Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Spokesmodels Left Speechless - Gold Rockets $33 Higher

“There are two ways to be fooled.  One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.”

Søren Kierkegaard


"Beware the leaven of the Pharisees, which is a pious, hollow hypocrisy. For there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed, or hidden, that shall not be made known.  Whatever has been said in the darkness shall be heard in the light: and what has been whispered behind closed doors shall be shouted from the roof tops."

Luke 12:1-3


"A sentiment of trust in the legal money of the State is so deeply implanted in the citizens of all countries that they cannot but believe that some day this money must recover a part at least of its former value.

To their minds it appears that value is inherent in money as such, and they do not apprehend that the real wealth, which this money might have stood for, has been dissipated once and for all.

This sentiment is supported by the various legal regulations with which the Governments endeavor to control internal prices, and so to preserve some purchasing power for their legal tender.

Thus the force of law preserves a measure of immediate purchasing power over some commodities and the force of sentiment and custom maintains, especially amongst peasants, a willingness to hoard paper which is really worthless."

John Maynard Keynes, Economic Consequences of the War

That last quote by Keynes is one of my favorite quotes about fiat money. Modern Money is a mix of force and fraud. As the fraud grows thin, the force must increase.

Gold rocketed $30 higher today, gaining back everything it lost on Monday, and then some.

This violent snapback rally lends itself to the theory that the smackdown of the past few days was designed to reduce the open interest in the August futures contracts.

It may also be significant that gold was pummeled down to its 50% Fibonacci retracement on the latest leg higher, but they could not make that stick— and got it stuffed back in their faces.

If gold can hold 1400 through the Non-Farm Payrolls nonsense, and make a higher high, this is very bullish action. 

The spokesmodels were chortling when gold was smacked lower yesterday, and forecasting even lower prices down to $1350.  But they were silent about its vicious snapback rally today.   How unusual.

I find it a bit odd that with these price fluctuations there is zero activity being shown out of the Hong Kong comex gold warehouses.   This is a dog that is failing to bark.

Rumors of a bullion bank being caught with its pants down have been making the rounds. I wonder if it involves a physical delivery.

Oil dumped today.   This was particularly odd given the recent strong statements from the latest OPEC meeting.  Well, they can reduce supply, but they cannot create demand.

Stocks caught a strong bid into the close.  It looks like another blow off top is in the making. I am getting my bear claws ready.

They'll never learn.  Why should they, when their paydays from this have been so personally fulfilling.

Someone is in trouble somewhare behind the scenes.   Who or what it is, we do not yet know,

But it may very well involve a difficultly in meeting one's obligations.

Have a pleasant evening.

P.S. Gold exploded even higher after hours, rising $17 to 1436. It is hovering below 1430 now. Odd.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Option Expiry On 24th - A 'Bent' Market - Timely Caution

"Nor can private counterparties restrict supplies of gold, another commodity whose derivatives are often traded over-the-counter, where central banks stand ready to lease gold in increasing quantities should the price rise."

Alan Greenspan, Testimony Before the Committee on Banking and Financial Services, U.S. House of Representatives July 24, 1998


"Secrecy is completely inadequate for democracy, but totally appropriate for tyranny."

Malcolm Fraser

We are going to have an option expiration on the Comex on this Thursday the 24th.   I am not expecting it to be a big event, since October is a light contract, with the real attention and action being concentrated in December.

However, there are over one thousand puts at the 1125 strike, so the cynical me might call that good support.

If I were trying to skin the specs and holders of options with shallower pockets, I would take gold down to about 1120ish, suck in more puts and scare the calls out, and then take the price up and skin all those put holders at expiry.

But this is a one dimensional view of the market, and does not take into account the trade in London and in the vastly out of control derivatives markets.   Or the side action in the miners and ETFs for that matter.

There were no (zero) deliveries for gold and silver at The Bucket Shop yesterday.

The slow bleed out of the bullion warehouses continues.

I recall some fellow, I think it was from Barclays, saying that the record low plunge in deliverable (registered) gold bullion at the Comex was because those who owned it did not wish to see it stopped out 'in a short squeeze.'

And I remember thinking at the time, what short squeeze is he referring to?  The non-delivery Bucket Shop?

And then the rumours regarding the shortage of delivery ready bullion at the LBMA came out, Peter Hambro said it was 'almost impossible to find,' and a few analysts noticed that the gold is in backwardation, meaning a premium is being paid for real gold in hand.

And then Rickards said that he thought a couple of Banks were in a pinch on delivery in London and were hedging their exposure in the futures in New York.  As he noted, London is a 'fractional reserve' system, as is The Bucket Shop with a stated assumption of 2% redemptions, as are some unallocated depositories.

If this game of musical gold gets dodgy, it could begin to fall apart as fast as MF Global swirled down drain.  I would not wish to see that.  I would greatly prefer honest markets that are not so recklessly fragile, in which the small investors is not exposed to so much unknown counterparty risk.

The Banks participating in the London fix are now Barclays, HSBC, SocGen, Bank of Nova Scotia, UBS, and Goldman Sachs.

The Banks which Rickards said were rumoured to be caught short physical deliveries and had been hedging on the Comex with longs are JPM and Citi.

