Spot Gold
$ 1,382.34
$ -1.80 (-0.13%)
Spot Silver
$ 21.82
$ 0.00 (0%)
inthisissue
The gold price didn't do much of anything in Far East trading...and then got sold down five bucks starting at 9:00 a.m. BST in London, with the low of the day coming minutes after 11:00 a.m...about two hours later.
From there, the gold price was flat until five minutes before trading began on the Comex in New York. The subsequent rally got chopped off by a short seller of last resort about twenty minutes later, when it appeared the market was about to go "no ask"...and the gold price was about to punch through the $1,400 spot price ceiling. A second rally at the London p.m. gold fix suffered the same fate...and after that the price didn't do much until after the Comex close.
Then starting around 2:30 p.m. EDT, the gold price began to slowly tick higher for the rest of the New York Access market. The low tick in London looked to be around the $1,378 spot mark...and the high tick in New York was recorded by Kitco as $1,393.60 spot...and that occurred at the London p.m. gold fix.
Gold finished at $1,3191.50 spot...up $5.80 on the day...and net volume was a very light 106,000 contracts.
Here's the New York Spot Gold [Bid] chart that shows the New York action in far more detail.
Silver traded in a very tight range in both Far East and London yesterday...and was down about 20 cents when the price blasted off at 8:15 a.m. in New York yesterday morning. The market went "no ask" fifteen minutes later...before the usual not-for-profit seller[s] showed up. By 9:20 a.m. the price was back down to $22.07 spot...and barely moved for the remainder of the trading day.
Kitco recorded the high tick as $22.68 spot...and if "da boyz" hadn't shown up when they did, we would be looking at a very big silver price right now.
But when all was said and done at the 5:15 p.m EDT close in New York, silver was only up 23 cents on the day...and closed at $22.08...and above the $22 price ceiling. Volume, net of roll-overs out of the July delivery month, were a bit heavier than normal...close to 33,000 contracts.
Here's the New York Spot Silver [Bid] chart, so you can see the dramatic action in the first 15 minutes of Comex trading for yourself.
The dollar index closed in New York late Thursday afternoon at 80.72...and then fell to 80.61 by 10:00 a.m. in Tokyo. From there it rallied to its high of the day...80.99...just minutes after 8:30 a.m. in New York. At that point, the index fell completely out of bed...hitting a low of 80.65 by 11:40 a.m. EDT. The subsequent rally was tiny...and very short. From there the dollar index headed lower, finishing the Friday session on its low tick...80.62...and down 10 basis points from Thursday.
You should carefully note that vertical price spikes in both gold and silver got hammered flat at the precise moment that the dollar index fell off a cliff just minutes after 8:30 a.m. EDT. There's absolutely no chance that this was a coincidence. As Chris Powell's famous quote goes..."There are no markets anymore...only interventions".
The gold stocks opened in the black...but quickly began to sell off...and they kept right on going down despite the fact that the gold price finished in positive territory yesterday. The HUI finished down 1.66%.
The silver stocks didn't do well, either...and Nick Laird's Intraday Silver Sentiment Index closed down 1.82%.
(Click on image to enlarge)
Here's Nick's Silver 7 chart that shows the near-term price action in a longer term perspective.
(Click on image to enlarge)
The sell-off in the precious metal stocks probably had more to do with what was happening in the general equity markets in New York at the time.
The CME's Daily Delivery Report showed that a surprisingly large 414 gold contracts were posted for delivery on Tuesday within the Comex-approved depositories. The two big short/issuers of note were Barclays with 324 contracts out of its client account...and ABN Amro with 88 contracts. The three largest long/stoppers were HSBC USA, Barclays...and Canada's Bank of Nova Scotia, with 234, 94 and 69 contracts respectively. The long/stoppers at Barclays were in the bank's proprietary [in-house] trading account...the bank betting against its customers again.
