Beiträge von Schwabenpfeil

As oft-reported in this column, just as demand for gold is taking off around the world, gold mine supply continues to be on the wane. This bodes poorly for The Gold Cartel whose Achilles Heel is controlling the physical market:

SA's gold production down
09/12/2004 17:46 - (SA)

Johannesburg - South Africa produced 85.7 tons of gold in the third quarter of 2004, the Chamber of Mines said on Thursday.

This was a decrease of 2.5% compared to the previous quarter and an 11.1% decrease compared to the same quarter in the previous year, said Chamber of Mines chief economist Roger Baxter.

In total, South Africa produced 258.1 tons between January to September 2004. This was 8.3% lower than the 281.6 tons produced during the same period the previous year…..

-END-

CARTEL CAPITULATION WATCH

The DOW fell 9 to 10,543, while the DOG only lost 1 to 2128.

Market news:

06:32 OPEC agrees to stick to 27M bpd output quota, reports Dow Jones
Citing a delegate. This would appear to confirm the earlier commentary from ministers indicating their intent to stick to quotas
* * * * *

09:47 Dec. Univ. of Michigan Confidence reported 95.7 vs. consensus 93.5
Prior reading was 92.8. Note market spiked ahead of wires releasing number.
* * * * *

Dec. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Delphi Corp., the world's largest maker of auto parts, will eliminate as many as 8,500 positions and expects a loss of as much as $350 million next year because of falling automotive production in North America and higher costs of raw materials.

Sales in 2005 will be between $28.5 billion and $29 billion, the Troy, Michigan-based company said in a statement today….. –END-
* * * * *

14:00 Nov. monthly deficit reported $57.9B vs. consensus $54.1B
Prior deficit unrevised at $43B.
* * * * *

WASHINGTON, Dec 10 (Reuters) - The U.S. government posted a $57.88 billion shortfall between receipts and outlays in the month of November, the Treasury Department said on Friday.

The November deficit, reported in the Treasury's monthly budget statement, was slightly more than analysts' expectations. Wall Street had forecast a $55 billion budget shortfall and the Congressional Budget Office had expected a $57 billion gap.

The monthly budget shortfall was about $15 billion wider than in November 2003, when it was $42.97 billion.
* * * * *

The John Brimelow Report

JB: Tremendous ammunition burn by Bears

Friday, December 10, 2004

Indian ex-duty premiums: AM $9.59, PM $7.48, with world gold at $434.40 and $433.90. Very lavish, and ample, for legal imports. This was despite the rupee spiking down at the close to a two week low, losing 2.5% since Monday. Some of this weakness is likely in fact to be due to the slide in gold; purchases of the country’s second largest import item after oil will certainly have picked up this week. India industrial production was reported today to be running 10.1% above last year:

Indian opinion is probably correct in expecting more rupee-bolstering portfolio investment inflows.

TOCOM activity slipped 38% to equal of 23,988 Comex lots, but open interest rose again, by the equivalent of 919 Comex. The active contract closed up a yen, but gold was down $1.30 from the NY close. Some weakness in the yen provided a more normal rationale for Japanese interest, which of course contrasts dramatically with the behavior on Comex. Mitsui London remarked:

"Another test to the downside in Asia but the TOCOM general public buying staved off the lows"

(In NY yesterday gold traded 73,527 lots, with open interest plummeting another 10,512 contracts – 32.7 tonnes – to 322 305.)

Open interest has now fallen 30,989 lots -96.4 tonnes – in two days, erasing the entire November build up. A reliable observer asserts that Wednesday’s drop is the biggest ever. Clearly the long/short balance has undergone radical change. On TOCOM, where the long/short position is reported (for individual members!) with a one day lag, this would now be in the public domain, but since this sell off only really got underway after the weekly CFTC cut off, relevant data will not emerge until after the close next Friday. Mitsui Sydney hazards:

"Good Fund liquidation hasbeen seen in the last 48 hours & the COT numbers released after tonight's close will only show a fraction of the reduction. I suspect we will see between 500k - 1 million ounces lighter, but at this point the net longs have probably reduced by several million ounces. If we hold anywhere in the $430s & liquidation of longs is big enough, then the overall picture is very bullish." (JB emphasis)

This observation may be particularly accurate because there must have been shorting involved as well. The timing of the selling pressure suggests it – HSBC remarks

"…the ending of upward momentum in prices…has triggered CTA and other systems-related selling."

