29 August 2016 — Thursday
YESTERDAY in GOLD, SILVER, PLATINUM and PALLADIUM
The gold price quietly sold lower in Far East trading on their Wednesday, with an interim low coming at 8:30 a.m. BST in London. It rallied quietly and steadily from there until 1 p.m. BST, which was twenty minutes before the COMEX open, then was turned lower until minutes before the London close at 11 a.m. in New York. At that juncture it was sold down a quick 4 bucks, with the low tick of the day coming shortly after 11 a.m. EDT. The gold price chopped quietly higher from that point until 2:30 p.m. in the thinly-traded after-hours market, before it was turned a bit lower in the last hour.
The high and low ticks in gold were recorded by the CME Group as $1,331.10 and $1,321.10 in the December contract.
Gold finished the Wednesday session at 1,321.40 spot, down $5.60 on the day. Net volume was slightly elevated at just over 124,000 contracts. Considering the fact that another slice was taken out of the gold salami yesterday, I was expecting a bit more volume than that.
Here’s the 5-minute tick chart courtesy of Brad Robertson — and I’m only posting it because of the fact that a new low tick was placed, because gold only moved ten bucks intraday on Wednesday. There was decent volume starting around midnight Denver time, which was 2 a.m. in New York, 2 p.m. in Shanghai. Of course the really big volume [such as it was] occurred during the COMEX trading session when the New York bullion banks went to work starting at 6:20 a.m. MDT on the chart below. Volume didn’t drop off to what could be considered background levels until shortly before 1 p.m. Denver time, which was shortly before 3 p.m. EDT.
The vertical gray line is 10:00 p.m. Denver time, midnight in New York — and noon China Standard Time [CST] the following day in Shanghai—and don’t forget to add two hours for EDT. The ‘click to enlarge‘ is a must here.
The chart pattern for silver was very similar to gold’s, so I’ll pass on the play-by-play except to point out the fact that the low ticks in both were engineered at the same — and that came just minutes after the London close, which was minutes after 11 a.m. in New York. After that, the price rallied smartly back above $19 spot — and closed up on the day.
The high and low ticks were reported as $19.265 and $18.975 in the December contract.
Silver closed yesterday in New York at $19.17 spot, up 5 cents from Tuesday. Net volume wasn’t as heavy as I was expecting at just over 46,000 contracts, as ‘da boyz’ took another slice out of the silver salami on an intraday basis as well.
Here’s the 5-minute tick chart for silver — and I only point out the fact that the big volume spike came at the low tick of the day, which didn’t happen in gold.
Like on the 5-minute tick gold chart above, the vertical gray line is 10:00 p.m. Denver time, midnight in New York — and noon China Standard Time [CST] the following day in Shanghai—and don’t forget to add two hours for EDT. The ‘click to enlarge‘ is a must here as well.
Platinum was down about 4 dollars or so by the Zurich open on Wednesday morning — and was back to about unchanged by the time trading began on the COMEX in New York. JPMorgan et al did the dirty on that precious metal was well — and it was bounced off its $1,010 spot low tick a number of times either side of the Zurich close. Then, like silver, it rallied back above unchanged by the close. It finished the day at $1,027 spot, up 3 dollars from Tuesday.
Palladium traded a dollar or so above unchanged for all of Far East and most of Zurich trading on Wednesday, but shortly after 9 a.m. in New York, away it went to the upside. It managed to make it up to the $714 mark just after 2 p.m. EDT, before getting sold down to $710 spot during the last thirty minutes of the thinly-traded after-hours market. And that’s where it closed, up another 12 bucks — and back above $700 spot once again.
The dollar index closed very late on Tuesday afternoon in New York at 95.47 — and chopped higher to the 95.69 mark about 8:45 a.m. in London. It gave back all those gains, plus a few basis points more by 9 a.m. in New York. Then, it what looked like jam job to me, the index was ramped up to its 95.74 high tick at precisely 11:00 a.m. EDT, which was the London close. Then, by minutes after 5 p.m. in New York, the 95.37 low tick was printed — and ‘gentle hands’ brought it back to its 95.43 closing tick, down 4 basis points on the day.