There were only 4 silver contracts posted for delivery on Tuesday...and the link to yesterday's Issuers and Stoppers Report is here.
There were no reported changes in either GLD or SLV yesterday...and no sales report from the U.S. Mint, either.
Over at the Comex-approved depositories on Thursday, they reported receiving 701,662 troy ounces of silver...and 21,763 troy ounces were shipped out the door. The link to that activity is here.
In gold on the same day...9,027 troy ounces were reported received...and 12,210 troy ounces were shipped out. The link to that activity is here.
The Commitment of Traders Report was pretty much as expected, as there were improvements in the Commercial net short position in both gold and silver...but particularly silver...and several new records were set.
In silver, the Commercial net short position [the total Commercial short holders subtracted from the total Commercial long holders] declined by 16.9 million ounces...and is now down to a shockingly low 25.1 million ounces. Reader E.W.F. said that "In silver, the Commercial traders hold their smallest net short position since 29 July 1997." That's almost 16 years ago!!!
The four largest traders are short 196.5 million ounces of silver...and the next '5 through 8' traders are short an additional 55.9 million ounces of silver. Ted says that he's no longer sure what JPMorgan's short position in silver might be.
As far as concentration goes, once you remove all the market-neutral spread trades from the total open interest, the Big 4 are short 35.3% of the entire Comex futures market in silver. The short positions of the '5 through 8' traders adds another 10.0%. So the Big 8, in total, are short 45.3% of the entire Comex futures market in silver.
Reader E.W.F. says that "the silver raptors [the small commercial traders other than the Big 8] hold their largest net long position in the history of the data."
In gold, the Commercial net short position declined by 333,000 troy ounces...and is now down to 5.83 million ounces. Reader E.W.F. says that.."the Commercials hold their smallest net short position in gold since 31 May 2005."
The four largest traders are short 9.94 million ounces of gold...and the '5 through 8' traders are short an additional 4.67 million ounces.
As far as concentrations go, once the market-neutral spread trades are removed from gold's total open interest, the four largest traders are short 31.0 percent of the entire Comex futures market in gold...and the '5 through 8' traders add another 14.6 percentage point. So the Big 8 in total are short 45.6% of the entire Comex futures market in gold.
Reader E.W.F. pointed out that "the gold raptors are net long 87,851 contracts. This is their largest net long position since April 10, 2001. On that date the gold raptors were net long 95,984 contracts."
Here's Nick Laird's "Days of World Production to Cover Comex Short Positions" chart for all physically traded commodities on that exchange.
(Click on image to enlarge)
Here's your "cute quota" for the day...and don't forget that the "cute quota" will be included with "The Funnies" starting with Tuesday's column.
I have the usual number of stories for a Saturday column...and quite a few fall into the must read category, so I hope you can find the time for the ones that interest you.
In the past few days people have finally started paying attention to a funny thing going on in the market.
Time after time ahead of major news, there seems to be someone who knows something before it happens — there seem to be trades that hit too hard and fast before the news is actually made.
This has been going on for a while, and people are finally starting to understand why.
The current target of collective ire is Thomson Reuters. There was some shady trading ahead of the Consumer Confidence number at the end of last month. About a quarter of a second before the number was released, there was an eruption of orders in the SPDR S&P Sector ETF (SPY), the e-Mini (electronically traded futures), and in hundreds of stocks, according to Nanex, a market research firm.
This very interesting article was posted on the businessinsider.com Internet site during the New York lunch hour on Thursday...and I thank Casey Research's own Bud Conrad for today's first story.
The monthly TIC (foreign capital flows) data gets less respect than it should. Perhaps it is because it is two months delayed, or perhaps due to the Treasury Department labyrinth one has to cross in order to figure out what is going on. Either way, for those who do follow the data set, will know by now that in April, foreign investors, official and private, sold $54.5 billion. Why is this number of note? Because it is the biggest monthly sale of Treasurys by foreigners in the history of the data series.
