Raid on gold and silver rebuffed/silver rises above $32.00 in access market/No deal on Private Greek debt

Good morning Ladies and Gentlemen:

Before commencing we finally witnessed 3 banks enter the banking morgue. The FDIC holiday for the boys is now over.

Here are the latest entrants;

1. American Eagle Savings Bank of Boothwyn PA
2. First State Bank of Stockbridge GA
3. Central Florida State Bank, Bellview FL.

may they rest in peace.

end

I wrote to the CFTC last night suggesting to them that a probable raid was forthcoming on Friday. You could tell from the weak equity shares traded on Thursday despite gold bouncing off the $1650 level 4 times. The high OI is causing concern to the bankers as they are witnessing a large number of option holders standing for delivery in both gold and silver.

Wait to you see what happened inside the comex vaults.

Gold finished the comex session at $1663.70 for a gain of $9.60 on the day even though the bankers decided that another raid was in order. They drove the price of gold to around the $1645.00 level and immediately it started to rise above the $1650 level. Another push down had no effect and finally gold zoomed to finish the session at $1663.70. Silver however was the bright star refusing to buckle at any cost.
It finished the comex session at $31.65

In the access market, gold and silver continued its northern trajectory. Here are the final closing access market prices:

gold: $1667.00
silver: $32.20

Let us head over to the comex and assess trading, position limits, inventory levels and amounts of metal standing. Friday was an extremely busy day for the boys.

The total gold comex OI rose again by 2930 contracts and again this was fodder for the bankers.
Probably they hit gold due to silver's strong advance of late. The raid had no effect on silver as this poor man's gold showed no interest in the bankers antics. The total OI for gold rests this weekend at 441,320 contracts. The front options expiry month of January again mysteriously advanced 37 contracts today despite zero delivery notices yesterday. We thus gained another 3700 oz of gold oz standing. The next big delivery month is February which is a little over a week to go before first day notice, on Tuesday Jan 31.2012. Here the OI fell from 160,113 to 156,621 which is a little light on the rollovers. The estimated volume at the gold comex on Friday was quite tame at 152,745 if you consider some of the rolls. The confirmed volume on Thursday was a little better at 166,269 contracts.

The total silver comex OI again saw its OI fall from 102,870 to 102,055. The bankers are just refusing to supply any non backed paper. With very little non backed silver paper supply, it was easy for silver to rise above $32.00 yesterday.
The front options expiry month of January saw its OI fall from 175 to 152 for a loss of 23 contracts. We had exactly 23 delivery notices yesterday so neither gained nor lost any silver oz standing and thus no cash settlements either. The next big delivery month is March and here the OI fell by close to 2000 contracts from 53,240 to 51,351 contracts. It looks like the Sprott purchase of 10 million oz of silver (300million dollars) is scaring the dickens out of our bankers. The estimated volume at the silver comex on Friday came in at 45,753 which is a little higher than what we have been witnessing lately. The confirmed volume on Thursday was very weak at 35,826.