And here’s the 6-month U.S. dollar index — and its ‘official’ status as the world’s reserve currency has only two trading days left before the IMF’s SDR ‘comes shambling forth to be born‘. Of course the Almighty Dollar will continue to be important in world trade, but the writing is definitely on the wall for it.
The gold shares opened unchanged, rallied a hair into the London p.m. gold fix — and then quietly sold off until gold’s low tick was set by JPMorgan et al a few minutes after 11 a.m. EDT. Then away they went to the upside until the gold price was quietly capped around 2:30 p.m. — and from there they chopped sideways into the close. The HUI finished higher by a very respectable — and somewhat surprising, I might add — 2.49 percent.
The silver equities traded in a mostly similar fashion to their golden brethren, but once silver was tapped briefly lower at 2:30 p.m. by ‘da boyz’, the silver stocks sold off about a full percentage point into the close. As it was, Nick Laird’s Intraday Silver Sentiment/Silver 7 Index closed up an equally respectable 2.58 percent. Click to enlarge if necessary.
The CME Daily Delivery Report showed that 6 gold and 468 silver contracts were posted for delivery within the COMEX-approved depositories on Friday. In gold, it was Goldman Sachs stopping all 6 contracts offered, but as you know, it was the silver deliveries that I was waiting to see. Hiding in the weeds all month as short/issuer in silver was JPMorgan with 460 contracts out of their client account. There were 11 long/stoppers in total. Goldman was in first place with 174 for their client account, Canada’s Scotiabank stopped 167 contracts — and in third spot was JPMorgan with 38 for its own account. There they go again screwing their clients over for their own benefit. The link to yesterday’s Issuers and Stoppers Report is here.
The CME Preliminary Report for the Wednesday trading session showed that gold open interest in September declined by 108 contracts, leaving just 36 still around, minus the 6 mentioned above. That leaves 30 contracts that have to be dealt with by the close of trading tomorrow. Tuesday’s Daily Delivery Report showed that 12 gold contracts were posted for delivery today, so that means that 108-12=96 short contract holders in gold were let off the delivery hook by the parties holding the long/stopper side of those contracts. Silver o.i. in September fell by 25 contracts, leaving 468 still open, minus the 468 contracts posted for delivery on Friday that were mentioned in the previous paragraph, so that completes the delivery month. Tuesday’s Daily Delivery Report showed that 30 silver contracts were posted for delivery today, so that means that 30-25=5 short/issuer contract holders in silver were also let off the delivery hook by the long/stoppers that held the other side of their trades.
Gold open interest for October took another big hit yesterday, as it declined by a further 3,908 contracts, leaving just 10,410 left open.
There were no reported changes in GLD yesterday, but there was a withdrawal from SLV, as an authorized participant took out 1,613,820 troy ounces.
Here are the long-term charts for both GLD and SLV. Note the monster disparity in physical metal stocks between the two. We’re still 30 bucks below silver’s old high of April 30, 2011 — and SLV silver inventories are almost back at their highs. It’s not even close in gold — and you have to ask yourself not only why this is the case, but what entities are holding all this silver, because it ain’t John Q. Public. Click to enlarge on both.
There was no sales report from the U.S. Mint yesterday.
There was no gold reported received over at the COMEX-approved depositories on Tuesday, but 33,649 troy ounces were shipped out — and with the exception of about 8 kilobars, all of it came out of HSBC USA’s depository. The link to that activity was here.
It was far busier in silver, of course. In that precious metal there was 1,212,358 troy ounces reported received, but only 29,637 troy ounces were shipped out. Of the amount received, there was 913,179 troy ounces deposited into JPMorgan’s vault. The rest went into CNT. All of the ‘out’ activity was from CNT as well. The link to that action is here.