This Zero Hedge story from yesterday is courtesy of reader 'David in California'...and the chart is worth a quick peek.
Thanks to the Federal Reserve's massive quantitative easing program, banks have more money than they know what to do with.
So they're parking much of their cash at the Fed, where they receive a 0.25 percent interest rate. Indeed, bank deposits at the Fed have topped $1 trillion, reaching that record level in April, Fortune reports.
But while bank reserves at the Fed are soaring — up 25 percent, or $200 billion, in the first quarter alone — lending slumped during that period.
Concerns about the deposit bulge are twofold. First, money that is parked at the Fed is doing nothing to help the sluggish economy. Second, what happens to the deposits when the Fed reverses its QE?
This moneynews.com article was posted on their website early on Friday morning...and it's worth skimming. I thank West Virginia reader Elliot Simon for sending it.
Illinois added nearly three times more people to its food stamp program than it added in jobs over the past year – just another confirmation that the state’s economic model is failing.
Between February 2012 and February 2013, Illinois added nearly 200,000 new enrollees to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. In contrast, Illinois added only 68,400 non-farm payroll jobs during that same time period.
This disappointing news comes on top of the most recent Bureau of Labor Statistics labor release that reported Illinois has the second-highest unemployment rate in the nation. At 9.3 percent, the state’s unemployment rate is significantly higher than the 7.6 percent national average.
Poor job creation is causing Illinoisans’ dependence on food stamps to rise. The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported that in February 2013, Illinois was the only state in the country to report a year-on-year, double-digit increase in the number of people signing up for food stamps.
This short story was posted on the illinoispolicy.org Internet site on Wednesday...and I found it in yesterday's edition of the King Report.
Japanese policymakers have really mucked things up. The Nikkei sank 6.5% Thursday and was down 1.5% for the week. Perhaps it’s a little early to pronounce the BOJ’s “shock and awe” monetary experiment a failure. The yen rallied 3.5% this week against the dollar. Against the Philippine peso its was up 4.5%, versus the South Korean won 4.1%, the Indian rupee 4.31%, the Malaysian ringgit 4.0%, the Indonesian rupiah 3.2%, the Argentine peso 3.9% and the Brazilian real 4.2%. Indonesia raised rates to support its weak currency. The yen “carry trade” (sell yen and use proceeds to buy higher-yielding instruments globally) is doling out painful losses – forcing the unwind of leveraged trades across many markets. I wouldn’t be surprised if the yen short is the largest short position in modern history. The yen bears are now running for cover – causing all kinds of havoc in the currencies and securities markets.
“Emerging” Asian markets are in the middle of an unfolding financial storm. Friday’s 2.1% gain cut the Philippine’s loss for the week to 9.2%. Even with Friday’s 4.4% recovery, the Thailand stock exchange ended the week down 3.4%. South Korea’s Kospi dropped 1.8%.
Latin America is as well caught in troubling dynamics. Brazil’s currency (real) trade to a four-year low against the dollar this week – despite currency interventions and the removal of taxes on financial flows and currency derivatives. Brazilian equities were hit for 4.4% this week, increasing y-t-d losses to 19.1%. Mexican stocks dropped 2.4%, boosting y-t-d losses to 10.2%.
Another absolute must read from Doug Noland that was posted on the prudentbear.com Internet site yesterday evening...and I thank reader U.D. for bringing it to our attention.
According to leaked NSA documents published by The Guardian last week, the United States National Security Agency is conducting dragnet surveillance of the communications of Americans, regularly receiving phone records for millions of Verizon customers while also being capable of accessing the conversations that occur over Facebook, Google and several other major Internet names through a program called PRISM. Now a 28-year-old artist and developer from Brooklyn, New York has found a fun way of warning computer users about potential government surveillance, and he’s incorporated one of the best-selling rock albums ever in the process.