I should note that Jim, for all his expertise and knowledge which I do not dispute, has been leaning in this direction before but certainly early. He suggested that there might be a run on gold back in 2010.

So here we are.   They will never admit there is a problem with this, never.  They will keep doubling down while the music is playing and if it stops, they will run to the Treasuries and the central banks for a rescue, while keeping their profits and bonuses.

In the absence of enforcement of the rules and effective regulation I am afraid that the only thing that will stop this nonsensical looting is a bullion brick in the face.

The price discovery mechanism in the precious metals market is to hide the true state of the supply behind a wall of secrecy, and to jawbone the demand lower by saying ridiculous things and befuddling the average investors.

But there it is.  The flow of gold and silver, a massive exodus of wealth moving from West to East, covered up by a storm of paper.

And the peoples of Asia are letting the malarkey of the bullion Banks and their apologists just float by on the breeze,  while they keep stacking the only financial asset without counterparty risk.

As a caution, even if it proves that the highly leveraged LBMA in London, being backed up by the incredibly over-leveraged Comex, is indeed in a developing short squeeze, as Greenspan reminded us, the central banks have gold which they can lease out to their friends in the Banks, so it can be sold off in Asia, with a promise to return it at some future date.

As Sir Eddie George said, they were 'staring at the abyss' if a failure to deliver were to occur, and prompt a run on available gold forcing an unwind of the paper house of cards.

That may keep the books balanced, but it really does not solve the problem, the systemic fraud that is going on in this as it has in so many other markets.

I get the impression that Asia is in this for the long haul, and will not be deterred.

Stand and deliver, until you cannot.

Have a pleasant evening.

Gold, the Comex and Exchange For Physical

This report below comes from John Cheney of Service Analytics.

We would not conclude that you cannot get gold from the Comex in the exercise of your futures contract. "Cash settled" is nothing new, and we ourselves have done this in the past. But we have been speaking with other traders and funds, and some are spotting a trend.

Comex is putting forward the offer of paper in the form of money or ETF positions aggressively, and it is the much easier alternative. Delivery of physical gold from the Comex is no longer as straightforward or even as semi-convenient as it had been in the past. In fact, it is difficult, and one must be persistent and wait long periods of time. At least, this is what we hear.

We would like to know if there has been a recent independent audit of the Comex stores, with a clean sheet of bar numbers and the status of same. From what we hear it is a mess, as bad or worse as the recent scandal in Canada and the 'missing bullion.'

"Some months ago a chap described changes in the comex rules for futures contract deliveries. Therein it was described that the EFP, exchange for physical, rules were amended to allow for delivery of GLD shares in lieu of bullion.

Well take a look at something new, at least for me, in Monday’s comex preliminary volume and open interest report. On page 3 of the attachment, notice that in addition to futures contracts listed under the EFP category, a new category is listed: “Delivery Cash Settled” = 2866 december gold contracts. Just so happens 2866 was exactly the number of delivery notices issued on FND as reported in the Nov 27 vol and op int report.

Conclusion: guess you can no longer get bullion via using comex contracts. This apparently is the next step in the evolution of gold trading."

The conclusion we reach for now is that if one is counting on the ability to receive delivery of physical gold from the Comex for whatever purposes, then don’t. You will wait and fight and stand in queue to obtain the goods from the Enron nation.

But one principle we have learned over the years is never to attribute to bad intents what can be attributed to human error and mismanagement.

Paper, Scissors, Gold

As you may have heard recently, the Comex has asserted their right under their rules to deliver the equivalent paper interest in Exchange Traded Funds such as GLD in lieu of the delivery of physical bullion for those standing for delivery under the rules of the commodity exchange.

Is GLD really the same as physical bullion?

"...it appears that a lot of investors believe and trust that investing in GLD is the same thing as buying physical gold bullion. A close reading and analysis of the GLD Prospectus, however, reveals that investing in GLD is drastically different from owning gold. This analysis will show why GLD is nothing more than another form of a derivative security which is loaded with counter-party default risk."
Owning GLD Can Be Hazardous to Your Wealth

Here is a recent statement from Dennis Gartman who most often derides those he calls 'goldbugs.'

"To finish, we do agree that recent decisions to allow for the "delivery" of ETF shares in the stead of actual physical gold against a futures position does cause us some concern. Indeed, it causes us some very real concern, for if we stand for delivery of wheat we expect to receive wheat, not paper. The same holds true for delivery processes on the COMEX, and if GATA and the "Bugs" have a complaint it is this new decision by the COMEX. On this, we’ll grant that the "Bugs" have something to complain about." Dennis Gartman in The Gartman Letter

We have often said that when the real crisis of liquidity comes, and the final flight to safety from the credit bubble collapse begins in earnest, the exchanges will alter the rules to allow for cash and paper settlement of claims for bullion, which they cannot or will not be able to deliver at the agreed upon prices.

This is what makes the current structure of the short positions held by a few banks on the precious metals exchanges a 'racket,' a type of Ponzi scheme where the same thing is sold repeatedly with no means of satisfying the aggregate of the claims and ownership.

We are sure the Comex is "well capitalized," and will continue to be so, even as it is rocked by de facto delivery failures and the substitution of more paper to back up the general failure of paper.

The wheels of justice grind slowly but they grind exceedingly fine.