The Bears have burned off a great deal of ammunition this week. Contrary to their hopeful assertions, the Christmas period is frequently not a quiet period for gold.

JB

The gold open interest fell another 10,512 contracts to 322,305. Probably fell again today. As previously mentioned, The Gold Cartel is using this orchestrated attack to cover their scale-up short positions as the specs are flushed out of their longs.

Houston’s Dan Norcini notes:

The open interest figures released today indicate that just about all those who bought the break above $430 basis December on Nov. 4, have been effectively cleaned out of the market.
As long as we can continue to hold in this area and stay that $432 low (Feb futures), I think we have weathered the worst of this thing.
Let's hope the physical market can keep prices from dropping much below $430. If not -we will see further spec liquidation.
Dan

Gold closed lower for the 5th day a row, or every one this week, making a $431.50 low for the day. No fun for our team, this second week of December.

Morgan Stanley was a huge buyer yesterday on the break. Today word to me was gold producers were in there covering their forward sale positions. They don’t want to be seen as not having taken advantage of such a buying opportunity. Those who stay too short are going to have a hard time explaining to shareholders in the future why they did not do some covering when gold takes out $500 per ounce.

Silver news: Morgan Stanley covered its shorts and has gone long, willing to buy all the way down to $6.30. The silver open interest dropped a sizeable 8,516 contracts to 106,029. Morgan Stanley covered as the specs ran for the hills.

How soon we forget. For those in a state of panic over this price drop, it has been relatively minor thus far and should end up that way. To put this in perspective, let us look what happened last year when gold took out very key, touted resistance at $330:

Monthly gold
http://futures.tradingcharts.com/chart/GD/M

Once gold broke above $330, it took off to the $380 level, crashed to $320, only to come back this year to reach the $456 area. Gold only rose half as much this time, thanks to the vigilant cabal price-capping. Thus, it is reasonable to expect it to correct only half as much. If that is the case, the worst of the correction is behind us. Especially since there are a number of more constructive factors re gold today than back then:

*The cash market dried up on the first advance towards $380. The opposite is true today. It is on fire.

*The dollar is far weaker today than it was when gold broke $330.

*The Iraq war is a horror show. As we sail into next year, and the perilous Iraqi elections loom on the horizon, this will become more apparent. The longer term implications for the US dollar and the deteriorating fiscal situation of our government will become a more significant positive factor for the gold price.

By the close gold was unable to overcome continued margin call selling and even perhaps some new fund shorting. All rallies to the unchanged level were stuffed. As long as the cash market remains as strong as it is, this sell-off should be contained. When the usual liquidation process ends, gold should take off.

It was a wild day in the currency trading pits. When the dollar took out its double top, panic dumping of foreign currencies hit their trading pits. The euro fell to 131.38 before closing at 132.30, down .95. The yen traded above 106 before rallying back to finish at 105.15. The dollar ended up at 82.59, up .53, however it took out 83 at one point.

CBS MarketWatch
U.S. stocks open lower on inflation, oil jitters
Friday December 10, 9:44 am ET
By Mark Cotton

NEW YORK (CBS.MW) -- U.S. stocks lost ground Friday as a sharper-than-expected rise in producer prices for November raised concern about a pick-up in inflation.

Meanwhile, an increase in crude-oil prices following reports that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries has agreed to cut oil production was further undermining sentiment.

"The market should be disappointed over this sharp rise in the producer price index," said Peter Cardillo, chief market analyst at S.W. Bach. "The effects of the falling dollar are now beginning to show up in terms of inflation."

Higher energy prices drove U.S. wholesale prices up a greater-than-expected 0.5 percent in November, the Labor Department reported.

Economists were expecting the PPI to rise about 0.1 percent. Core producer prices, which exclude food and energy costs, rose 0.2 percent, as expected. The PPI is up 5 percent in the past year, the biggest rise since late 1990, when another energy crisis pushed inflation higher.