Justin Blinder released a plug-in for the Web browser Firefox this week, and he’s already seeing a positive response in the press if not just based off of the idea alone. His “The Dark Side of the Prism” browser extension alerts Web surfers of possible surveillance by starting up a different song from Pink Floyd’s 1973 classic “The Dark Side of the Moon” each time a questionable site is crossed.
Blinder told the Guardian that he built the program over the course of four hours with the hopes he could "create some sort of ambient notification that you are on a site that is being surveiled by the NSA."
This Russian Today article was posted on their website early on Friday evening Moscow time...and it's courtesy of Marshall Angeles.
Facebook Inc. and Microsoft Corp. said they received thousands of warrants for data from government entities in the U.S. during the second half of 2012.
Facebook received 9,000 to 10,000 requests, while Microsoft got 6,000 to 7,000, their legal executives said in blog posts yesterday. The companies, seeking to reassure users that authorities don’t have unfettered access to personal details, said the numbers are a “tiny fraction” of their user bases.
Google Inc., Facebook and Microsoft asked the U.S. government for more leeway this week to report aggregate numbers of data requests, following reports that the U.S. National Security Agency is collecting millions of residents’ telephone records and the Web communications of foreigners under court order. While the companies have denied giving authorities direct access to their systems, thousands of technology, finance and manufacturing businesses are swapping intelligence with security agencies, four people familiar with the process said.
This Bloomberg item was posted on their website very late last night...and I thank U.A.E. reader Laurent-Patrick Gally for sliding it into my inbox at 5:01 a.m. EDT this morning.
U.S. troops will soon leave Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda is in shambles. What reason is there for Congress to abdicate responsibility for declaring war?
Last month, I argued that the time has come for Congress to repeal, or "sunset," its sweeping "Authorization for Use of Military Force" (AUMF) enacted just three days after the Twin Towers fell on September 11, 2001. The legislative "blank check" given to the executive branch to wage the War on Terrorism -- a measure enacted while fires at the World Trade Center and Pentagon were still smoldering -- has been, as diplomats used to say, "overtaken by events."
This morning, 4,288 days after the AUMF was enacted, Rep. Adam Schiff, a California Democrat and member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, introduced legislation in Congress to sunset the measure on December 31, 2014, a date chosen to coincide with the withdrawal of American combat troops from Afghanistan. The proposal is a serious bit of business and warrants timely and serious consideration on Capitol Hill.
This is a must read for all serious students of the New Great Game. It was posted in The Atlantic on Monday...and I've been saving it for today. My thanks to Elliot Simon for digging it up for us.
Iceland's bid to join the EU is over, the country's foreign minister told the European Commission on Thursday (13 June).
"This is how democracy works," said Gunnar Bragi Sveinsson, on his first overseas trip, three weeks after being appointed to the recently elected Icelandic government.
He pointed out that both parties in the new government had campaigned against EU accession.
He commented that the main purpose of the trip had been "to tell the commission that the new government has made decision to put negotiations on hold.
This story was posted on the euobserver.com Internet site early yesterday morning...and it's Roy Stephens' first offering in today's column.
The United States may have administered one of the biggest-ever snubs to the Kremlin in the post-Cold War era with the White House announcement on Thursday that it will provide military support to the Syrian rebels.
The U.S. President Barack Obama is scheduled to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the Group of Eight summit scheduled to begin in Northern Ireland this coming Monday. This was to have been the first meeting for the two presidents after their respective re-election to the high office.
As a token courtesy to Putin at a personal and public level, Obama should have deferred the announcement until after meeting Putin. Syria was expected to figure on top of their agenda and Obama and Putin have been closely in touch over Syria.
Geneva 2, the proposed conference on Syria, is a joint Russian-American initiative. By delaying the announcement to next week, the US wouldn't have "lost" Syria. Quite obviously, Obama has made a cool assessment that Putin's friendship is expendable. After all, the discord over missile defense sticks out like a sore thumb in the US-Russia relations and there is no remedy in view.
