09 November 2016 — Wednesday
YESTERDAY in GOLD, SILVER, PLATINUM and PALLADIUM
After trading slightly above unchanged through most of the Far East trading session on their Tuesday, gold popped up around three bucks about an hour before the London open. That lasted until at, or shortly before, the noon London silver fix — and it was sold down to a bit below unchanged. The gold price began to rally at, or shortly before the London p.m. gold fix — and JPMorgan et al were forced to step in just minutes after 10:30 a.m. in New York. They spun their algos — and by 11:40 EST, they printed the low tick of the day. It was allowed to rally a bit after that, but wasn’t allowed even a sniff of unchanged for the rest of the Tuesday session.
The high and low ticks were recorded as $1,291.50 and $1,273.30 in the December contract.
Gold was closed in New York on Tuesday at $1,275.10 spot, down $6.10 from Monday’s close. Net volume was pretty heavy at just over 160,000 contracts.
And here’s the 5-minute tick gold chart courtesy of Brad Robertson as usual — and as is to be expected, all the volume that really mattered occurred during the COMEX trading session, with the lion’s share of it in by noon EST.
The vertical gray line is 10:00 p.m. Denver time, midnight in New York — and 1:00 p.m. China Standard Time [CST] the following afternoon in Shanghai—and don’t forget to add two hours for EST. The ‘click to enlarge‘ is a must here.
Silver followed a very similar pattern to gold, but it should be pointed out that earlier on Tuesday, ‘da boyz’ had to step in at 3 p.m. Shanghai time, plus once again at 9 a.m. in London. The silver price took off for real once the London p.m. gold fix was done and, like in gold, JPMorgan et al showed up as short buyers and long sellers of last resort once again, just minutes after 10:30 a.m. in New York in order to prevent the price from blowing sky high in what looked like the start of a ‘no ask’ market. They peeled 40+ cents off the price by 11:40 a.m. and, as in gold, the silver price wasn’t allowed to get far after that.
The low and high tick were reported by the CME Group as $18.175 and $18.73 in the December contract.
Silver finished the day at $18.345 spot, up 19 cents from Monday’s close. Net volume was very heavy at just over 66,500 contracts, so it took the powers-that-be a lot of COMEX paper to put the silver fire out in morning trading in New York yesterday.
Here’s the 5-minute silver tick chart courtesy of Brad once again — and it really doesn’t require much comment from me except to point out the huge volume between 8:00 and 10:00 a.m. Denver time. Volume dropped off to background very shortly after the COMEX close, which was 11:30 a.m. MST.
Like the 5-minute gold tick chart, the vertical gray line is 10:00 p.m. Denver time, midnight in New York — and 1:00 p.m. China Standard Time [CST] the following afternoon in Shanghai—and don’t forget to add two hours for EST. The ‘click to enlarge‘ is a must here as well.
The platinum price was up 8 dollars by shortly after 10 a.m. in Zurich yesterday morning. Then, like gold and silver, got sold down hard into the noon silver fix in London. Like gold, it began to rally about thirty minutes before the COMEX open — and ‘da boyz’ capped platinum around 10:30 a.m. in New York as well. From there it was sold down to a bit above unchanged minutes after the COMEX close. It recovered a bit from there but, like the other two precious metals, wasn’t allowed to get far. Platinum finished the Tuesday session at $1,002 spot, up an even 5 bucks on the day. At its high, platinum was up 16 dollars before JPMorgan et al showed up.
Palladium’s price pattern was very similar to platinum — and gold and silver as well, come to think of it. The dip into the noon silver fix in London, brought about the rally which was capped shortly before 10:30 a.m. EST — and the price was forced to chop sideways for the rest of the day. Palladium was closed at $662 spot, up another 12 bucks. But, like the other three precious metals, palladium would have closed at an eye-watering high price if allowed to trade freely.