Within the report, core intermediate prices, a key leading indicator of inflation, has risen 8 percent in the last year, the worst inflation since 1981.

"The bottom line is that the market will have to deal perhaps with a Fed which is somewhat more aggressive in the first quarter of the New Year due to the falling dollar."

-END-

December 10 – Gold $433.40 down $1.60 – Silver $6.68 down 6 cents

Gold Should Rocket When Spec Liquidation Subsides

True courage is like a kite; a contrary wind raises it higher...John Petit-Senn

GO GATA!!!

Succeeding the Comex close last evening, gold rose another $2 and change. With more margin calls in the wind, it is no surprise that gain failed to hold, just as the rally aborted the night before; not with an oversold dollar continuing to correct to the upside. When gold trading commenced on the Comex, the euro was down over 100 points.

Yet, even with the dollar surge, gold was holding its own, close to unchanged, until bullish news for gold hit the tape:

08:30 Nov. PPI reported 0.5% vs. consensus 0.1%; core rate 0.2% vs. consensus 0.2%
Prior total unrevised at 1.7%; prior core unrevised at 0.3%.
* * * * *

As we have seen so often for so many years, gold was then assaulted, for it is regarded by many as a true inflation barometer. Therefore, it is often trashed by the cabal on bullish inflation numbers to mitigate what is really going on in the US economy. Can’t have a gold influenced bond market turning around, leading to higher interest rates.

Immediately after the PPI came out, CNBC strutted out Wall Street apologists re how benign the US inflation numbers are and how all is copacetic. Well, here is the real story:

Zitat

Original von zeitgenosse

Deine nur reinkopierten postings interessieren im Prinzip niemanden. Was soll man denn damit anfangen. Ich weiss doch noch nicht einmal, wer der andere ist. Das ist einfach nur lästiger trash, der möglichst schnell übersprungen wird.

Hallo Zeitgenosse,

schlage Dir vor, dass Du Dir noch einmal anschaust, wer hier was gepostet hat ...

Gruß
Schwabenpfeil

Bill and Chris,

The GLD ETF's behavior dumping 15 tonnes before the sharp POG price drop raises further questions that I don't think have been precisely articulated or studied by the GATA team. Can we put our thinking caps on together, and maybe somebody who has combed the prospectus will know the answer?

The question basically relates to the manner in which the fund conducts its gold buying and selling operations, in relation to the timing of investment inflows and outflows.

For an index fund that is designed to precisely track a sector in the general equity market (e.g. the NASDAQ 100), the prospectus is very clear. If investors add buy $1M of index fund shares, then the fund is obligated to go right into the open market and immediately buy all of the index shares in the proper proportions. They cannot hold the cash for, say, 2 days to wait for a better offer then profit on the difference. Likewise if investors withdraw $1M then the index fund managers have no choice: they must immediately sell index shares, at market price, in equal quantities proportional to the amount of the withdrawals.

For an actively managed mutual fund, the prospectus will indicate the fund's objective and the "principles" by which it operates. For example if the fund allows up to 10% of its holdings to be in cash, this gives the fund managers a little buffer with which to trade and try to time the market. They are not obligated to buy/sell specific equities at specific times, in proportion to investment inflows and outflows, but merely to adhere to the fund's general objectives over a longer time frame, and to try to make a profit, which goes to the fund's shareholders (less management expenses, commissions, etc.)

Where does the GLD ETF stand on this spectrum of fund management behavior? Its title and marketing designation "StreetTracks Gold Trust...designed to track the spot price of gold bullion" certainly suggests that it operates as an index fund for bullion. Thus, as the POG rises, GLD should rise proportionally (and immediately). One would imagine that the managers are required to buy or sell bullion immediately in the spot market, so as to maintain a bullion position closely corresponding to the dollars invested.

Instead, it was reported that GLD's assets stayed flat for a week (the same list of bullion bars published on two successive Fridays). This would suggest that there was absolutely no net change in the fund's investment inflows/outflows over a week. Possible, but unlikely. And then, suddenly 15 tonnes are sold en masse. Did a big depositor suddenly withdraw funds in this amount? Or had the withdrawals occurred over a period of time and the fund waited until it had enough sell orders accumulated to crash the market?