This, too, is a must read for all students of the New Great Game. It was posted on the Asia Times website yesterday...and it's Roy Stephens' second contribution in a row to today's column.
The ‘red line’ drawn by the U.S. over chemical weapons usage is a standard not applied to Syrian rebels, despite the same ‘red line’ being used for the Syrian government, Abayomi Azikwe, editor of the pan-African news wire, tells RT.
The U.S. is conveniently ignoring accusations that the Syrian rebels themselves might have engaged in crimes against humanity, while throwing blame at Syria for unproven chemical weapon use to justify further military, political and diplomatic pressure against the Syrian government.
This is also required reading for all students of the New Great Game...and it was posted on the Russia Today website early yesterday afternoon Moscow time. It's another offering from Roy Stephens.
Singapore’s monetary authority censured banks for trying to rig benchmark interest rates and ordered them to set aside as much as S$12 billion ($9.6 billion) at zero interest pending steps to improve internal controls.
ING Groep NV, Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc and UBS AG were among 20 banks at which 133 traders tried to manipulate the Singapore interbank offered rate, swap offered rates and currency benchmarks in the city-state, the Monetary Authority of Singapore said in a statement yesterday. The regulator said it will also make rigging key rates a criminal offense and bring supervision under its direct oversight.
Singapore, seeking to bolster its reputation as a major financial hub, is cracking down amid a widening global review of benchmarks. Bloomberg News reported this week traders manipulated key foreign-exchange rates in the $4.7 trillion-a-day currency market. Barclays Plc, UBS and RBS have been fined $2.5 billion over the past year for rigging Libor.
Well, Singapore's monetary authorities mean what they say...and if the banks are real smart they'll toe the line. This Bloomberg story, filed from Singapore, was posted on their website early yesterday afternoon MDT...and I thank Marshall Angeles for his second contribution to today's column.
China appears increasingly worried that monetary tightening by the US Federal Reserve could trigger capital flight from the People’s Republic and set off a Chinese corporate debt crisis.
A front-page editorial on Friday in China Securities Journal - an arm of the regulatory authorities - warned that capital inflows have slowed sharply and may have begun to reverse as investors grow wary of emerging markets. “China will face large-scale capital outflows if there is an exit from quantitative easing and the dollar strengthens.” it wrote.
The journal said foreign exodus from Chinese equity funds were the highest since early 2008 in the week up to June 5, and the withdrawal Hong Kong funds were the most in a decade.
It also warned that total credit in Chinese financial system may have reached 221pc of GDP, jumping almost eightfold over the last decade. Companies will have to fork out $1 trillion in interest payments alone this year. “Chinese corporate debt burdens are much higher than those of other economies and much of the liquidity is being used to repay debt and not to finance output,” it said.
This absolute must read by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard was posted on the telegraph.co.uk Internet site early yesterday afternoon BST...and it's Roy's final offering in today's column.
What do yield-hungry Japanese investors have in common with unicorns and Bigfoot?
Like the latter two, supposed Japanese buyers of U.S. equities and myriad other instruments have been talked and written about to excess, but have yet to materialize. They were supposed to arrive after the Bank of Japan in April moved to aggressively step up its stimulus efforts. The shocking efforts aimed at boosting assets and stoking inflation would leave Japan’s return-starved investors little choice but to set out on a “scavenger hunt for yield,” or so the argument went.
Or not. Data released by Japan’s Ministry of Finance earlier Thursday showed that Japanese investors were net sellers of foreign securities for a fourth consecutive week. In the period running from June 2 to June 8, Japanese investors sold a net 386.9 billion yen ($4.1 billion) of foreign bonds and notes and a net 221.8 billion yen of foreign equities in the week ending June 8, the ministry said.
