of their month by month reserve increases in the past. Russian monthly reserve increases, for example, have varied from zero in January and February 2015 to 34.5 tonnes in September last year. China too has demonstrated sharp ups and downs in its reported reserve increases – from zero in May this year to just short of 21 tonnes in November last. Of course prior to June last year China was officially reporting zero month by month additions for the prior 6 years before announcing a massive 604 tonne increase that month.
This very worthwhile commentary by Lawrie showed up on the Sharps Pixley website yesterday — and another link to it is here.
The PHOTOS and the FUNNIES
This rather unattractive critter is a juvenile American coot, or mud hen — and it doesn’t look much prettier when it’s an adult. I was at another pond a little further away than my normal watering hole looking for black-crowned night herons. They weren’t to be found, so this fellow was the best I could do. I’ll have a photo of the adult bird in tomorrow’s missive. Click to enlarge.
The WRAP
Although I was certainly happy to see the rallies in both gold and silver yesterday, it was obviously a strictly COMEX affair. Not even the big dollar dive at the London p.m. gold fix had any influence on their respective prices — and both platinum and palladium traded like they were on some distant planet, as their price action was totally divorced from what was happening in silver, gold — and the currencies.
Gold hit a new intraday low on Thursday for this move down, but obviously closed nowhere near that number — and the chart below shows silver trading sideways with a slight positive bias over the last five trading days. However, platinum and palladium continued to close at new lows for this move, almost undisturbed from the paper shenanigans that currently govern the prices of both gold and silver at the moment.
And as I type this paragraph, the London open is less than ten minutes away — and I note that…
Well, we get the job numbers at 8:30 a.m. EDT this morning — and as I mentioned the other day, I’m expecting JPMorgan et al to smack the precious metals at that juncture, but would happy to be proven spectacularly wrong.
Then in the afternoon we get the latest and greatest Commitment of Traders Report — and after weeks of being disappointed, I’d be relieved if we finally got some decent improvements in the Commercial net short positions in both metals. But we’ll at least get a look at what the commercial traders and Managed Money are up to, as they are [as Ted Butler pointed out in his commentary in the Critical Reads section above] the two groups of traders that control the price in the precious metals, plus most other commodities.
And as I post today’s column on the website at 4:00 a.m. EDT, I see that prices are up a hair in the first hour of London/Zurich trading, but by no amounts worth mentioning.
Net HFT gold volume is a bit over 25,000 contracts, which is not a material change — and silver’s net volume is only up about 800 contracts from an hour ago, so it’s as as quiet as the proverbial church mouse out there at the moment, as the world waits for ‘da boyz’ to do whatever they’re going to do at the appointed time. The dollar index isn’t doing much either. Nothing to see here folks, please move along.
That’s all I have for today — and nothing will surprise me when I check the charts after I crawl out of bed later this morning.
Enjoy your weekend — and I’ll see you on Saturday.
Ed
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