It was just another slice off all four precious metal salamis yesterday
The gold price got sold down back below $1,200 the ounce in two smallish bouts of selling during the Thursday trading session in the Far East, with the Hong Kong low coming shortly before 2 p.m. local time. The subsequent rally back above $1,200 spot got capped at the 8:20 a.m. EDT COMEX open—and by the London p.m. gold fix, the price was back in the box. After that, the price didn't do much, although the low tick came at a spike down about twenty minutes before the COMEX close.
The high and low were reported by the CME Group as $1,203.30 and $1,192.40 in the June contract.
Gold closed in New York yesterday afternoon at $1,193.50 spot, down another $8.70—as JPMorgan et al continue to slice the salami to the downside. Net volume was on the lighter side once again at 110,000 contracts, the same as Wednesday's volume.
The chart pattern for silver was more or less the same as the gold chart, expect the spike low came about 10:20 a.m. EDT. The silver price didn't do much for the remainder of the day.
The high and low were reported as $16.51 and $16.105 in the May contract.
Silver finished the Thursday session at $16.15 spot, down another 36 cents. Net volume was 31,000 contracts, a few thousand contracts less than Wednesday's volume.
The platinum price chart looked like a carbon copy of the the other two precious metals—and it was closed on Thursday at $1,154 spot, down another 11 dollars.
Palladium's price chart was a mini version of the platinum chart, although the rally that began in that metal shortly after 2 p.m. Hong Kong time, it didn't get its comeuppance from “da boyz” until minutes after 9:00 a.m. EDT. After that it also traded flat into the close of electronic trading. It was the only precious metal to close up on the day at $761 spot—a gain of 7 bucks.
The dollar index closed late on Wednesday afternoon in New York at 98.06—and had almost a 40 basis point up/down rally that ended around unchanged at 8 a.m. EDT. Then away it went to the upside, before topping out at roughly 99.17 sometime around 3 p.m. After that it slid a bit into the close, which was recorded as 98.98 by the folks over at ino.com. The index finished the Thursday session up 92 basis points, but was up over 100 basis points at its high.
The golds stocks opened down—and hit their low ticks minutes later, before rallying back to unchanged. They were a hair into positive territory, but that changed at precisely 1 p.m. EDT when they got sold down for an hour or so, before rallying a bit into the close. The HUI finished down 0.55 percent, which wasn't bad considering the price action.
The chart pattern for the silver equities was virtually the same, complete with the 1 p.m. EDT sell off. But the silver stocks never saw positive territory at all on Thursday, even though they came close a time or two—and Nick Laird's Intraday Silver Sentiment Index closed down 0.47 percent.
The CME Daily Delivery Report was a big surprise, as it showed that zero gold and zero silver contracts were posted for delivery within the COMEX-approved depositories on Monday.
I made a reporting mistake in yesterday's Daily Delivery Report. I said that JPMorgan stopped 97 silver contracts of the 114 issued. In actual fact it was Canada's Scotiabank that stopped those 97 contracts, not JPM—and I thank Ted Butler for pointing out the error of my ways.
The CME Preliminary Report for the Thursday trading session showed that gold open interest in April continues to decline, as it dropped another 269 contracts—and is now down to 2,462 contracts left open. Silver's April o.i. also declined, but only by 15 contracts—and now stands at 170 contracts. I'm still wondering what the short/issuers in gold are waiting for—and who them might be when they finally do put in an appearance.
Much to my surprise, there was a deposit made in GLD yesterday, as an authorized participant added 95,951 troy ounces. Based on past price action, it may have been deposited to cover an existing short position. And as of 9:54 p.m. EDT yesterday evening, there were no reported changes in SLV.
Since yesterday was Thursday, Joshua Gibbons, the Guru of the SLV Bar List, updated his website with what was going on at the iShares.com Internet site as of the close of business on Wednesday—and here's what he had to say.
“Analysis of the 08 April 2015 bar list, and comparison to the previous week's list: 2,047,974.7 troy ounces were removed (almost all from Brinks London), no bars were added or had serial number changes.“
“The bars removed were from: Russian State Refineries (0.6M oz), Kazakhmys (0.6M oz), KGHM (0.3M oz), Solar Applied Materials (0.3M oz), and 7 others.“
“As of the time that the bar list was produced, it was overallocated 1,062.9 oz. All daily changes are reflected on the bar list.“
There was no sales report from the U.S. Mint yesterday.
It was another day of very little action in gold at the COMEX-approved depositories on Wednesday, as 4 kilobars were reported received—and 3 kilobars were shipped out.
But it was a totally different story in silver once again, as a monstrous 1,883,054 troy ounces were reported received—and an equally monstrous 1,748,030 troy ounces were shipped out the door. JPMorgan added another 1.28 million troy ounces to their already impressive inventories of that metal. And as Ted said on the phone yesterday, the activity of the last two days has certainly been associated with the silver deliveries that occurred during the March delivery month—and the promised metal is now on the move. The link to that action is here—and it's definitely worth a look.