And here’s JPMorgan’s COMEX silver holdings . They opened their silver warehouse a couple of days before the pulled off the drive-by shooting in silver on May 1, 2011. Look at them now, as they hold almost 45 percent of the entire COMEX inventories in silver. Click to enlarge.
It was another busy day over at the COMEX-approved gold kilobar depositories in Hong Kong on their Tuesday. They reported receiving 3,080 of them, but also shipped out a very chunky 11,664 kilobars. In the last two business days there has been over 13 tonnes deposited, plus another 26 tonnes removed. Does it mean anything, you ask? Both the short and long answers are: “I don’t know.” All of the action was at Brink’s, Inc. as per usual — and the link to that, in troy ounces, is here.
I have an average number of stories for you today — and the final edit, as always, is yours.
CRITICAL READS
Core Durable Goods Orders Contract For 20th Straight Month – Longest Non-Recessionary Streak in U.S. History
In the last 60 years, the US economy has never suffered such a long contraction in core durable goods orders (20 months) without officially being in recession.
It’s probably nothing… U.S. Durable Goods New Orders Ex Transports YoY down for the 20th straight month…
Headline (short-term) data beat thanks to notably lower revisions.
This brief 3-chart Zero Hedge article appeared on their Internet site at 8:42 a.m. on Wednesday morning EDT — and another link to it is here.
California Suspends ‘Business Relationships’ With Wells Fargo
California, the nation’s largest issuer of municipal bonds, is barring Wells Fargo & Co. from underwriting state debt and handling its banking transactions after the company admitted to opening potentially millions of bogus customer accounts.
The suspension, in effect immediately, will remain in place for 12 months. A “permanent severance” will occur if the bank doesn’t change its practices, State Treasurer John Chiang said Wednesday. The state also won’t add to its investments in Wells Fargo securities. Chiang already replaced Wells Fargo with Loop Capital for two muni deals totaling about $527 million that will be sold next week.
“Wells Fargo’s venal abuse of its customers by secretly opening unauthorized, illegal accounts illegally extracted millions of dollars between 2011 and 2015,” Chiang said in a news conference in San Francisco. “This behavior cannot be tolerated and must be denounced publicly in the strongest terms.”
The move by California is the latest to punish the bank, which is facing a national furor over the fraudulent accounts. San Francisco, the home of Wells Fargo, last week removed it from a banking program for low-income residents. Authorities including the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau fined Wells Fargo $185 million on Sept. 8 for potentially opening about 2 million deposit and credit-card accounts without authorization. Chief Executive Officer John Stumpf has forfeited $41 million in pay.
This Bloomberg story was something I extracted from a Zero Hedge piece yesterday. It’s datelined 12:40 p.m. Denver time yesterday afternoon — and another link to it is here.
Stanley Fischer’s Novel Idea: “We’d Be Better Off With a Price For Using Money” — David Stockman
The end game of central bank lunacy is surely near. Even the Fed heads appear to be mumbling bits and pieces of truth in public.
Former Philly Fed President Charles Plosser, for example, told Bloomberg TV this morning that central bankers “wring their hands all the time,” are very “concerned about credibility,” and are “pretty good at conjuring up reasons not to act.”
Having screwed up his mutinous courage, he then let loose with words that haven’t been heard from a central banker in decades, if ever:
The Fed “shouldn’t be afraid a recession might come,” he exclaimed, “there’s a real problem here”.
This commentary by David appeared on his website on Wednesday sometime — and I thank Roy Stephens for sharing it with us. It’s worth reading — and another link to this article is here.
Congress hands Obama first veto override
Congress overwhelmingly rejected President Barack Obama’s bid to derail legislation allowing families of the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to sue the government of Saudi Arabia, handing him the first veto override of his presidency during his final year in office.
The Senate took the first step Wednesday, voting 97-1 to override Obama’s veto of the 9/11 bill. The House quickly followed with a 348-77 vote.
