Early this morning I put out an update on the state of the currency war. I suggest that you take a looks at this short piece which I added to the Russia gold reserve update here.
The metals were the same old, same old. They were hit twice in the morning, in London and then New York, and rallied into the close to gain back most of what had been lost yesterday.
The metals are largely moving sideways here, and the wiseguys are trying to shake some metal out of loose hands.
It worked a bit in gold. If you look at the delivery report showing yesterday's action, you can see that a customer of JPM let some bullion go, and JPM and Nova Scotia picked it up for their house accounts.
I also show the warehouses for both gold and silver below.
While the actual movement of the metals is not unique compared to the recent status quo, I thought it was impressive to see the amount of physical silver being held by JPM. While we do not know if those are for their accounts or customers, it is still noticeable.
As for gold, most of the Comex gold is being held by HSBC and Scotia Mocatta, although there is also a 'kilo gold only' report that I normally do not show that is dominated by Brinks. I do not show it because the report has no registered bullion, merely kilo storage at least since they have been issuing it as a new report.
Larry Fink, the head fink at BlackRock, says that the best stores of wealth these days are in NY, London and Vancouver real estate, and contemporary art, rather than in gold.
What an obtuse observation. NYC, London, and Vancouver real estate are in an obvious bubble, and as for contemporary art, art in general has been a good hedge against inflation in general, but is notoriously illiquid, and subject to great variances in quality and appreciation. And art is also in a bit of a bubble.
So what did old Larry really say? That there are a couple of bubbles here, likely fueled by low interest rate hot money, and it is better to pile in there at a likely top, rather than buy gold which is bottoming after a three year bear market, and is one of the more undervalued of the traditional hedges against uncertainty and risk.
Right on Larry. Thank you for talking your book. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.
If there wasn't a gold pool still operating, I would say that the bottom is probably in when you start hearing rubbish like this.
Have a pleasant evening.