It was another busy in/out day at Brink's, Inc. in their COMEX-approved warehouse in Hong Kong, as 3,000 kilobars were reported received—and 6,134 kilobars were shipped out. The link to that activity in troy ounces is here.
Nick sent us a couple of new charts last night. They show India's gold and silver imports going back to 2008—and they don't require any further embellishment from me. Nick pointed out that the bars on the charts for the 2015 calendar year represent January imports only.
It was another fairly slow news day yesterday—and the pickings were reasonably slim, but I hope you find a few that interest you.
The combination of JPMorgan taking delivery of a large amount of physical silver long after my speculation that it was doing so, plus the ill-timed manipulation charges against Kraft gave me, I believe, the rope of specificity to hang these crooks. And barring any legitimate explanation by either the CFTC, JPMorgan or the CME, all must be considered illegitimate and corrupt. Although I become weary at how blatant and obnoxious the roles all three principal participants in the silver manipulation have become, I think I am made wearier by the lack of involvement by some fellow commentators (certainly not all) and, particularly, by the lack of involvement by mining company management. As many of you have suggested to me, you would think the miners would be all over this. So would I.
At the same time I fully concede that the COMEX silver manipulation has grown stronger, I also know the resultant effect on silver mining will come in time.
While total primary silver mine production has not declined in accordance with the extremely depressed price, that is due to the long lead times necessary to open and close a silver mine. One thing for certain is that silver exploration has taken it on the chin and we are delaying future mine production and creating gaps in the time and quantity of future mine supplies. One would think that this would be obvious to every mining manager and that they would be responding to the one specific cause of low price – futures contract positioning on the COMEX. I believe an important opportunity has been presented to mine managers by the double standard demonstrated by the CFTC in the Kraft wheat case; but if they don’t petition the agency, the opportunity is lost. – Silver analyst Ted Butler: 08 April 2015
Well, dear reader, it was just another slice off all four precious metal salamis yesterday, as JPMorgan et al do their thing once again. The only question remaining is; will these slices be thin—and over a long period of time, or will they take a meat cleaver to it—and do it in a couple of large chunks? I don't know—and neither does anyone else.
But, having said that, the internal COT structure is still pretty bullish in gold—and silver's COT number are market neutral, so there certainly could be a countertrend rally at some point, but that will only occur if “da boyz” allow it. And how those rallies might go is entirely up to them as well.
Here are the charts for all four precious metals, so you can see the latest slices for yourself.
And as I write this paragraph, the London open is twenty minutes away. The gold price, which had rallied a few dollars in Far East trading, is now back to unchanged—and silver is currently up a dime. Platinum is up 7 dollars—and palladium is basically unchanged.
Net gold volume is a bit under 12,000 contracts—and silver's net volume is just under 4,400 contracts. The dollar index, which had been quietly trending lower during Friday trading in the Far East, popped into positive territory and back above 99.00—and is now up a magnificent 5 basis points.
Today we get the latest Commitment of Traders Report, along with the April Bank Participation Report—and I'll be more than interested in what they have to show. It will also give Ted Butler the opportunity to recalibrate JPMorgan's short-side corner in the COMEX silver market—and I'll have all of that for you in tomorrow's column.
I was just rereading Ted's quote above—and I must admit that it is discouraging to know that the precious metal mining companies have become silent co-conspirators in the precious metal price management scheme.
And as I've said countless time in the past, they have totally abrogated their fiduciary responsibilities to their respective shareholders—and no appeal, no matter how reasoned, will make them budge. Not only don't they want to talk about it, almost all of their respective I.R. people actually try to blow you off the moment you broach the subject with them.
Some of them have admitted to me in private that they're fully aware of what's happening, but will deny everything if they have to discuss it in the public domain.
How did it come to this?
If you haven't tried your luck, phone the Investor Relations department of any silver company you own stock in—and see what happens when you start asking questions about this issue. Most companies have a 1-800 number, so the call is free.
And as I send today's effort off into cyberspace at 5:20 a.m. EDT, I note that after trading basically sideways through all of Far East trading—and the first hour in London—all four metals popped a bit higher starting at 9:00 a.m. British Summer Time [BST].
At the moment, gold is up eight bucks—and back above $1,200 spot. Silver is up just under 30 cents, platinum is up 13 dollars—and palladium is up half that amount. The dollar index is now up 40 basis points.
Not surprisingly, volumes have blow out as well, with gold's net volume now north of 36,000 contracts—and silver's net volume around the 9,600 contract mark. It's obvious that JPMorgan et al are going short or selling longs aggressively into this rally—and if they keep it up, these rallies won't last long.
But as I said further up, there's always the possibility of a countertrend rally because the current COT structure isn't all that bad in either silver or gold at the moment. But I also said that how high these rallies go—and how fast they get there—will be entire dependent on what “da boyz” do as these rallies unfold. And using current volume levels as a precursor, they're already doomed.
However, since today is Friday, nothing will surprise me as far as price action is concerned—and I await the 8:20 a.m. COMEX open with great interest.
Enjoy your weekend, or what's left of it if you live west of the International Date Line—and I'll see you here tomorrow.
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