The sweeping popularity of the legislation — known as the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act — made it basically inevitable that the measure would ultimately become law, despite fierce objections from the Obama administration. The bill, known informally as JASTA, sailed through the Senate with no objections in the spring and was voice-voted in the House earlier this month.
“This legislation is really about pursuing justice,” said Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas), one of the chief sponsors of the bill, along with Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). “The families have already suffered too much. They’ve already suffered untold tragedy, of course, and they deserve to find a path to closure that only justice can provide.”
This news item put in an appearance on the politico.com Internet site at 12:32 p.m. yesterday afternoon EDT — and it comes courtesy of Brad Robertson. Another link to this story is here.
Gang of 27 Hits U.K. with Impossible Demands: E.U. Seeks “Inferior” Deal for U.K., Spain Wants Gibraltar
A gang of 27 E.U. nations hit the U.K. with a parade of impossible demands. All the countries demand the UK grant free movement of people, but that is why the U.K. left.
In addition, Spain wants joint sovereignty over Gibraltar, Malta demands the U.K. get an “inferior” deal, the Czech Republic says “Four freedoms or no freedoms”, and Lithuania says the U.K. should “pay if they stay.”
For its part, the gang of 27 believe the U.K. has an impossible demand on immigration control that they cannot accept. If neither side gives, and that is increasingly likely, a hard Brexit looms, very hard.
This news item appeared on the mishtalk.com Internet site at 10:13 a.m. EDT on Wednesday morning — and it’s another contribution from Roy Stephens. Another link to this article is here.
Yanis Varoufakis says Brexit is like Hotel California: “You can check out any time you like but you can’t really leave“
Britain might struggle to leave the E.U. bloc, due to the complexity of the negotiations and the inflexibility of E.U. institutions, Yanis Varoufakis, Greece’s former finance minister, has warned.
Varoufakis, known as a fierce Eurozone critic, compared the U.K. relations with the E.U. bloc with a well-known song by the Eagles.
“The proof is Theresa May has not even dared to trigger Article 50. It’s like Harrison Ford going into Indiana Jones’ castle and the path behind him fragmenting. You can get in, but getting out is not at all clear.”
“Facilitating and deepening a crisis in Europe is going to bite you,” he added.
The academic – who was thrust into the spotlight when he became Greece’s finance minister for brief period in 2015 – also suggested the U.K. government should invoke Article 50 as soon as possible and use the negotiating period to prepare itself as nation.
According to Nigel Farage, Article 50 will be enacted in January. We’ll see. This story was posted on the independent.co.uk Internet site just before lunch BST — and it comes courtesy of Swedish subscriber Patrik Ekdahl. Another link to this article is here.
Sweden begins ‘de-cashing’
If you are holding Swedish kroner coins or bank notes, you might want to consider converting them while you still can. The Sveriges Riksbank or Swedish Royal Bank is quickly moving to a cashless society, making it as inconvenient as possible to convert its physical cash for anyone holding its currency outside of Sweden in the process.
Once Sweden completes the process of doing away with all of its coins and bank notes, it will become the first country anywhere to use an all-electronic system of payments. By so doing Sweden also opens the door for Big Brother to be watching every move of every citizen, as well as the potential abuses of a politician freezing the money of a political enemy or the citizenry at large on a moment’s notice.
A critical assessment of what Sweden is doing was written by International and U.S. foreign policy commentator Derek Monroe and appears in the July 15 Observer Politics.
“The Riksbank has cheerfully posted the amount of money it deemed invalid. On August 30, 2016, 7.9 billion kroner (US$933 million) will become a collector’s item. In 2017 the largest bills (100s and 500s) and coins will also be history. By itself, the transaction would have been uncontroversial, as all bills and coins need updating from time to time due to improvements in printing, and manufacturing technologies that enable fraud. However, the Riksbank’s process is designed to completely invalidate all cash held overseas – thus making the process of exchanging it impossible.”
