Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen:
Gold closed down $1.50 to finish the comex session at $1773.60 (1:30 pm est). Silver on the other hand rose by 19 cents to close at $35.52. Europe got a jolt as the G20 completely snubbed advances by Europe for bailout help. The LTRO refinancing begins its bidding tomorrow with results on Wednesday. The German government approved the financing for Greece but it really wants this Hellenic nation to leave the Euro group and initiate its own currency, the drachma. These topics will be discussed in the body of my commentary.
Let us head over to the comex and assess trading.
The total gold comex OI fell by 2353 contracts due to the raid on Friday. The new OI for today rests at
467,902 contracts whereas the Friday reading was 470,255. The raid did not have its desired results for our bankers and thus another attempted raid today. The front delivery month of February is almost coming to a close. The OI rests tonight at 152 a fall of 107 contracts from Friday's level of 259. We had 95 notices filed on Friday so we lost another 12 contracts to cash settlements or 1200 oz. The next delivery month is April and here the OI fell by 2599 contracts to 261,656. The estimated volume was very weak today at 129,262 compared with the confirmed volume on Friday reaching 164,537.
The total silver comex continues to defy gravity. It rose again by 2330 contracts despite the raid on Friday.
This no doubt is causing our bankers much grief as they desperately try and shake these silver leaves from the tree but each passing day the longs look more resolute in their conviction. The front non delivery month of February saw its OI rise by 10 contracts from 175 to 185 despite no delivery notices on Friday afternoon. We thus gained another 50,000 oz of silver standing. First day notice begins on Wednesday and on Tuesday night we will see how many notices have been filed. On Wednesday night, I will get a good glimpse as to how much metal may stand.
Surprisingly, the drop in OI for March was tiny falling only 1233 contracts to 20,160 from Friday's level of 21,393. Usually the contraction prior to first day notice is around 4000 contracts per day. The estimated
volume today was humongous at 108,398 but that certainly did not translate into a drop in March and a rise in May. For comparison, the May OI registered 49,048 contracts today whereas the reading on Friday was 49,471. Something serious is happening at the silver comex.
With gold and silver hit again in the access market today plus the lousy trading of our gold./silver equities means another round of raids tomorrow. The bums will always raid after options are exercised but before first day notice as they try and discourage players from taking delivery of physical metals. The bankers must conserve as much metal as they can.
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