November 1 – Gold $426.90 down $1.30 – Silver $7.30 up 1 cent
Cartel Fails To Knock Gold Down Much
History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again...Maya Angelou
GO GATA!!!!
Not much to bring to your attention today. Following its strong weekly and monthly close on Friday, gold came out of the box swinging, even though the dollar was higher. It took off for $430, trading at $430.20, and then The Gold Cartel said, "No Way Jose." That was all she wrote and all need be said. The good news is The Gold Cartel’s assault didn’t get them very far.
The gold open interest rose to another record and now stands at 322,614, up 2116 contracts.
Silver was a Steady Eddie. The bears have to be looking at themselves this afternoon.
The silver open interest gained 243 contracts to 117,328.
Chuck noted the following over the weekend:
I just picked up the Investors Daily for Monday and noticed that there remains a lot of put buying on the gold options. Very bullish. Throw that into the pot. Chuck.
Our London gold source remains very bullish and is looking for $450 to $460 gold by year end.
The best news of the day is how firm the gold physical market is - brought to your attention by John B:
The John Brimelow Report
India buying, also Turkey: specs less extended than thought.
Monday, November 01, 2004
Indian ex-duty premiums $7.84, PM $7.88, with world gold at $429.05 and $427.95. Ample for legal imports. This is basis Bombay: the other Indian reporting points are similar.
India is showing no signs of faltering in gold purchases despite the world price. Helped by the rupee’s firmness, this ultimately is a wealth effect: the world’s largest gold consumer is booming. For example, Maruti, the biggest Indian car manufacturer, reported a 27.6% increase in sales in October versus 2003. This constitutes a major obstacle for the Bears.
Turkish gold imports for October fell 33% to 14.85 tonnes. Although according to the Istanbul Gold Exchange the weighted average Turkish Lira price was 2.8% higher, the real problem was that gold moved in a limited range last month compared to September: there were no Bargain Basement sales days: gold’s low for the month was $14 above the September low.
Nevertheless, imports so far this year are within a tonne of the total for the entire year 2003, itself a stand-out record. Imports in late 2003 were slow; an increase of 10-15% this year seems quite likely (unless world gold rises).
Despite meeting this morning a world gold price allegedly boosted by month-end activity in NY on Friday, Asia was quite tolerant. Gold spent much of the morning trying to scale $430. TOCOM, indeed, seems to have been a modest buyer. Although volume fell 33% to equal only 16,474 Comex contracts, open interest edged up the equivalent of 519 Comex lots, and the Mitsubishi data implies the "general public" long rose by 3.1 tonnes, or 997 Comex lots. The active contract went out up 15 yen and world gold was $1.25 above the NY close at the end. (On Friday, NY traded 47,113 contracts; open interest rose 2,116 lots to a new record level of 323,654 contracts.)
UBS found the CFTC spec long increase modest:
"The COTR report for gold…showed an increase in the net long position to 20.83Moz, up nearly a million ounces…somewhat less than we were expecting because some brave traders have entered into new speculative short positions…The net long position increased by 0.91Moz to 20.83Moz, still shy of the all-time high of 22.65Moz from 6 April."
Another, particularly shrewd observer notes that the combined NY/Tokyo net long is only 570 tonnes compared to 715 at the April peak.
With the main physical buyer still active (unlike April) and the speculative futures crowd not in fact fully committed, the Bears are in the tightest corner they have experienced for many years.
JB