The Swedish central bank will require all 20-, 50- and 1,000-kroner bank notes to be sent to them by registered mail for conversion beginning Sept. 1. The bank has made no mention of the redemption of coins. No conversion can be made in person. The registered mail system works from anywhere within the European Union; however, it doesn’t work from elsewhere. U.S. registered mail is only accepted within the United States. Sending Swedish kroner to be converted at the central bank from the United States is going to be risky and expensive.
This interesting story appeared on the numismaticnews.net Internet site on Tuesday — and I thank Tolling Jennings for sending it along. Another link to this article is here.
Why ‘radioactive’ Deutsche Bank could go nuclear at any time, experts warn
Germany’s biggest bank reportedly has a $45 TRILLION (£34trn) portfolio of underlying assets that its clients are taking a position in – which equates to more than 10 times Germany’s entire GDP.
And the problem is that no one really knows what’s makes up Deutsche’s book of exposure and so-called derivatives book because it’s so opaque and complicated, according to Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets U.K.
He told Express.co.uk: “Deutsche has the biggest derivatives book in the world, and people will say that its hedged to a greater or lesser extent, but it’s the interconnectedness with the rest of the system that is the problem.”
“There doesn’t seem to be transparency about what’s in its book. No one really knows what the ripple-out effects would be.”
This brief story showed up on the express.co.uk Internet site at 4:03 p.m. BST, which was 11:03 a.m. in New York — EDT plus 5 hours. It was updated about two hours later — and it’s worth reading. It’s another offering from Patrik Ekdahl. Another link to it is here. There was a Reuters story about this headlined “German government prepare Deutsche Bank rescue plan: Die Zeit” — and it’s courtesy of Richard Saler.
Saudi Arabia’s monarch cuts ministers’ pay by 20%
Saudi Arabia cancelled bonus payments for state employees and cut ministers’ salaries by 20 per cent, steps that further spread the burden of shoring up public finances to a population accustomed to years of government largesse.
The government also decided to suspend wage increases for the lunar year starting next month and curbed allowances for public-sector employees, according to royal decrees and a cabinet statement published by state media.
The salaries of members of a legislative body that advises the monarchy were cut by 15 per cent.
By curbing what many Saudis had for years taken for granted, the government is signaling a determination to reduce the highest budget deficit among the world’s 20 biggest economies amid low oil prices and a lingering war in neighbouring Yemen.
This news item showed up on the independent.co.uk Internet site on Tuesday — and it’s the final offering of the day from Patrik Ekdahl — and I thank him on your behalf. Another link to this story is here.
Shandong Gold said to be top bidder for $2 billion Glencore mine
China’s Shandong Gold Mining Co. has emerged as the lead bidder for Glencore Plc’s gold mine in Kazakhstan, which may fetch about $2 billion in a sale, according to people familiar with the matter.
Shandong Gold, one of China’s largest gold producers, outbid other parties including Silk Road Fund, which had teamed up with state-owned China National Gold Group Corp., the people said, asking not to be identified as the information is private. Glencore is still weighing all options for the asset, including selling future production from the mine for a fixed amount, and may decide to retain it, the people said.
In August, Glencore said it was exploring options for the Kazakh operations including a sale or a streaming deal for the Vasilkovskoye mine. A spokesman for Glencore declined to comment. Shandong Gold didn’t immediately return calls and an e-mail seeking comment.
Chinese mining deals have almost tripled this year to $27 billion, compared with the same period in 2015, as commodity prices began to recover, data compiled by Bloomberg show. China Molybdenum Co. agreed in May to buy control of Freeport-McMoRan Inc.’s copper mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo for $2.65 billion, following a $1.5 billion deal in April for Anglo American Plc’s niobium and phosphate business. China National Gold agreed to purchase Eldorado Gold Corp.’s stake in the Jinfeng gold mine for $300 million in April.