This marketwatch.com article is another must read story. It...and the Ambrose Evans-Pritchard piece before it...are all the more reason that you should spend the necessary time reading Doug Noland's commentary posted further up in the Critical Reads section. This MarketWatch article was posted on their website very early on Thursday afternoon EDT...and I found it embedded in yesterday's edition of the King Report.
1. Egon von Greyerz [#1]: "Silver is Coiling For a Major Upside Explosion in Price". 2. Citi analyst Tom Fitzpatrick: "Stocks to Plunge as World Enters Massive Bank Panic". 3. Egon von Greyerz [#2]: "Financial Chaos, Disappearing Freedom and Hyperinflation".
France's government has banned sending currency by mail — including coins, cash and all forms of precious metals.
BullionStreet notes that the legislation, which was approved May 23, was not announced by the government at the time and has been little reported on by media outlets.
Published via Legifrance, the law states: “the insertion of banknotes, coins and precious metals is prohibited in mailings, including the insured items, registered items and items subject to formalities certifying deposition and distribution.”
This story has been around the Internet for a week or so now, so it's not really new...but I wanted to see it posted on a more well-known Internet site before I was going to post it in this space. This version of it appeared on the mining.com Internet site yesterday...and it's courtesy of Marshall Angeles.
Sometimes one must see to believe, in this case believe just how massive the raw demand for the shiny, barbarous relic is in China during times of relative monetary stability (in this case the Dragon Boat Festival). Now assume runaway inflation as we saw in 2011 China, which may be unleashed by something as catalytic as the PBOC once again deciding to inject liquidity in its suffocating banking system and to revive growth in the stalling economy.
June 11th, ten thousand people line up in front of a gold shop to buy gold. The buyers lined up during the three day Dragon Boat Festival.
Well, dear reader, here's a story that was posted on the Zero Hedge website yesterday...and I admit that I have my suspicions about it. It's either a wild exaggeration, or patently false. Several readers sent me this article yesterday...and even though there's a link to the original news item [in Chinese] embedded at the end of this ZH posting, I'm not quite buying it. I've never seen 10,000 people [which seems like a gross exaggeration] lined up to buy anything. You can read it for yourself...and make up your own mind. Matthew Nel talked me into posting it, so you can blame him... 
))
Roosevelt had only been in office for 101 days and while there was broad bipartisan support for inflationary policies in Congress, it’s safe to say that most of those who voted for FDR never expected him to confiscate private holdings of gold coins, bullion, and certificates.
Roosevelt called the measure a temporary one (it wasn’t), and he followed it up by invalidating gold clauses in private contracts that obligated payment in gold dollars, which had the effect of devaluing the assets of bond and contract holders. Many of these hoarders and slackers purchased gold as a hedge against the (Fed-fueled) inflationary boom of the 1920s and then hung on to it during the Hoover years when his crazed and unprecedented interventions in wages and prices caused a normal market correction to devolve into a depression. Why would they trust Roosevelt any more?
They were smart not to. By January 1934, Roosevelt increased the dollar price of gold from $20.67 to $35, thus devaluing the dollar by 70 percent while increasing the value of gold that the government now owned.
This Zero Hedge piece from yesterday is well worth your time...and I thank Elliot Simon for his last story of the day.
Félix Moreno talks to David Morgan, publisher of The Morgan Report and the proprietor of silver-investor.com. They discuss the bond bubble and the coming collapse of fiat money, the difference between “paper gold” and physical precious metals, fractional reserve in gold markets, the price of gold and silver and why gold is not just another commodity, but rather a monetary metal. They also talk about central bank gold reserves – particularly those of Germany and China.
This 24-minute podcast was recorded on 13 June, 2013...and I found it in a GATA release from yesterday.
A rare, century–old silver certificate bearing the likeness of 19th century politician William L. Marcy was sold to an anonymous buyer for that lofty sum, which auctioneers at Stack's Bowers Galleries say is a record.
"Only two exist of this type, the other being a treasure in the National Numismatic Collection in the Smithsonian Institution," Stack's Bowers said in announcing the sale.