The dollar index closed very late on Monday afternoon in New York at 97.74 — and made it as high as 97.83 around 9 a.m. China Standard Time on their Tuesday morning. The index rolled over at that point — and was heading south with a vengeance, but ‘gentle hands’ appeared minutes after the London open. The 97.55 low tick was set less than an hour later — and it ‘rallied’ until shortly before 12:30 p.m. GMT in London, before heading lower again. Then around 11:15 a.m. in New York, the index took off to the upside, with most of the gains in by around 12:30 p.m. EST — and from there it chopped sideways in a very broad range for the rest of the day. The dollar index finished the Tuesday session at 97.95 — up 21 basis points on the day.
And here’s the 6-month U.S. dollar index — and if it hadn’t been for the those ‘gentle hands’, it wouldn’t have closed anywhere near where it did yesterday. It would have closed down on the day if left to its own devices.
The gold stocks opened up a bit, hit their respective high ticks around 10:40 a.m. in New York, which was when JPMorgan et al showed up in the COMEX futures market. The low tick in the shares came at gold’s low tick — and within an hour they were back above unchanged once again. But once the rally in after hours trading met its usual fate, the stocks slowly sank back into negative territory, as the HUI closed down 0.66 percent.
The silver equities followed an almost identical price pattern and, not surprisingly, closed well above unchanged, as Nick Laird’s Intraday Silver Sentiment/Silver 7 Index finished up 1.37 percent. Click to enlarge if necessary.
The CME Daily Delivery Report showed that, for the second day in a row, there were no gold or silver contracts reported for delivery on Thursday.
The CME Preliminary Report for the Tuesday trading session is missing in action as of 5:53 p.m. EST yesterday afternoon — and was still a no-show at 11:55 p.m. EST last night. But it did show up when I checked at 3:47 a.m. EST this morning. Gold open interest in November rose by 4 contracts, leaving 26 still open — and in silver, November o.i. rose by 18 contracts, leaving 79 still left.
There were no reported changes in GLD yesterday — and as of 5:55 p.m. EST yesterday afternoon, there were no reported changes in SLV, either.
There was a tiny sales report from the U.S. Mint yesterday. They sold 2,000 troy ounces of gold eagles — and that was all.
There was no gold reported received at the COMEX-approved depositories on the U.S. east coast on Monday, but 64,621.500 troy ounces/2,010 kilobars [U.K./U.S. kilobar weight] were shipped out — and all of the amount came out of Canada’s Scotiabank. A link to that activity is here.
It was much busier in silver, as 927,957 troy ounces were received — and 710,828 troy ounces were shipped out. JPMorgan picked up another 395,551 troy ounces — and Delaware got the rest. All of the ‘out’ activity was at Brink’s, Inc. — and the link to all this action is here.
It was another decent in/out day over at the COMEX-approved gold kilobar depositories in Hong Kong on their Monday. The reported receiving 4,188 of them, plus they shipped out another 3,521. All of this activity was at Brink’s, Inc. — and the link to that, in troy ounces, is here.
Nick Laird passed around a couple of charts yesterday afternoon. They show gold and silver coin sales from The Perth Mint updated with October’s data. They sold 79,048 troy ounces of gold coins, plus 1,084,213 troy ounces of silver coins last month. The Click to enlarge feature is very useful here.
I don’t have all that many stories for you today, so that will make your final edit pretty easy.
CRITICAL READS
Clinton calls off Election Night fireworks
Hillary Clinton’s planned celebratory Election Night fireworks display over the Hudson River that The Post exclusively reported on has been canceled, it was revealed Monday.
“They do have a permit for fireworks, but at this point we believe the fireworks is canceled,” NYPD chief of intelligence Tommy Galati said at a city press conference on Election Day security with Mayor Bill de Blasio and Police Commissioner James O’Neill.
When asked by a reporter why the fireworks were canceled, Galati responded, “I cannot tell you that.”
Clinton was planning aerial detonations for her potential victory that would last for two minutes starting as early at 9:30 p.m. — a half-hour after the polls close in New York.