It appears that GLD does not even attempt to "track the spot bullion market" as advertised. Rather, its managers are actively using their centralized control over a large bullion position to deliberately cause huge waves in the market, in a way that gives them (and probably favored friends) insider foreknowledge upon which they can illegally profit. If they are able to profit from these large market moves, the profits do not accrue to the GLD shareholders ... since the objective of GLD is to track the market.

You are welcome to forward this email to James Turk, Reg Howe or anyone else who is helping our GATA cause, and/or to publish in Midas.

My best regards to the GATA team. We'll be sending our annual contribution shortly.
Cheers,
Marcia Stockton

Chuck checks in and notes:

Newmont has opened down 9 of the last 10 days. What are the odds for that?

The sharp drop in silver dramatically helps the picture. I feel really positive about gold here. We are weaning out the nouveaus and those who can only recognize a weak dollar-silver and gold link. Chuck

The gold shares don’t want to go down any more. The HUI sold off early to 212 and was on a tear, rising to 216.79 when a late selling spree took it back before it closed at 214.85, down .25. Can’t stand prosperity that HUI. The XAU gained .44 to 99.24.

The gold shares have bottomed. We should get a violent rally to the upside any day now.

GATA BE IN IT TO WIN IT!

MIDAS

On Golden Star Resources CEO Peter Bradford:

In this day and age where CEO's are bailing out of their company's stock in huge numbers, it is rare to see one actually buying his own company stock.

That it's Peter Bradford from GSS only makes it sweeter......

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/903571/000
117911004022680/xslF345X02/edgar.xml

Just an FYI as I know you're a GSS fan too.

***

Robert Prechter and his gang just won’t quit. The latest from EWI’s Hochberg:

12/8/04
[February Gold] and [March Silver] have finally topped. Today’s horrendous price rout should be the start of the long-awaited declines in each metal that will last for months. Judging from the huge gap lower at the open, a number of leveraged trades were caught on the wrong side and are in the process of being unwound. The large speculators (hedge funds) in gold are near record net-long, while they ARE record net-long in silver. It is impossible to predict how long it will take these levered trades to be reversed, if in fact that is in the cards, but my guess is that it will not occur in a day, or even a week, but longer. Gold opened at $445.50 in New York pit trading, reaching an intraday low of $435.00 before bouncing to close at $438.70.

The drop is impulsive, confirming a trend reversal. An initial target is in the $418-$427 area, from which gold may try to stage a large bounce, but we’ll see when prices get there. The open chart gap at $453.70 should remain open for a long time. Silver likewise should not come anywhere near filling the open chart gap left at yesterday’s $7.885 close.

In this month’s newsletter we said that this top "could be at least as dramatic as silver’s wave (1) decline of more than 30% in a month." So far prices have fallen 14.6% in just 4 days. At this rate silver’s decline would be even MORE dramatic than wave (1). An initial near-term target is not far beneath today’s $7.03 intraday low, in the $6.90-$6.92 area. Whether or not this area spawn’s a near-term bounce, silver should be significantly lower by month’s end.

-END-

The GLD flap continues. A retort to David Walker:

I Disagree with David on the ETF
Bruce E Batchelor
eql@shaw.ca
December 8, 2004

David, I disagree with you on almost every point in your defence of GLD. I have been in financial markets for 40 years and the prospectus work on GLD should never have been passed. The bar inventory has been compiled by amateurs, and you have no reason to defend this listing. Please go back to the prospectus and find the place where it says that there is sufficient gold in the trust to cover all fund inflows plus market variations, less the management fee. It is not there.

Little-known to many, the trustee made its own news release at the time of the commencement of trading of GLD, and announced that it is an ADR-like vehicle using a "proprietary trading approach." This is the same outfit which consented to a finding of money-laundering. That is to say, by their own publicity, not an asset-backed trust, but one which, I assume, trails or anticipates market movements, and which from the "proprietary" aspect, uses derivatives or risk-management software. One day, many of these programs will be on the wrong side a major move. Or we will find that the insiders are front-running the units in the open market, knowing the data output of the model. We can expect some extreme volatility in the bullion scene as a result of the GLD trading model, and not the stability you would like to see.