The certificate was issued in 1891, at a time when silver miners, Western mining companies and some Western banks were objecting to the government's decision to adopt a gold standard.
William Jennings Bryan's "Cross of Gold" speech...and the Frank Baum's book "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" popped into my head the moment I read this short, but very interesting news item. It, and some of the embedded links, are well worth your time...and I thank reader Bill Moomau for today's last story.
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As democracy is perfected, the office of President represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last...and the White House will be occupied by a downright moron. --- H.L. Mencken, The Baltimore Evening Sun, July 26, 1920
Today's pop 'blast from the past' is by the Queen of Soul herself. This hit was recorded in 1968...and you will know it instantly. The link is here.
Last week's classical selection was by German composer Max Bruch...and this week's is as well. Last week it was his Scottish Fantasy...and this week it's his Violin Concerto No. 1, in G minor, Op. 26...composed in 1866. I have a lot of 'favourite' violin concertos...and this is certainly one of them. Here's the incomparable Sarah Chang doing the honours in a posting over at youtube.com...and the link is here. Neither the video quality, nor the fidelity, are the greatest...but it's the only recording that I could find that has all three movements.
After yesterday's big run-up in the silver price, it's easy to see that there is no real liquidity in the precious metals market, as most of the trading is of the high-frequency variety. There are really no legitimate buyers and sellers present in the Comex futures market...just the machines.
If left to their own devices, there isn't a "free market" that wouldn't melt down, or melt up, if given the opportunity to do so. Chris Powell was oh, so prophetic with his quote..."There are no markets anymore...only interventions."
The Commitment of Traders Report, especially in silver, was a sight to behold...and with the way things are currently configured in all four precious metals, copper...and the dollar index...they are an 'accident' waiting to happen to the upside.
However, since there are no free markets, when something does blow up...or melt down...it won't be by accident. JPMorgan et al were in full control of this market on the short side...and there's no reason at all to assume that they won't continue to hold the power when the smoke clears to the upside.
JPMorgan will not only control the 'when'...they will also determine how high and how fast we get to the new precious metal prices, which are all but baked in the cake. They didn't go to all this trouble over the last six months or so to extricate themselves from the short side of the gold market, to put their head back in the lion's mouth again. They'll control things from the long side from now on.
Even if you only read all the stories I have posted in this column this weekend, you should be able to tell from their contents that the entire planet is about to come unglued economically, financially...and monetarily. It's only the time line that is uncertain...and whether or not it will be a controlled event, or will events and circumstance quickly spiral out of the control of the powers that be?
I don't know the answer to that...and neither does anyone else. So we wait.
Here's Nick Laird's "Total PMs Pool" chart updated with data from the week just past...and it doesn't require any further explanation from me. As I said a week ago, I felt that we were done for liquidations out of the big ETFs with last week's report...and it appears that this is the case.
(Click on image to enlarge)
Before heading off to bed, I'd like to point out that Casey Research has another FREE ON-LINE VIDEO EVENT in the works. This one is entitled "GOLD: Dead Cat...or Raging Bull?"
It will feature Jim Cramer, Eric Sprott, Doug Casey, Steven Feldman, Rob McEwen and Jeff Clark. They explore the recent fluctuations of the gold price and what it means for investors. Does gold's drop signal the end of its bull run, or is it just taking a breather? Should investors load up on or unload gold? The free online event Gold: Dead Cat...or Raging Bull? hosted by The Street and Casey Research, with Jim Cramer, Eric Sprott, Doug Casey, and others will provide some answers.
This free video will air on June 25th at 2:00 pm Eastern Daylight Time. It will be available for viewing after the initial stream for those who have schedule conflicts. You can check it out...and then sign up for it here. It pretty much goes without saying that it will be worth your time.
That's all I have for the day...and the week. Enjoy what's left of your weekend...and I'll see you here on Tuesday.
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