I guess her people already knew what their own internal polls were telling them — and decided to save her even further embarrassment. The above four paragraphs are all there is to this news item that put in an appearance on The New York Post‘s website at 12:17 p.m. EST on Monday afternoon — and I found it in yesterday’s edition of the King Report.
Gingrich: “I Think That We Are in for a Long, Difficult Couple of Years“
No matter who wins the presidential election, our divided country is in “for a long, difficult couple of years,” Trump supporter and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told NBC‘s “Meet the Press” on Sunday.
“I think, tragically, we have drifted into an environment where if Hillary is elected, the criminal investigations will be endless; and if Trump is elected, it will be just like Madison, Wisconsin with Scott Walker. The opposition of the government employee unions will be so hostile and so direct and so immediate, that it will be a continuing fight over who controls the country.”
At one point in the interview, host Chuck Todd challenged Gingrich on his use of the phrase, “let the corruption continue.”
Gingrich was talking about establishment Republicans who “would rather have Hillary Clinton win and have a left-wing Supreme Court and have the corruption continue rather than elect Donald Trump.”
“You used the word (phrase) ‘let the corruption continue,'” Todd said. “Have we been too loose with some words?” he asked Gingrich. “Do you worry that we’ve let the language get too loose?”
“No, Chuck,” Gingrich said. “I worry — and with all due respect to you as a person, you know, that we’re — we’re pretty good friends. I worry that the elite media has blindly refused to tell the truth.”
This story was posted on the cnsnews.com Internet site at 5:47 a.m. EST on Monday morning — and it’s another article I found in yesterday’s edition of the King Report. Another link to it is here.
Alert: Stock Market Divergence Widens — Mike Maloney
This one, alarming chart clearly shows you how this whole economic recovery has been bought and paid for by the Federal Reserve.
Plus, Mike shows you a correlation between Federal tax revenues and the stock market most people aren’t talking about.
This 7:10 minute video clip by Mike was posted on his website, goldsilver.com, on Tuesday — and I thank Scott Otey for sending it our way.
Boeing’s Retiring Boomers Underscore U.S. Manufacturing Plight
John Rothery said his goodbyes, handed in his badge and walked away from Boeing Co. He had worked on almost every commercial jet model over four decades, from a 707 bristling with military radar in the late 1970s to today’s sleek 787 Dreamliner.
The date, Oct. 3, had been circled on Rothery’s calendar for more than a year. It was the last time that Boeing would bump up pension pay for Seattle-area factory workers before it froze the plan at month’s end, provisions dictated by a deeply unpopular 2014 contract extension. For Rothery, it was the final straw.
“I’ll be 64 in November. After 37 years, that’s enough,” said Rothery, a tool-and-die maker. “I was working just to build a pension. As of Oct. 31, there’s no pension. Why stay?”
The benefit change could hasten a generational shift as Boeing’s baby boomers retire, a trend that’s also looming for other U.S. manufacturers. The planemaker’s most experienced workers are packing up their tools during critical upgrades of its two largest profit-drivers: the 737 and 777 jetliners. About 10,000 mechanics are eligible to retire from the company’s Puget Sound manufacturing base alone, and no one knows how many are poised to leave.
“It’s a conversation that anyone who is close to retirement is having,” said Becky Beasley, 75, a grandmother and body-structures mechanic who helps rivet together hulking aluminum panels to form the 777’s hull.
This very interesting Bloomberg story showed up on their Internet site at 3:00 a.m. Denver time on Monday morning — and it’s a Zero Hedge article that arrived in my in-box courtesy of Brad Robertson. Another link to this article is here.
Toyota and Nissan Say the U.S. Auto Market Has Peaked
Japan’s two largest carmakers have arrived at the same conclusion: the U.S. auto market that’s functioned as a growth engine has run out of gas.
Toyota Motor Corp. cut its forecast for North American sales this fiscal year by 60,000 vehicles and for the first time said it’s expecting a decline for the year, as American consumers shift away from fuel sippers like the Prius hybrid and toward trucks and sport utility vehicles. Nissan Motor Co., which posted a drop in profit as it gave heftier incentives that buoyed deliveries, said it’s not seeing room for further expansion.