Then the serial number issue alone would have caused the trading suspension of any less-visible entity. The "addresses" you mention of the custodians are the names of entities with multiple locations, rather than addresses; no actual physical locations (as with the Perth Mint securities) are listed. Central Fund gives an actual bank address in Toronto, for a more solid example. If I attended a bankruptcy hearing and the respondent said they had money in "The Royal Bank" that would be no use to me. Nor should it be for an investor.

The serial number sequence rings my bell. I doubt that there has been a physical asset assembly for this security.

I am saying this just to be on the record. I hope we have a good intermediate selloff here, as the weekly adjustment in GLD inventory will prove very interesting. The minute that the listing does not appear on time (Fridays) we know we have big trouble...
Sincerely,
Bruce E. Batchelor
eql@shaw.ca

The Achilles Heel for The Gold Cartel is the physical gold market. To keep gold artificially suppressed, which it is today, they must come up with 1500 tonnes, or so, of new central bank gold every year. That is what the annual supply/demand deficit has been running for some time (should be higher now). There is just not enough mine and scrap supply to meet the needs of the buyers.

In years past central banks have coughed up enough gold to keep the price from soaring. This is how the GATA camps comes up with a gold loan number of around 16,000 tonnes. What is important to appreciate is the nefarious Gold Cartel price manipulation scheme is coming to an end because the cabal is running out of ammo.

Talk such as this about the central banks not being able to come up with 500 tonnes per year is the death knell of The Gold Cartel. Yes, this has been brought to your attention by GATA and UBS commentary earlier, however, it is wonderful to read this sort of talk escalating. It is a big deal.

The cabal has used the dollar to control the price rise of gold. Cap, cap, capping the gold price on rallies and then waiting to bury the specs when the dollar pops. This should not last too much longer because the cash market is going to overpower the bums. When gold takes off in all currencies, The Gold Cartel will be finished.

On that note it is important to keep in mind, the price of gold not need be only dictated by the dollar action. This has only been so of late because it is the cabal’s way to manipulate the price. In 1993 gold rocketed, even as the dollar rose to some degree. In 2005 gold will rise in all currencies as the cabal falls.

To give you some idea of the extent of the cabal’s using the dollar action to manipulate the gold price, take a gander at the dollar and gold charts:

December dollar
http://futures.tradingcharts.com/chart/US/C4

February Gold
http://futures.tradingcharts.com/chart/GD/25

Just from a visual perspective you can see how different they are in terms of exaggeration. The dollar closed today at 82.06, up only .13 after a huge early rally. It reached yesterday’s high of around 82.50, key technical resistance, and then flopped. The euro only fell .15 to 133.20. The euro is only a couple of points and change from its high. The move down in gold is out of all proportion to that of the move up in the dollar, thanks to the corrupt Gold Cartel!

These excerpts from a miningmx.com story are important:

Central banks might not meet 500t/year ceiling

David McKay
Posted: Thu, 09 Dec 2004

[miningmx.com] -- CENTRAL Banks could drop positive clues about the gold price by not meeting the 500t/year quota as determined by the Washington Agreement, said Kelvin Williams, marketing director for AngloGold Ashanti. The renewal of the Washington Agreement, signed this year, places a total 500t/year limit on all official sector sales.

In an interview with miningmx, Williams also said central bank attitudes towards gold had changed because its profile as a store of value had been rehabilitated. "The central banks have started to behave in an orderly basis and on an ordinary basis, treating the gold market with the same kind of respect that they would treat the market of a currency of another central bank," he said.

"Instead of behaving towards gold as if it had no owners, they acknowledge a kind of consensual ownership in gold. That’s been a big plus and it has sterilised their [the central banks] negative impact on the market and has made them a neutral and known entity," he said.