Glencore has been been selling assets and trimming costs as part of an effort to cut debt to $16.5 billion by the end of the year. Net debt was $23.6 billion on June 30.
The above five paragraphs are about all there is to this brief gold-related news item that was posted on the bloomberg.com Internet site at 3:17 a.m. Denver time on Tuesday morning — and I found it embedded in a GATA release.
This Silver to Gold Ratio is insane and unsustainable — Keith Neumeyer
Keith Neumeyer, President and CEO of First Majestic Silver Corp and Chairman of First Mining Finance returns to SGT report to discuss the roller coaster ride for mining stocks in 2016 and where he think we are in the current correction.
Always a straight shooter, Keith bemoans the current 70 to 1 silver to gold ratio asserting that it is no longer sustainable as miners like First Majestic are only yielding only 9 ounces of silver for every one ounce of physical gold they find, and that real world ratio is continuing to decline.
This 20:23 minute audio interview was posted on the youtube.com Internet site on Monday — and I thank Jerome Cherry for bringing it to our attention. Another link to this interview is here.
Russian central bank says has no aim to raise gold’s share in reserves
Russia’s Central Bank is ready to continue buying gold from banks but has no quotas or objective to increase the metal’s share in its gold and foreign exchange reserves, the bank’s First Deputy Governor Dmitry Tulin said on Wednesday.
“We are not currently selling foreign currency from reserves but keep buying gold for which prices are rising, which has led to a rise of gold’s share in reserves,” Tulin told reporters.
“We don’t have an operational target of increasing gold’s share in reserves but it may grow naturally,” he said, adding the bank had made an offer to banks to buy gold.
The above three paragraphs are all there is to this tiny Reuters article that appeared on their Internet site at 9:00 a.m. EDT on Wednesday morning — and it’s something I found on the Sharps Pixley website at 10 p.m. MDT last night.
Gold discovery badly behind replenishment: Randgold’s Mark Bristow
In the last 16 years, the gold mining industry has failed to replace more than half the ounces mined.
Collective mine life has fallen with the inclusion of lower gold grades in gold reserve calculations.
The number of ounces being replaced by exploration has nosedived and supply is heading for a sharp fall.
“Three years down the line doesn’t look pretty,” Randgold Resources CEO Dr Mark Bristow told a media meet attended by Creamer Media’s Mining Weekly Online.
Although exploration budgets peaked at $6-billion in 2011, exploration success has been dismal.
I had a story about this in my Wednesday column, but this one is far more comprehensive. This iteration of the Bristow interview, filed from Johannesburg, appeared on the miningweekly.com Internet site on Monday — and it’s another gold-related story I found on the Sharps Pixley website last night. The chart is worth the trip. Another link to this story is here.
China gold imports from Hong Kong fall 15% in Aug to 7-month low
Chinese gold imports from Hong Kong totaled 51 metric tonnes [mt] in August, down 15% from 59 mt a year earlier, data released by the Hong Kong Customs and Statistics showed Wednesday.
The figure is down around 45% from 91 mt reported in July and is the lowest monthly volume since January. Physical demand in the world’s largest gold consuming country has struggled this year with high international prices that are up around 25% year-to-date.
However, Chinese gold imports this year continue to outperform 2015. Year-to-date, gold imports from Hong Kong total 555 mt, around 15% higher than 482 mt reported in the same period in 2015.
This story, filed from London, put in an appearance on the platts.com Internet site at 12:30 p.m. BST on their Wednesday afternoon, which was 7:30 a.m. in New York — EDT plus 5 hours. Another link to this news story is here — and it’s also another gold-related story that I purloined from the Sharps Pixley website late yesterday evening. Another link to it is here.
The PHOTOS and the FUNNIES
The last dahlias of fall. Always late bloomers at this latitude, these magnificent flowering plants are only getting started by the time the first fall frost arrives — and the two buds in the first shot will never have the opportunity to show their magnificence. The second shot is a close crop of the core of the flower in the first shot. The ‘Click/double click to Enlarge‘ feature only helps on the first photo.
