Yesterday In Gold & Silver

The gold price didn't do a whole heck of a lot during Far East trading on Monday, although the price jumped up about five bucks or so around 2 p.m. Hong Kong time.  From there it crawled a few dollar higher going into the Comex open, but the tiny rally that began at the noon silver fix in London got capped the moment that trading began in New York.  After that, it traded basically flat for the rest of the day.

The low and high ticks are hardly worth mentioning, but here they are anyway.  The CME Group recorded them as $1,264.70 and $1,277.80 in the April contract.

Gold closed in New York at $1,275.00 spot, up $7.90 from Friday.  Volume was not overly heavy at around 98,000 contracts net of February and March.  A third of that volume was recorded before the 10:30 a.m. GMT London a.m. gold fix.

It was almost the same price pattern in silver as it was in gold---at least up until the 8:20 a.m. EST Comex open.  Then the not-for-profit sellers emerged---and that was it for the day.

The CME recorded the low and high tick as $19.96 and $20.275 in the March contract.

Silver finished on Monday at $20.075 spot, up 7.5 cents from Friday.  Volume, net of roll-overs out of the March contract, was on the lighter side at 29,500 contracts.

Platinum and palladium didn't do much until 2 p.m. Hong Kong time on their Monday, but then jumped higher, just like silver---and continued to rally from there.  But, just like silver, JPMorgan et al were ready to put an end to that once trading began on the Comex in New York.  Here are the charts.

The dollar index closed in New York late on Friday afternoon at 80.67---and jumped up about 15 basis points when trading began at 6 p.m. EST in New York on Sunday evening.  The high tick at that point [80.77] proved to be the high of the day---and the index chopped quietly lower for the remainder of Monday everywhere on Planet Earth.  The index closed almost unchanged at 80.64---down 3 basis points.

The gold stocks gapped up about a percent and a half at the open---and then gained that much more by shortly after 10 a.m. EST.  From there they traded sideways for the remainder of the trading day.  The HUI finished up 3.12%.

The silver equities took until 2 p.m. EST [right on the button] to reach their highs---and then gave a bit of those gains back going into the close.  However, Nick Laird's Intraday Day Silver Sentiment Index managed to close up a decent 3.27%.

The CME's Daily Delivery Report was very interesting.  There were 512 gold and zero silver contracts posted for delivery within the Comex-approved depositories on Wednesday.  The biggest short/issuer by far was Deutsche Bank with 449 contracts.  The two largest long/stoppers were HSBC USA and Barclays with 315 and 137 contracts respectively.  Yesterday's Issuers and Stoppers Report is worth a quick look---and the link is here.

There were no reported changes in GLD yesterday---and as of 10:04 p.m. EST yesterday evening, there were no reported changes in SLV, either.  But considering the strong price action in the shares on Monday---and last Friday---it's a good bet that both these ETFs are owed a decent amount of metal.  Will JPMorgan and the other authorized participants deposit metal as required, or will they short the shares in lieu of?  That especially applies to silver.

The U.S. Mint had a decent sales report on Monday.  They sold 4,000 troy ounces of gold eagles---2,000 one-ounce 24K gold buffaloes---and 592,000 silver eagles.

Over at the Comex-approved depositories on Friday, they reported receiving 22,039 troy ounces of gold---and shipped out 20,354 troy ounces of the stuff.  The link to that activity is here.

In silver, 634,082 troy ounces were reported received---and 100,717 troy ounces were shipped out.  All the silver reported received went into Scotia Mocatta's warehouse.  The link to that action is here.

Because of the weekend, I have a lot of stories for you today---and the final edit is all yours.

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