SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Low Volume Monkeyshines

The big tickle will be the Fed minutes and the Non-Farm Payrolls this week.

NAV Premiums of Precious Metal Trusts and Funds - First Gold Halt of 2014

Nanex documents the first trading halt in gold, and the first smash-and-grab bear raid of 2014, here.

"On January 6, 2014 at 10:14:13, Gold futures plummeted $30 on heavy volume. About 4,200 contracts send gold futures prices tumbling $30 and trigger a 10 second trading halt. "

1. February 2014 Gold (GC) Futures

Comex Warehouses: Potential Claims On Deliverable Bullion at Historically High 80 to 1

“When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meager and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely, in your thoughts, advanced to the stage of science.”

William Thomson Lord Kelvin

I think we can stipulate that the lack of real transparency in the precious metals markets, among too many other markets, is appalling. But that is the nature of our fraudulent times.

January is a non-active month for the metals, and overall inventories are adequate for the meager deliveries on the Comex.

Those who hold bullion will need some incentive to move it to the deliverable, registered category for February, which is often a significant physical delivery month for the New York paper markets.

But all in all, the Comex is now the tail wagging the dog, a paper sideshow to the real bullion markets which are moving East.

This is something that very few economists have yet to internalize.