“The market turned out to be somewhat weaker,” Takahiko Ijichi, a Toyota executive vice president, told reporters Tuesday after the carmaker reported a 43 percent plunge in quarterly operating profit. The North American market “really requires very careful managing going forward,” he said.
The more dour outlook is significant not only for Toyota and Nissan but for Japan’s economy. For the nation’s automakers, North America remains the biggest export destination, with more than 1.3 million passenger cars shipped during the first nine months of the year. That was double the number of vehicles exported to Europe and four times the number sent to the rest of Asia, including China, which has seen a tax cut-induced buying spurt.
This Bloomberg news story appeared on their website at 5:31 a.m. MST on Tuesday morning — and was subsequently updated about 11 hours later. I found it on the Zero Hedge website — and another link to it is here.
Toblerone triangle change upsets fans
A decision to space out the distinctive triangular chocolate chunks in two Toblerone bars sold in the U.K. has upset fans who say that they do mind the gap.
The product’s makers, U.S.-based Mondelez International, said it had changed the design to reduce the weight of what were 400g and 170g bars.
Some consumers have described the move as “the wrong decision” and said the bigger spaces looked “stupid“.
Mondelez said the move was down to a rise in the cost of ingredients.
Well, you’ll have to see the embedded photo in this BBC story to see how ridiculous the ‘new and definitely not improved’ Toblerone chocolate bar really looks. This news item was posted on the bbc.com Internet site early yesterday morning GMT — and I thank U.K. reader ‘Teresa’ for pointing it out. Another link to this news item is here.
As Italians grow weary of Brussels, Moscow gets a second look
From the lack of earthquake assistance from out-of-touch Brussels, to anti-Russia sanctions that extend US foreign policy demands at the expense of European producers, Italy is increasingly looking to Russia as a friend rather than foe.
By now, few would doubt that Russia has witnessed its unfair share of two-faced hypocrisy at the hands of Western organizations. From unfairly targeting Russian Olympic athletes, to questioning Russia’s commitment on human rights, the list is a long and disturbing one. But that seems to be the high price that Moscow must endure for daring to act as an independent sovereign state, outside the iron curtain of US dominance and diktat.
At the same time, Italians are also feeling a sense of Western high-handedness, as was evidenced in the aftermath of a powerful earthquake that rocked central Italy on August 24, 2016, killing almost 300 people. Putin was the first world leader to express condolences to the Italian people, while offering to provide the necessary equipment for search and rescue operations. That gesture did not go unnoticed by many Italians, who found it ironic that NATO’s sworn enemy offered to provide more assistance than the EU superstate.
This commentary by Robert Bridge was posted on the rt.com Internet site at 10:58 p.m. Moscow time on their Tuesday evening, which was 2:58 p.m. in New York — EST plus 8 hours. Another link to this article is here — and I thank Roy Stephens for finding it for us.
China Unveils Three Major Decisions Within Three Minutes
As the world focuses on the race for the White House, China unveiled three major decisions within three minutes of each other on Monday.
Among a raft of statements issued by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, Beijing named a new finance minister, effectively barred a pair of elected Hong Kong “localists” from office, and passed a cybersecurity law that may hamstring foreign companies in Asia’s biggest economy.
The news from the nation’s top legislative body followed a plenum of top Communist Party officials last month, where President Xi Jinping was declared the “core” leader of China — a designation that boosted his authority.
This Bloomberg article is another one that I borrow from the Tuesday edition of the King Report. It was posted on their website at 3:06 a.m. Denver time on Monday morning — and another link to it is here.
Chinese Capital Outflows Send FX Reserves to Lowest Since 2011
Overnight, China reported that the PBOC’s FX reserves fell another US$46bn to US$3.121 trillion in October as the central banks struggled to offset the impact of accelerating capital outflows, a bigger drop than the consensus estimate of US$34bn, triple the official September decline of US$19bn (recall that according to Goldman, the true FX outflow in recent months has been far greater), and the biggest drop since January. The October decline brought China’s total reserves the lowest amount since 2011.
