Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Claims Per Deliverable Ounce to 59

"People criticize owning bullion because there’s no yield. But there’s a reason everything else needs a yield, to compensate you for things like obsolescence risk, business-cycle risk, and management risk, all of the things that gold doesn’t have.

We’re not gold bugs, but there’s a reason humanity has tended to use gold as an alternative to man-made currency: it’s the only virtually infinite-duration asset in the world."

Matthew McLennan


"Indeed there can be no criterion, no other standard than gold. Yes, gold which never changes, which can be shaped into ingots, bars, coins, which has no nationality and which is eternally and universally accepted as the unalterable fiduciary value par excellence."

Charles de Gaulle


"The Lydian Lion coins are in significant demand because of their history, the evocativeness of their design, their metallurgic characteristics, and their mystery. Other coins may vie for the title of the world's first coin, also from Lydia, nearby in Ionia, in the Middle East, and across the world in India and China, though none do so as persuasively. The Lydian Lion is the one coin that has been referred to as "The Coin."

It directly preceded ancient Greek coinage, which through Rome begot all Western coinage, and which through the Seleukids, Parthians, and Sassanians begot all Islamic coinage. Indian coinage has largely been a product of Greek, Roman, and Islamic influences. Chinese coinage, though it probably developed independently, was succeeded by Western-style coinage in the late nineteenth century."

Gold caught an obvious hit on the Comex open that took it back down from the 1320 level.

Silver also traded sideways.

There was no serious movement at the Comex warehouses with just 3 kilo bars Brink's customer storage, and nothing coming in.

The claims per deliverable ounce have risen to 59, back to the all time high once again.  

Have a pleasant evening.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - The Pause That Refreshes

Stocks were flat to mixed today, as the market pauses ahead of the more significant economic data later this week.

Have a pleasant evening.

NAV Premiums of Certain Precious Metal Trusts and Funds - Plus C'est la Même Chose

"We find our population suffering from old inequalities, little changed by vast sporadic remedies. In spite of our efforts and in spite of our talk, we have not weeded out the over privileged and we have not effectively lifted up the underprivileged. Both of these manifestations of injustice have retarded happiness.

No wise man has any intention of destroying what is known as the profit motive; because by the profit motive we mean the right by work to earn a decent livelihood for ourselves and for our families.

We have, however, a clear mandate from the people, that Americans must forswear that conception of the acquisition of wealth which, through excessive profits, creates undue private power over private affairs and, to our misfortune, over public affairs as well. In building toward this end we do not destroy ambition, nor do we seek to divide our wealth into equal shares on stated occasions.

We continue to recognize the greater ability of some to earn more than others. But we do assert that the ambition of the individual to obtain for him and his a proper security, a reasonable leisure, and a decent living throughout life, is an ambition to be preferred to the appetite for great wealth and great power."

Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1935


"They were ruined, when they were required to send laboring children to school; they were ruined, when inspectors were appointed to look into their works; they were ruined, when such inspectors considered it doubtful whether they were quite justified in chopping people up with their machinery; they were utterly undone, when it was suggested they need not always make quite so much smoke.

Besides Mr. Bounderby’s gold spoon which was generally received in Coketown, another prevalent fiction was very popular there. It took the form of a threat. Whenever a Coketowner felt he was ill-used, that is to say, whenever he was not left entirely alone, and it was proposed to hold him accountable for the consequences of any of his acts—he was sure to come out with the awful menace, that he would ‘sooner pitch his property into the Atlantic.'"

Charles Dickens, Hard Times

The Massive Drawdown of Gold From the West Continues - Silver Comparison - the Abyss

"We looked into the abyss if the gold price rose further. A further rise would have taken down one or several trading houses, which might have taken down all the rest in their wake.  

Therefore at any price, at any cost, the central banks had to quell the gold price, manage it."

Sir Eddie George, Bank of England, September 1999


“In times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.”

Eric Hoffer

Here is the change, in tonnes, in the inventory of major exchanges and ETFs for gold and silver since the beginning of the year.  Nick Laird of Sharelynx.com was kind enough to share the data which he has collected with me.  He does a remarkable job in maintaining an enormous amount of data at his site.

As you may recall, both silver and gold have seen price declines since the beginning of the year. As a reminder, silver is down 28.7% and gold is down 21.5%.  I show this in the last chart. So they have both seen comparably stiff price declines this year.

Since the beginning of the year, the major exchanges and ETFs for silver have added about 1,494 tonnes of bullion. 

But what is absolutely remarkable is that since the beginning of the year the Comex and some of the major ETFs have LOST about 856 tonnes of gold bullion.  And I suspect much of that bullion has gone to the non-reporting vaults in Asia and the Mideast. And there is import/export data that corroborates that hypothesis.

Now, some might say that they don't see what this means, that they don't see the significance. Or that the significance is that people like silver but don't like gold, even though both have seen price declines, and even though demand for physical gold in Asia and the Mideast has been explosive this year according to trade records.

I will tell you what the significance is.  The significance is that you are, figuratively speaking, watching water running uphill and out of sight.  And some look at this and say, nothing to see here.

That gold which is disappearing from the reporting grid will not be coming back to these largely western vaults anytime soon.   And it certainly will not be coming back at these prices.  It is going into some fairly strong hands with an eye to the long term.

Silver is still acting like a precious metal, similar to platinum, which added 21 tonnes, and palladium which added about 1.5 tonnes.

Here is what is happening, as shown in the three charts below.  Draw your own conclusions.   But keep in the mind the negative gold forward rates and record leverage in potential paper claims for physical gold that we are seeing and hearing reported.

And this chart does not include the leased gold that is being occasionally disclosed by Western central banks, which seems to be going to satisfy the appetite of Asia.

It seems pretty darn obvious to me that there are some big buyers outside this reporting system that are taking down supply, and at a fairly aggressive rate, especially in the last twelve months. 

You know that I think this exercise was triggered by the revelation that Germany's gold was missing, and a reflexive price manipulation that was intended to dampen demand, but instead set off an avalanche of physical buying.  

Given that genuinely new gold supply is only added slowly from mining, once the West realizes what is happening the turnaround could take on the character of a short squeeze, and perhaps even a panic and market dislocation to the upside.

And if you are one of those who are holding receipts for gold held in this system, you may find that you have been rehypothecated with extreme prejudice, and given a forced cash settlement at another's discretion. When the time comes your assets may be found to have been used as cannon fodder in the currency war.  Thank you for your support.

The German people asked for their national gold back, and were told by the Fed to go sit down in the lobby for seven years and wait for it. Are you kidding me? What is it going to take to wake people up that something has gone seriously wrong in these markets?  

What kind of new fraud or disclosure of fiduciary misbehavior will it take to bring the dawn?  And what will happen when the dawn finally comes?  Do you wish to be standing in a very long line holding a warehouse receipt or brokerage statement?  Good luck with that.

You may be a financier, fearing the abyss and hanging on, obsessively doing what worked in the past.  But here is some news.  You don't have to fall into the abyss,  the abyss is coming for you.   And the longer this nonsense continues, the worse the drawdowns will become, and the more painful the final reckoning will be. 

Weighed, and found wanting.

Stand and deliver.