COMEX Gold Inventories Steady Overall With 40,000 Ounces Moved Out of Deliverable Category

It was announced this evening that President Obama will nominate Janet Yellen as the new Fed Chairman tomorrow, having been denied his first choice of Larry Summers by popular outrage.

There were big adjustments in the registered (dealer) gold inventories at JPM and HSBC yesterday as a total of  over 40,000 ounces of gold bullion moved back to the customer storage category.

In Scotia Mocatta 4,572 ounce of customer gold moved into the deliverable category.

Brinks received about 1,700 ounces of gold into its registered category which will be offered for delivery and Scotia also received 1,618 ounces into storage.  These were the only external transactions.

So as of yesterday there was a total of 731,226 ounces of deliverable gold, and a total of 6,888,160 ounces of gold in all the COMEX warehouses. 

And there are 48 times more claims for the deliverable gold than there is gold to deliver, at least at these prices.   They may dodge, bluff and finesse their way for some time,  the audaciously clever ones that they are, but at last there will come a reckoning, as it comes for all.

Weighed, and found wanting.

Stand and deliver.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Cap, Cap, Cap...

There was some movement in to the COMEX warehouses yesterday, and quite a bit of recategorization of registered gold back to customer storage. I will discuss this later this evening.

The capping of gold and silver is fairly obvious here. They are quite afraid that it might break and run, and that they will lose control of it in what could be an unfolding currency crisis precipitated by Washington's dysfunctional politics.

So let's see what happens as the great credit debate continues to unfold.

Here is an essay by Janet Tavakoli titled Sovereign Debt, Banks, and Gold Part Three which you may find to be of interest.

As a reminder, the Google 'widget' that contains the links to articles is broken and presumably will be fixed in a day or two as I have reported it.

Have a pleasant evening.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Edginess on the Edge as VIX Moves Higher

Light volumes on light economic news that was dominated by he said - he said on the US debt ceiling and budget discussions, which are taking place not face to face but through media outlets.

We will get the FOMC minutes on Wednesday, and a few more juicier news items after, but really it is all about the political antics in Washington.

Have a pleasant evening.

NAV Premiums of Certain Precious Metal Trusts and Funds

The premiums are rather dour, with only Sprott Silver showing a positive note.

Google seems to have have made some changes, and broken the 'links widget' which I use for Matières à Réflexion.

You can still use them, but I am not able to add any new ones for now. It's always something.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Bracing Against the Wind

"...to the glory that was Greece,
And the grandeur that was Rome."

Edgar Allen Poe, To Helen

There are some very strong trends running now, and the COMEX crowd is bracing against them as best that they can.

If they falter, I would not be surprised to see a solid triple digit up day in gold. It really is that bad.

But for now they maintain control over paper prices and have scraped a little more bullion together for the poor COMEX warehouse inventories as show below.

You may recall that there were major price operations the last two Decembers to skin the ETFs and hold off on deliveries. I wonder what it will look like when this tired old scheme fails. I would imagine it will be noticeable.

But until they hit the wall its have another slug of Jack Daniels, and put the pedal to the metal. So try not to let the ugly people scare you too badly ahead of Halloween.

Have a pleasant evening.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Edgy But On Light Volumes

Stocks trended lower today but on light volumes. So I would call it an 'edgy' trade but no panic.

The consensus of traders seems to be that the House Republicans will draw out the Continuing Resolution issue as far as they can, and then the deadlock will be averted ahead of the October 17th estimate of a problem with the debt ceiling that would stop payments.

Right now the rhetoric is thick, and posturing is the order of the day. If I were in the position of the government I would probably refuse to negotiate on this under these conditions, simply because if one rewards this behavior, which has gone too far in its demands, you will face it every three months. It is not unlike extortion.

That is not to say that there should not be negotiations, far from it. But to demand a major program that has been passed by both houses of Congress, signed, vetted by the Supreme Court, and then tested successfully in a national election is nuts. This was very badly played by the Cruz faction and the House Republicans politically. But Boehner is a major enabler of the impasse since he is in effect using his office as House Speaker to prevent a clean resolution from reaching the floor for a vote. I think his personal fear for his office is overcoming his better sense as a seasoned politician, but the times are what the are.

The problem is that this is a contest between slimy and slimier, since I do not see many progressive champions and statesmen on the Democratic side either. The Dems sold out to Wall Street under the Clintons and that is where they remain.

Life with go on, but in the short term it may be a bumpy ride. VIX is elevated and nearing a high for 'normal circumstances,' ie non default.