As Bloomberg notes, the data come amid a period of renewed weakness for China’s currency. The yuan fell 1.53 percent last month, the most since a devaluation in August last year that shook investor confidence and ignited global market turmoil. Policy makers were suspected of propping up the exchange rate in the weeks leading up to a Group of 20 meeting in September and before the yuan’s entry into the International Monetary Fund’s reserves on Oct. 1 — and then reducing support after exports plunged the most in seven months. The currency fell to a six-year low of 6.7856 a dollar on Oct. 28.
This 2-chart Zero Hedge piece was posted on their Internet site at 9:38 p.m. on Monday evening EST. It comes to us courtesy of Richard Saler — and another link to it is here.
Copper Soars to 1-Year Highs — Up a Record 12 Days In a Row
Despite lower Chinese imports (for the 7th month in a row) and surging supply, copper prices have just surged to 12-month highs, breaking through March stops in a technical move that has seen an unprecedented 12 days up in a row.
Following 9 straight down days, copper futures have now surged for 12 straight days to one year highs… The previous record streak of gains was 9 days (Dec 2004 and Sept 1991)
But as Bloomberg details, China, the world’s biggest producer and user of refined copper, reduced imports for a seventh month to the lowest level since February 2015, as domestic output climbed.
Hedge funds and other large speculators boosted their long positions by 20 percent to a record 67,806 U.S. copper futures and options contracts in the week ended Nov. 1, according to Commodity Futures Trading Commission data released Friday. As Bloomberg adds, even as copper is in an oversupply in the short term, there is a consensus that over the medium term it is one of the most scarce commodities, Vale SA Chief Financial Officer Luciano Siani said in an interview Thursday.
As Ted Butler has stated on many occasions, the most recent being in the last two weeks, this ‘rally’ you’re looking at [note the chart in The Wrap] is mostly likely the usual tango between the Commercial Traders on one side — and the Managed Money on the other. Copper, along with crude oil and others, have caught Ted’s “silver disease”. This has all the hallmarks of a short-covering rally where the Managed Money traders got burned for tens of millions of dollars — and Ted may or may not have something to say about it in his mid-week column today. Even Zero Hedge doesn’t understand what’s happening. This news item showed up on their Internet site at 10:37 a.m. on Tuesday morning EST — and another link to it is here.
Islamic finance nears final standard for gold-based products
Islamic scholars are finalizing work on a sharia standard for gold-based products set to become effective before the end of the year and possibly help kick-start a new wave of product development in Islamic finance.
Gold has been treated mostly as a currency in Islamic finance, limiting its use to spot transactions, while consumer demand for gold in the Middle East has actually fallen in recent years.
Guidance from the Bahrain-based Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions could address some of the reasons behind the lack of gold products in the industry and the muted demand from the region.
The organization plans to issue its sharia standard on gold and its trading controls in coming weeks, Mohd Daud Bakar, founder and executive chairman of Amanie Group, said at an annual conference held by the organization this week in Manama, Bahrain.
“The sharia standard on gold from my perspective is a game changer given the market conditions, given the preconceived idea that we have — even among the scholars themselves — that gold is very restricted.”
I posted a story about this a week or so ago, but here’s a new one. This gold-related news item put in an appearance on the Reuters website at 10:17 p.m. EST on Monday evening — and I found it embedded in a GATA released yesterday. Another link to it is here.
In an attempt to curb black money, Indian P.M. declares current 500 & 1,000 rupee notes invalid
In a move to curb the black money menace, P.M. Narendra Modi declared…in a televised address to the nation late yesterday…from midnight last night, currency notes of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 denomination will not be legal tender.
However, he said that all notes below Rs 500 — plus all coins, will continue to be valid.
People can deposit the old notes of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 in their banks or at the post office from November 10 till December 30, 2016. They will be exchanged for new notes of Rs 2,000 and Rs 500 which will be introduced.