It was conceivable that, in the next five years, central banks would become a positive gold sentiment indicator because the central banks "... don’t particularly want to sell what gold they’ve got; that on the whole, the role of gold as an official sector store of value has had some rehabilitation," Williams said…

-END-

Gold demand:

Dear Bill,
from a small, local german newspaper, "Butzbacher Zeitung", Butzbach , Germany (near Frankfurt): Not a commercial, but an article: (translated)

Topic: "Business Notices"
Headline: No Risk on Gold-Sales
Article:

(Butzbach:) Whoever would like to sell gold will see fair conditions/prices.
Therefore the "biggest gold-recycling-company in Germany, GVG" is offering their customers in the framework "tooth -gold and gradma's gold sale" on 9th 'til
11th Dec. not only professional advice and service, but too, best prices. Buys will be offered on:

tooth-gold, grandma's jewelleries, silver and platinum. We offer cash. The auction of the Pforzheim-based company will take place from 9th .....

* Haven't seen something like that since the mid-70ties .
Klaus from Germaney

Fun one:

Hi Bill,
The current mugging and robbery in gold and silver reminds me of an episode of "Unsolved Mysteries." In a Montana mining town, a corrupt sheriff and a group of outlaws would periodically shoot a miner or group of miners and steal their gold. This went on for a considerable period of time and I am under the impression that most or all the ambushed miners did not survive. Eventually, the remaining miners and townsfolk figured out who was behind the robberies and formed a posse. The posse hunted down every single one of the outlaws and hung the outlaws and finally hung the sheriff. The unsolved mystery is what happened to this stolen gold. It is reported to this day that people still dig up portions of the town and surrounding area in search of this gold. I always like a story with a happy ending where the outlaws get what is coming to them.
Sincerely,
Paul
P.S. I added to my position on the current mugging.

Several Café members think this way on yesterday’s debacle:

Dear Bill,
I have another theory as to the timing of today’s Gold market reaction. There has been wide spread speculation that John Snow, the Treasury Sect'y would be leaving the Bush Admin. If he left, there would be no one to authorize Exchange Stabilization Fund operations until a new Treasury Sec'ty was nominated & confirmed by Congress. Many people believe that the ESF has been heavily involved in Gold market operations. There would be no interventions until a new Treasury Sect'y was in place. This could have taken literally weeks. Today, about 3:00pm EST, the White House shot down the speculation that Snow would be leaving. I suspect that the insiders amongst the financial institutions had info about this before the news was released to the general public. The fact that Bush needed continuity in this office may suggest that the financial markets are in potentially more trouble then we suspect. Just my opinion.
John C

There has been a great deal of commentary coming from foreign countries that the US must gets its fiscal situation in order or the dollar is going to get clobbered. There is no sign of any progress on that front.

Bush Says No Payroll Tax Hike for Social Security

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush (news - web sites) ruled out raising payroll taxes to help pay for Social Security (news - web sites) reform on Thursday, leaving him few options other than a sharp increase in government borrowing to bankroll transition costs estimated at up to $2 trillion.

"We will not raise payroll taxes to solve this problem," said Bush, rejecting a solution advocated by some experts and Republican lawmakers.

White House officials defended using government borrowing to finance the transition to personal retirement accounts, saying it would neither undermine Bush's budget-cutting goals nor upset the financial markets.

White House budget director Joshua Bolten said the administration was on "a very clear path toward meeting and, in fact, exceeding the president's goal of cutting the deficit in half by (fiscal year) 2009."

-END-

CARTEL CAPITULATION WATCH

The DOW continues to move up, climbing 59 to 10,552, while the DOG gained 3 to 2129.