The WRAP
JPMorgan et al took additional slices off the gold, silver and platinum salamis on an intraday basis yesterday, but none of them closed anywhere near their low ticks — and silver actually finished up on the day. However, the intraday damage was done, as the Managed Money traders were pitching longs and going short — and ‘da boyz’ were ringing the cash register again in one of Ted Butler’s “scams within a scam” that I mentioned in this space yesterday.
But as I also mentioned, volumes weren’t overly heavy…but then again, there wasn’t a lot of big price moment in either metal, so I guess I was expecting too much. I’m sure if ‘da boyz’ and their HFT buddies really got serious and hit gold for twenty or thirty bucks — and silver by a dollar or more, I’d get the volumes that I was expecting. So I’ll be careful what I wish for next time.
Here are the 6-month charts for all four precious metals so you can see how the second “scam within a scam” this September is turning out.
The first one began [as you can see on the gold and silver charts above] on or around September 1 — and Ted said that JPMorgan et al made $200 million by the end of trading on the 18th. The second one began on the 19th, as the commercial traders let the Managed Money boys run the price back above the 50-day moving average again. That rally ended last Thursday — and ‘da boyz’ have rung the cash register every day up to and including the low ticks set yesterday. This trading pattern applies equally to silver as well. I’m sure Ted will have a dollar amount in his weekly review on Saturday.
As I’ve said for at least the last decade, JPMorgan et al are doing this for “fun, profit and price management purposes” — and here it is laid out for all to see.
Of course there are lots of so-called precious metal analysts, plus most mining executives, whose jobs depend on them not seeing this. They are the silent co-conspirators against their companies, their industry — and their stockholders. But at the top of this list are the crooks at the CME Group and the COMEX. They are supposed to be the front-line defenders against price rigging — and here they are aiding and abetting. You couldn’t make this stuff up!
And as I type this paragraph, the London open is less than ten minutes away — and I see that gold rallied a bit in Far East trading on their Thursday morning, but ‘da boyz’ stepped in shortly after 8 a.m. China Standard Time and capped not only gold, but the other three precious metals as well. Gold has been sold back to unchanged. Silver is down 4 cents the ounce after being up over 20 cents at one point. Platinum is only up 3 bucks at this point — and palladium by 2. JPMorgan et al are ever vigilant.
Net HFT gold volume is just about 23,500 contracts — and that number in silver is just under 9,800 contracts. The dollar index dipped as low as 95.35 by around 8:30 a.m. in Shanghai on their Thursday morning, but half an hour later it began to rally, making it as high as 95.56 around 2:20 p.m. CST. It has backed off a bit — and is currently up 5 basis points as London opens.
By the close of trading today, the last of the September contract holders in everything that aren’t standing for delivery have to sell or roll those positions. First Day Notice data for delivery into the October gold contract will be posted on the CME’s website around 10 p.m. this evening — and I’ll have that for you in Friday’s missive.
Tomorrow we get the latest and greatest Commitment of Traders Report. I’m hoping for the best, but expecting the worst. But one thing is a given, Wednesday’s price/volume activity won’t be in it because it occurred the day after the cut-off.
And as I post today’s column on the website at 4:00 a.m. EDT, I see that all four precious metal prices bounced a hair shortly after the London/Zurich open. Gold is up 30 cents, silver is down 3 cents — and platinum and palladium are up 1 and 2 dollars respectively.
Net HFT gold volume is up to just under 29,000 contracts — and that number in silver is 11,300 contracts. The dollar index has faded a bit since its high about forty minutes before the London open — and is up 5 basis points currently.
With the last two trading days of the month — and the third quarter — upon us, nothing will surprise me between now and the close of trading on Friday.
That’s all I have for today — and I’ll see you here tomorrow.
Ed
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