How long the Anglo/American empire can keep up this precious metal price management scheme
The gold price hit its low tick just before 9:30 a.m. in Hong Kong trading on their Wednesday morning—and the price was up ten bucks from Tuesday's close by the London p.m. gold fix. Once the 'fix' was in, the price got sold back down to unchanged before rallying for the remainder of the day, with the biggest chunk of the gains coming in the last hour of electronic trading in New York.
The low and highs were reported by the CME Group as $1,256.90 and $1,273.30 in the April contract.
Gold closed yesterday at $1,268.90 spot, up $8.80 from Tuesday's close. Net volume was 123,000 contracts.
The price action in silver was somewhat different, although the low tick in that metal also came the same time as the low in gold. There was a spike up at the London morning gold fix, but that was entirely negated by the time the noon GMT silver fix was done. The second up/down move came either side of the London p.m. gold fix—and from there it got sold down into the close.
The low and high were reported as $17.17 and $17.67 in the March contract.
Silver finished the Wednesday session at $17.33 spot, up 6 whole cents. It would have obviously closed materially higher if allowed to, which it wasn't.
Platinum also had its low tick between 9 and 9:30 a.m. Hong Kong time—and then it rallied six or seven bucks by 3 p.m. Hong Kong time. After that it chopped sideways, except for the brief up/down spike at the London p.m. gold fix. Platinum finished the Wednesday session at $1,237 post, up 6 bucks.
After it's low tick was in at the same time as the other three precious metals, palladium rallied quietly, but in fits and starts—and its attempt to blast through the $800 spot price mark obviously ran into a not-for-profit seller shortly after noon in Zurich. After that event, the metal traded more or less sideways into the close. Palladium finished the day at $790 spot, up 6 dollars.
The dollar index closed late on Tuesday afternoon in New York at 93.75. It's 93.62 low tick came shortly before 2 p.m. Hong Kong time—and from there it rallied quietly until it spiked higher starting around 3:35 p.m. EST on Wednesday afternoon. By the close it was at 94.57, which was it's absolute high tick. The dollar index finished the day at 94.57—up 83 basis points from Tuesday, gaining back everything it lost that day.
Here's the 3-day chart.
The gold stocks opened up—and except for a brief dip into negative territory about 10:25 a.m. EST, managed to stay in positive territory, with most of the major gains coming after the close of COMEX trading. The HUI finished up 1.34 percent.
The silver equities also opened in positive territory—and after the up/down move in the silver price surrounding the London p.m. gold fix, the stocks rallied for the remainder of the day, only selling off a bit in the last thirty minutes of trading. Nick Laird's Intraday Silver Sentiment Index closed up 2.53 percent.
The CME Daily Delivery Report for Day 5 of the February delivery month showed that 342 gold and zero silver contracts were posted for delivery within the COMEX-approved depositories on Friday. The only short/issuer of note was Canada's Scotiabank with 340 contracts—and the largest long/stopper was JPMorgan in its client account with 262 contracts. In distant second and third spots were Barclays and ABN Amro, with 49 and 18 contracts respectively. The link to yesterday's Issuers and Stoppers Report is here.
The CME Preliminary Report for the Wednesday trading session showed that February open interest in gold only fell by 80 contracts down to 1,207—but from that number the 342 posted for delivery tomorrow have to be subtracted to get the true o.i. number. Silver February open interest double from 42 to 84 contracts.
After a withdrawal on Tuesday, an authorized participant added 96,022 troy ounces of gold to GLD yesterday. And as of 9:52 a.m. EST yesterday evening, there were no reported changes in SLV.
Over at Switzerland's Zürcher Kantonalbank for the week ending January 30, they reported declines in both their gold and silver ETFs. Their gold ETF dropped by 16,403 troy ounces—and their silver ETF sold 250,787 troy ounces. With everything that's going on over there, it's strange to see this European ETF decline almost on a weekly basis, while their U.S. counterparts are heading in the other direction, especially in gold.
The U.S. Mint had a tiny sales report yesterday. They sold no gold—and only 31,000 silver eagles.
The was a decent deposit of gold over at the COMEX-approved depositories on Tuesday, as Canada's Scotiabank took in 109,310 troy ounces, which equates to precisely 3,400 kilobars of the stuff. In the withdrawal department, one lonely kilobar was reported withdrawn from Brink's, Inc. The link to this activity is here.
It was another very quiet day in silver, as only 23,360 troy ounces were shipped out—and nothing was reported received.
