Shanghai Gold Exchange Has 73.3 Tonnes of Bullion Withdrawn Its Third Largest Week

For the week ending July 24th there were 73.289 tonnes of gold bullion withdrawn from the Shanghai Exchange into China.

That is about 2,356,296 troy ounces in one week.

I have included the most recent statistics from the Comex Gold Warehouses below.  There are currently 351,519 ounces of gold available for delivery at these prices there for the month of August.

Nine out of ten Americans will notice that in terms of technical analysis this is 'a lot less.'

But as the very serious people like to point out, the Comex is not really 'a physical exchange.'  Yep.

And as you may have seen in the posting from earlier today showing the sea change in leverage over even the past ten years there, it is seemingly getting a lot less physical all the time, even compared to just five or six years ago. Winning...

Even the US Mint seems to be getting in on the act.  The mint sold 202,000 ounces of gold in the form of coins for the month of July, one of its largest monthly sales totals in several years.

That's a lot of pet rocks.

Do the math. I wonder where the poor, deluded ignoramuses who obviously do not understand finance are getting all that money to spend on such worthless trifles.  Does the US Mint take food stamps?

While they last.

This chart is from the date wrangler Nick Laird at sharelynx.com.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Entering the Active Month of August - July Payrolls Next Week

Gold and silver popped today and the soaring dollar dipped as wage growth, as plotted by the ECI, was shown to be at a twenty year low.

What a surprise.

Keep in mind that the 'dollar index' DXY is hopelessly outdated, and is little more than the inverse of the Euro.  And brother does the euro have problems. 

So it might make the dollar look good when in fact it is fundamentally deteriorating as well, just not on the same timescale.

A strong dollar does what again?  Oh yeah, it stifles exports and domestic manufacturing.  Perfect policy choice, but only if you are a predatory financial vulture looking to buy up foreign assets on the cheap with overpriced dollars.

Former President Jimmy Carter says that the US is an oligarchy with unlimited political bribery.  I don't remember hearing about this on the evening news or the mainstream political talk shows.  Ho hum.  Who cares.

The rest of the world already knows it, and the American olilgarchs are too busy dividing the garments of His creation by casting lots to care.

There was intraday commentary on the gold market here.   The precious metals market is going to blow up at some point if it continues in this manner.
  

I am not looking for a default on the exchange since it is set up to be settled in more paper.  Rather, I am thinking of a serious break in confidence in the markets overall, at long last, as sort of 'a con too far.'   How many frauds in major markets have been exposed in the past ten years.   Are there any markets that are not manipulated by the financiers?

The problem is that the wiseguys get all full of themselves, and the easy victories fill them with puffery and bravado.  And so they keep pressing their bets until they hit the wall.  And the last two times we bailed them out.  Big mistake.

It is the outcome of almost every financial fraud that has ever been.  They never know when to quit, and certainly cannot stop themselves.  They are like addicts.  And it works for them.

It may not be the precipitant of the financial event, but it will be in the mix.  It looks like an accident waiting to happen, all of it, just like the 2007-08 mess that everyone denied until it rolled over on us.

Non-Farm Payrolls next week.

Have a nice weekend.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - US Wages Are Not Growing, What a Surprise

The big tickle today was that wages for the second quarter were showing their slowest growth in twenty years.

As if wage stagnation is news. 

We have seen this 'phenomenon' as a decades long trend as the power in the political system has shifted significantly to those corporate interests with the most power and money.

The bad news is that when people do not have disposable income, and they cannot keep adding debt and use things like their homes, with homeownership also falling to twenty year lows, as ATMs for ordinary consumption, then they cannot buy things, and aggregate demand falls.

What a revelation!

Next week we will have another baked-to-order Non-Farm Payrolls number, and all may be forgotten once again.   Or we will see a shot of Kim Kardashian's belly button, or Donald Trump will say something outrageous.

Its always something in the United States of ADHD.

Have a pleasant weekend.