Portugal 10 yr bond at 15%/Private PSI deal in Greece a non starter/USA raises debt ceiling to 16.4 trillion

Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen;

Gold closed up today for the second straight day to the tune of $26.50 to finish the comex session at $1726.30. Silver followed her older and wiser cousin by 61 cents to $33.70. Today is options expiry so this day had saw some early resistance from the bankers but not much. Gold and silver are being viewed as a safe haven with all the noise of sovereign defaults. Today Portugal saw its 10 yr bond rise above 15% signalling that it too will join Greece in bankruptcy momentarily. Japan for the first time saw a trade deficit as the nuclear damage is certainly having an effect on their economy.

Let us now head over to the comex and assess trading, inventory movements and amounts of metal standing.
The total gold comex OI fell by 7965 contracts despite gold's big advance. Many bankers jumped ship with the news yesterday that the USA Fed policy is for ZIRP to continue to 2014. As far as I am concerned, it will continue to infinity. The front options expiry month of January saw its OI rise by 51 contracts despite only 1 delivery notice yesterday. We thus gained 50 contracts or 5000 oz of additional gold standing. The front delivery month of February saw its OI contract from 121,002 to 110,512 as all of these players rolled into April. The estimated volume today was a monstrous 316,070 contracts. The confirmed volume yesterday was also huge at 323,392. It seems that many are trying to locate as much physical as possible.

The total silver comex OI certainly did not follow in the footsteps of its older and wiser cousin, gold. Here the OI fell by 509 contracts from 103,025 to 102,516 despite the huge advance in silver yesterday and today. It looks like we had a few post-mortems for our bankers today. The front options expiry month of January saw its OI rise by 43 contracts despite 34 delivery notices. Thus 77 contracts or 385,000 additional oz of silver are standing in January. The next big delivery month is March and here we saw the OI remain relatively constant at 51,142 dropping by a little less than 500 contracts. The estimated volume today was very weak at 37,154. The confirmed volume yesterday was a lot better coming in at 55,886.
I have been telling you that the silver comex has been trading differently to gold for at least the last 3 months.
It seems that the high frequency traders are almost the entire volume at the comex and these guys are nothing but day traders. Thus silver can move in monstrous directions as the remaining longs are by definition are strong in nature and cannot be suckered into selling. The other issue is that Butler believes now that JPMorgan is now liquidating its short position and will soon be going long. This will be the end game as nobody will supply the paper short.

(courtesy ted Butler from his paid subscription. Special thanks to Ted and Ed Steer)


"If JPMorgan is not selling but is, in fact, buying, then a very different scenario could develop, similar to how I have speculated in the past. If JPMorgan is buying and not the technical funds, then a very different and bullish scenario emerges. If JPMorgan decides not to put its head back into the lion’s mouth and withdraws from manipulating silver, then a new silver chapter may have begun. Let me be clear – there is no way of determining for sure who is buying and selling today and this past Friday; only future COTs will reveal that. If it turns out that JPMorgan is buying back more of its short position on these rallies that would suggest much higher prices to come and maybe real soon. This goes to the heart of the silver manipulation. Take away the big silver short and you should take away the manipulation itself. I’m not saying that is the case, just that it might be. I would play it, as I always do, like it may be the end of the manipulat ion, simply because if it is, there will be little likelihood of second chances to get on board easily."
"That’s not to say that the commercials will roll over and play dead. I sense a profound lack of true liquidity since the MF Global disaster, in which the HFT operators are now responsible for an even higher share of total volume than before. I think that the HFT share of silver volume has approached 100% at times recently, rendering the silver market to its most illiquid state in my experience. More than anything else, this low true liquidity environment is behind the price spikes of Friday and today. In such a low liquidity environment we must be prepared for more price volatility, not less. We must be prepared for whatever may come, but we must also hang on to silver positions like never before. Be prepared for volatility that will rattle your bones. But volatility is a two-way street and up is one of the ways. So is up big."
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