All banks in India will be close on Wednesday–and some even on Thursday in order to make the change-over.
This remarkable story showed up on The Economic Times of India website yesterday — and I found it embedded in an article posted on the smaulgold.com Internet site yesterday afternoon. Another link to this story is here — and it’s definitely worth reading.
Indian currency revocation seen pushing many into gold
The jewellery industry today welcomed the government’s decision to ban old 500- and 1,000-rupee notes, saying gold demand will rise as people will have more faith in the precious metal than the currency notes.
“It will create havoc for a little while and the economy will also destablize. But over-all it is going to be good for the country. In fact, the jewellery industry will thrive as people will have more trust on jewellery than currency notes,” Gitanjali Gems Chairman and Managing Director Mehul Choksi told PTI.
Stating that there could be a short-term impact, PC Jewellers Managing Director Balram Gar said, “This is a very good decision for long term especially for the organised sector. There could be impact on pure gold demand, which is good for jewellers.”
This PTI story was picked by The Economic Times of India — and showed up on their Internet site at 10:55 p.m. IST on their Tuesday evening. I found this news item in a GATA release — and another link to it is here.
Gold Council Cuts India Demand Forecast to Lowest in Seven Years
Elevated gold prices and India’s push for more transparency on purchases and income disclosure will cut the nation’s demand for bullion in 2016 to its lowest in seven years, before consumption recovers in 2017, according to the World Gold Council.
The WGC trimmed its demand estimate for a second time this year to between 650 and 750 metric tons, after lowering its forecast by 100 tons in August. Those would be the weakest figures for India since the 578.5 tons consumed in 2009. Demand last year was 858.1 tons, according to council data.
Gold prices are up about a fifth this year and that has helped keep a lid on demand in world’s biggest consumer of the metal after China. Weak monsoons have subdued farm incomes in recent years, also keeping buyers away. But the biggest factor damping purchases is the government’s policy on financial transparency, including a push to ensure that citizens declare all of their taxable income, according to the council, an industry-funded group that promotes gold.
“This is a one-off thing. This year has been exceptional from various points of view,” P.R. Somasundaram, managing director of the WGC in India, said by phone from Mumbai, ahead of the council’s quarterly report. “Next year we can see a recovery to normal levels,” which he pegged in the range of 800 to 1,000 tons.
This gold-related news item appeared on the Bloomberg Internet site at 10:00 p.m. MST on Monday evening — and I thank Ellen Hoyt for sharing it with us. Another link to it is here.
Lovers and central banks walk away from gold’s scorching rally
Soaring gold prices have pushed out some of the biggest buyers.
Jewelry demand plunged 21 percent in the third quarter, taking the year-to-date total to the lowest level since 2009, according to a report from the World Gold Council. Central banks bought almost half as much gold as a year earlier.
“The jewelry market is a price taker, and given how much prices have increased, many chose to sit on the sidelines,” said Alistair Hewitt, head of market intelligence at the London-based group, which lobbies on behalf of mining companies.
Central banks reacted similarly. “When they see rapid movements in price, they want to wait and see what that means in terms of their reserves,” he said.
“Scorching rally???” Hardly, but the main stream press dearly loves to denigrate gold every chance they get. This is another Bloomberg story that I found on the gata.org Internet site. It was posted on their website at 10:00 a.m. MST on Monday — and another link to it is here.
The PHOTOS and the FUNNIES
Here are two more elephant photos courtesy of Bob Anthony — including a shot of a couple of young ones having fun and games at the old watering hole. Click to enlarge.
The WRAP
“Tyranny is defined as that which is legal for the government, but illegal for the citizenry.” – Thomas Jefferson
Gold was closed below its 50-day moving average yesterday, despite its early gains — and although silver blasted way above its 50-day moving average after the London p.m. gold fix, JPMorgan et al were there to ensure that it was closed well below it. Platinum and palladium continue to rally, although they’re mere sideshows at the moment.