However, the US economic news is not good:

08:30 Nov. Import/Export prices reported 0.2% vs. consensus 0.0%
Prior reading revised to 1.6% from 1.5%.
* * * * *

08:30 Jobless claims for w/e 12/4 reported 357K vs. consensus 335K
Prior week unrevised at 349K.
* * * * *

09:18 PG raising folgers roast, ground coffee prices by 14% -- Bloomberg (55.03)
* * * * *

10:00 Oct. Wholesale Inventories reported 1.1% vs. consensus 0.5%
Prior reading revised to 0.6% from 0.5%.
* * * * *

DURHAM, N.C., Dec. 9 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Chief financial officers of U.S. corporations are less bullish about the economy in 2005, and are particularly concerned about health care costs and operating in an increasingly competitive economic environment. They also rank the budget deficit and Iraq at the top of a list of items on which President Bush should focus during his second term. And executives at 36 percent of companies report that fears about domestic terrorism are significantly affecting their bottom lines.
These are some of the findings of the Duke University/CFO Magazine Business Outlook survey, which asks chief financial officers from a broad range of public and private companies about their economic projections. The December survey was concluded Dec. 5 and generated responses from 308 executives…..

-END-

The John Brimelow Report

NY sells (& shorts?) East buys

Thursday, December 09, 2004

Indian ex-duty premiums (http://www.vdare.com/jb/041130_indian.htm AM $8.12, PM $$7.85, with world gold at $439 and $437.35. High; ample for legal imports. The Indian rupee continued to soften today, as did many other Asian currencies.

Some might be puzzled that premiums did not rise. As mentioned before, India gold importing appears to be economically efficient. Provided the dealers are not taken by surprise, and if they have the credit lines, premiums ought not, theoretically, to rise above ample for imports, because of competitive pressure.

TOCOM responded with surprising energy to the events of yesterday. Volume rose 73% to equal an almost respectable 38,689 Comex lots, and open interest jumped the equivalent of 2,525 Comex to 110,919 Comex. The active contract closed down 14 yen, but world gold was $2.55 above NY at the end: $439.25. Mitsubishi commented:

"…good Public buying emerged into the market",

and infers that the general public added a startling 15.9 tonnes equivalent to 5,112 Comex lots to their long. Apparently the Japanese think gold cheap. (COMEX yesterday traded a huge 139,593 lots, 29% above the estimate. Open interest dropped 20,427 lots -63.5 tonnes! – to 332,817.)

Others in the Far East think gold cheap too. Gold was back up to $441 just before Europe opened. Reuters reports:

"Some dealers in Hong Kong… said buying at the lower levels had pushed up the gold price to around $440 an ounce…
"It seems (there is) a lot of buying on the downside," said Ellison Chu, a senior manager at Standard Bank London in Hong Kong.

Gold bars were on par to London prices in Hong Kong, compared with a discount of 30 U.S. cents an ounce on Wednesday, on buying interest from jewellers, said dealers."

Premiums on the Shanghai Exchange rose to the highest level since early August, when world gold was in the $390s.

Even experienced observers appear shocked at the ferocity of the selling unleashed when Comex opened yesterday. ScotiaMocatta reports that on:

"The New York open…funds came into the market as massive sellers"

while TheBullionDesk version is

"…opening in the US at $443.25 where the lower prices and stronger dollar was like a red rag to a bull. Huge volumes of funds selling appeared from the opening bell leading gold to gap rapidly lower, quickly breaking $440 and running all the way to a low of $433.50"

Refco Research was moved to motivate about the possibility of short selling. Obviously, the huge drop in open interest must mean that many longs were driven out, but the style of selling suggests there was at least some predatory shorting – as does the weakening close today in NY, and, even more, the Silver massacre.

MarketVane’s Bullish Consensus yesterday dropped 8 points to 71%, the steepest decline in over the 4 years of data immediately to hand.

Massive sell-offs of this type usually take a week or two to repair (although there is no precedent for one starting with the physical market so strong).

While waiting for this episode to be cleaned up, gold’s friends should consider the remarks today by Bridgewater Associates on the dollar, entitled "The Dynamics of an Over-Sold Bounce":

"It is rare to have speculators so plainly on one side of a trade, and the only reason that it will likely work out all right for many is that it is non-profit maximizing central banks on the other side… Overall, the picture is clear to us. The dollar will have significant rallies like it did Wednesday on occasion because speculators are so heavily long and will get spooked occasionally. Nonetheless, government policies across the globe of not allowing the dollar to find its equilibrium level are doomed to fail…. With central banks essentially the only ones willing to buy the dollar and U.S. treasuries at current levels, central banks will continue to collect them until they break."

JB