Here are a couple of charts that Nick Laird slid into my in-box early yesterday evening. These are the Intraday gold and silver price movements for the month of January. If you average the same 2-minute tick of every trading day of the month—and in January there were twenty-two—for each of these metals and average the price in each of these intervals, these are the charts that you get.
These charts are just further proof that gold and silver prices are manged—and I'll explain that in commentary below them. In the meantime, have a gander.
What you have here are two precious metals, both of which have mostly different supply/demand fundamentals, but their average chart price patterns are identical, with rallies in both beginning exactly at, or within a few minutes of, the noon London silver “fix”.
How is this possible in a free market, you ask? Well, the fact of the matter is that it ain't!
This is the second day in a row where I don't have an overabundance of stories, which suits me just fine—and you as well, I'm sure.
If you came away from [last] week’s price performance sensing that there was an intent and deliberation behind the pronounced weakness in silver, your senses have not failed you. It goes without saying that something caused the relative and absolute price smash in silver and, by process of elimination, it had nothing to do with actual metal fundamentals or even perceived fundamentals and everything to do with deliberate actions on the COMEX.
That more are seeing this is good; that some still insist otherwise can only be attributed to a vain refusal to admit to not comprehending the obvious sooner. It has gotten to the point where the only remaining manipulation deniers (apart from the regulators) are those who always denied the price manipulation and whose egos stand in the way of any open reassessment, no matter what the facts. – Silver analyst Ted Butler: 31 January 2015
Nothing much should be read into yesterday's price action in gold, although it was rather curious to see all four precious metals hit their respective lows at the same time during the early going in Hong Kong trading. Since all four metals have different supply/demand characteristics—and there was no currency machinations at the time, it leaves one wondering why it happened that way.
I've already commented at the top of this column on the rather strange goings-on in silver at the three separate fixes in London yesterday, so I shan't repeat myself here.
Here are the 6-month charts for both gold and silver as of the close of trading yesterday.
And as I write this paragraph, the London open is less than five minutes away. All four precious metals had been up a bit on the day earlier, but got sold down shortly before 3 p.m. Hong Kong time. Only palladium remains in the plus column at the moment. Net gold volume is right at the 20,000 contract mark—and silver's net volume is only 3,600 contracts. The dollar index, which hit its Wednesday high right at the close in late afternoon trading in New York yesterday, is now down 33 basis points.
It remains to be seen how long the Anglo/American empire can keep up this precious metal price management scheme, along with all the other schemes that they have going right now, on both economic and military fronts. The western media is certainly doing their bidding, but it's obvious from reading articles in the foreign press for the last year or so, that the member nations of organizations such as the Shanghai Co-operation Organization [SCO] are wise to them—and at some point not far in the future, things will change for all nations, as it's now just as obvious that these countries are tired of being toadies for the U.S. and Britain, which has been the case for the last couple of centuries. The new BRICS development bank mentioned in the Critical Reads section in this column is just another step along that path—and another brick in the wall for the IMF and World Bank, which are both controlled by the United States.
I have an interesting interview on this subject in my in-box, but for content and length reasons will have to wait for Saturday's column.
And as I put the finishing touches on today's column at 5:20 a.m. EST, I see that the four precious metals got sold down a bit more during the early going in London this morning, but have all bounced back somewhat in the last thirty minutes. Net gold volume is 29,000 contracts—and silver's net volume is now up to 5,400 contracts. This isn't huge volume, so I'm not prepared to read much into the current price action, although it is interesting to note that the dollar index continues to head lower along with precious metal prices, as it's now down a chunky
48 basis points.
But as I've been saying for months now, precious metal prices are set by the powers-that-be in the COMEX futures market—and it matters not what the currencies are doing.
I haven't the foggiest idea as to what to expect in the way of price activity during the remainder of the Thursday session, so nothing will surprise me when I check the charts later this morning.
See you tomorrow.
Uranium Energy Corp. (NYSE MKT: UEC) is pleased to announce that the final authorization has been granted for production at its Goliad ISR Project in South Texas. As announced in previous press releases, the Company received all of the required authorizations from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, including an Aquifer Exemption which has now been granted concurrence from EPA Region 6.
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This little fellow is a Harris's antelope squirrel—and is only to be found in Arizona and New Mexico in the United States. This one was looking for a handout at the Desert Botanical Gardens in Phoenix. Alas, I had nothing for him/her, but visitors aren't supposed to feed them anyway.