Here are the 6-month charts for all four precious metals, plus copper, as its chart ties in nicely with the Zero Hedge story about it in the Critical Reads section. As I said in my comments in the ZH article, it was strictly a Managed Monday/Commercial trader story — as it was for all four precious metals yesterday as well. There’s nothing new here — and I would bet serious coin that Ted Butler will have something to say about all this in his mid-week commentary to his paying subscribers this afternoon.
Yesterday, at the close of COMEX trading, was the cut-off for this Friday’s Commitment of Traders Report — and depending on how much of yesterday’s trading data gets reported in a timely manner, I would guess that we’ll see some improvement in the short position in gold, but silver is much too difficult to call. You can look at the last five trading days in the charts posted just above this paragraph — and judge for yourself.
Of course, in almost all respects, what happened yesterday up to the 1:30 p.m. EST COMEX close — and also during the 5-day reporting week for this week’s COT Report — is already yesterday’s news. As expected, there was huge fireworks in gold after trading began in New York at 6:00 p.m. EST on Tuesday evening — and to a much lesser extent in silver and the other two precious metals.
And as I type this paragraph, the London open is less than ten minutes away — and the landscape in front of me at 12:50 a.m. Denver time on Wednesday morning, is a sight to behold. After bouncing around for a couple of hours the gold price blasted higher as the dollar index cratered starting around 8 p.m. in New York and 9 a.m. China Standard Time on their Wednesday morning. The rally was met full force by JPMorgan et al — and they succeeded in turning the dollar and capping the gold price just a few minutes after 1 a.m. CST. It’s only up $32.80 at the moment. Silver’s rally was far less spectacular, but also ran into big resistance as well. Its price was capped at the same time as gold, just as it took out $19 spot to the upside. Right now it’s up 42 cents the ounce. Platinum is higher by 10 bucks currently, but it’s off its high tick by quite a bit as well. Palladium only poked its nose above unchanged briefly while the other precious metals were soaring — and it’s down 5 bucks at the moment.
Net HFT gold volume is horrendous at a hair over 400,000 contracts — and that number in silver is ‘only’ 55,000 contracts. It should be obvious that the powers-that-be were at battle stations all night long as short buyers and long sellers of last resort that they always are, because if they hadn’t been there, all four precious metals would have melted up, while the rest of the financial system melted down. There was also very heavy switch volume out of the December contract in both precious metals as well.
The dollar index made it as high as 98.10 just minutes after 8 p.m. in New York last night, which was minutes after 9 a.m. in Shanghai trading. It then crashed to about the 95.90 mark by minutes after 1 p.m. over there — and that’s when ‘da boyz’ stepped in to stop the dollar decline and cap the precious metals. At the moment, the dollar index is down 132 basis points, but screaming higher, so it’s a given that they’ll be working the precious metals over pretty hard for the next little while.
And as I post today’s column on the website at 4:00 a.m. EDT, I see that gold is up only $22.50 an ounce — and silver is now up only 25 cents, platinum is up 2 dollars — and palladium is down 8.
Net HFT gold volume is just about 448,000 contracts, with decent roll-over activity — and that number in silver is just over 66,500 contracts with decent roll-over activity as well. The dollar index is down only 75 basis points now. ‘Da boyz’ have been busy during the first hour of London/Zurich trading.
I would guess that the rest of the Wednesday trading session will prove interesting now that Trump has was won the Presidential election in the U.S. — as the equity markets in the Far East did not take it well. Europe is down too. But it’s also a given that the Plunge Protection Team is already out and about — and they, along with the bullion banks, will be hard at work to make sure that things are back to ‘normal’ as soon as possible.
It’s obvious that ‘da boyz’ are still in full control of precious metal prices — and not even the the election news prevented them from going about their business rigging very market in sight. What it will take to finally end this price management scheme in the precious metals is not clear to me, at least not at the moment.
“There are no free markets anymore, only interventions.”
That’s all I have for today — and I’ll see you here tomorrow.
Ed
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