Silver & Gold Down on Low Volume - Ed Steer's Gold and Silver Digest

14 January 2020

YESTERDAY in GOLD, SILVER, PLATINUM and PALLADIUM

The gold price was sold down seven bucks or so starting right at the 6:00 p.m. EST open in New York on Sunday evening. Then, from minutes after 9 a.m. China Standard Time on their Monday morning, it traded sideways until around 1:15 p.m. CST. From that juncture it was sold quietly lower until a few minutes after 9 a.m. in London — and the subsequent rally was capped and turned lower a few minutes before 9 a.m. in New York. It was sold quietly and unevenly lower from that point until trading ended at 5:00 p.m. EST.

The high and low ticks were reported by the CME Group as $1,563.10 and $1,547.00 in the February contract.

Gold was closed in New York on Monday at $1,547.40 spot, down $14.70 from Friday. Net volume was nothing special at a bit over 218,500 contracts, but roll-over/switch volume out of February and into future months was very heavy at a bit over 102,000 contracts.

Generally speaking, the silver price was forced to follow a similar price path as gold up until a few minutes after the 9:30 a.m. open of the New York equity markets on Monday morning. At that point it had rallied back above $18 spot by a few pennies. Of course that wasn’t allowed to last — and its low tick of the day was printed around 10:15 a.m. in New York. It rallied back a bunch from there, but wasn’t allowed more than a sniff of $18 spot — and from about 11:30 a.m. EST onwards, it was sold quietly lower until the market closed at 5:00 p.m.

The high and low ticks in this precious metal were recorded as $18.13 and $17.935 in the March contract.

Silver was closed on Monday afternoon in New York at $17.915 spot, down 15.5 cents on the day. Net volume was about average at around 54,000 contracts — and there was around 6,050 contracts worth of roll-over/switch volume in this precious metal.

The price pattern in platinum was mostly the same as it was for silver and gold, except its rally off its 10:15 a.m. low in New York was somewhat more robust. But that was capped before it could get back to the unchanged mark — and it was sold a few dollars lower starting minutes before 4 p.m. in after-hours trading. Platinum was closed at $972 spot, down 3 bucks from Friday.

Palladium chopped quietly sideways until 2 p.m. in Shanghai on their Monday afternoon — and then was quietly sold lower until just before 9:30 a.m. in Zurich. Its rally from there was capped around 1:30 p.m. CET [Central European Time] — and it was sold lower shortly after that. That sell-off lasted until about 11:35 a.m. in New York — and it crawled quietly higher until the market closed at 5:00 p.m. EST. Platinum was closed at $2,109 spot, up 13 dollars on the day…but 25 bucks off its Kitco-recorded high tick of the day.

The dollar index closed very late on Friday afternoon in New York at 97.36 — and opened up about 6 basis points once trading commenced around 6:30 p.m. EST on Sunday evening, which was 7:30 a.m. China Standard Time on their Monday morning. It crept quietly lower from there until a very few minutes before 2 p.m. CST/8 a.m. in London — and a ‘rally’ commenced from there. That topped out at the 97.53 mark at precisely 10:00 a.m. in London. It was quietly and unevenly down hill from there until about ten minutes before the 1:30 p.m. COMEX close in New York. It crept a small handful of basis points higher from there until trading ended at 5:30 p.m. EST. The dollar index finished the Monday trading session back at 97.36…unchanged from Friday’s close.

Here’s the DXY chart for Monday from Bloomberg. Click to enlarge.

And here’s the 6-month U.S. dollar index chart, courtesy of the good folks over at the stockcharts.com Internet site. The delta between its close…97.06…and the close on the DXY chart above, was 30 basis points on Monday. Click to enlarge as well.

The gold shares were sold lower the moment that trading began in New York at 9:30 a.m. on Monday morning. Most of the losses were in by around noon EST, but they continued to trade quietly and unevenly lower until the markets closed at 4:00 p.m. The HUI closed on its low of the day…down 2.59 percent.

The silver equities were sold lower until a few minutes after 10 a.m. in New York yesterday morning. From that juncture they crept ever-so-quietly and unevenly higher until the markets closed at 4:00 p.m. Nick Laird’s Intraday Silver Sentiment/Silver 7 Index finished the Monday session lower by 1.95 percent. Click to enlarge if necessary.

And here’s Nick’s 1-year Silver Sentiment/Silver 7 Index chart, updated with Monday’s doji. Click to enlarge as well.

The two biggest losers in the Silver 7 Index yesterday were SSR Mining and First Majestic Silver…closing down 3.60 percent and 3.45 percent respectively. Peñoles actually closed up 0.90 percent on the day.

The CME Daily Delivery Report showed that 2 gold and 2 silver contracts were posted for delivery within the COMEX-approved depositories on Wednesday.

In gold, the sole short/issuer was Advantage — and they stopped one of those contracts as well. Both transactions involved their client account. The remaining gold contract was picked up by Scotia Capital/Scotiabank for its in-house/proprietary trading account.

In silver, Advantage issued both from its client account — and Scotia Capital stopped both for its own account.

The link to yesterday’s Issuers and Stoppers Report is here.

The CME Preliminary Report for the Monday trading session showed that gold open interest in January declined by 1 contract, leaving 30 still around, minus the 2 contracts mentioned a few brief paragraphs ago. Friday’s Daily Delivery Report showed that 9 gold contracts were actually posted for delivery today, so that means that 1+9=10 more gold contracts were just added to the January delivery month. Silver o.i. in January remained unchanged at 10 contracts, minus the 2 contracts mentioned a few paragraphs ago. Friday’s Daily Delivery Report showed that 2 silver contracts were actually posted for delivery today, so that means the 2 more silver contracts were added to January.

There were no reported changes in GLD on Monday, but there was 1,260,665 troy ounces of silver withdrawn from SLV. And as Ted Butler would assume, regardless of the reason it was withdrawn…conversion of shares for physical, or a ‘plain vanilla’ withdrawal…it’s most certainly the property of JPMorgan now.

The folks over at Switzerland’s Zürcher Kantonalbank updated their website with the goings-on inside their gold and silver ETFs as of the close of business on Friday, January 10 — and this is what they had to report. Their gold ETF added 7,303 troy ounces — and their silver ETF increased by 118,765 troy ounces.

In other gold and silver ETFs on Planet Earth on Monday…net of COMEX, ZKB, GLD & SLV changes…there was a net 109,310 troy ounces of gold withdrawn…with 100,341 troy ounces coming out out of iShares. There was a net 83,842 troy ounces of silver added.

And still nothing from the U.S. Mint.

There was a tiny bit of activity in gold over at the COMEX-approved depositories on the U.S. east coast on Friday. Nothing was reported received — and only 2,032 troy ounces was shipped out involving three different depositories. I’m not going to bother breaking these small amounts into their respective entities, but if you wish to check yourself, the link is here.

There was a bit more activity in silver. One truckload…599,611 troy ounces…was received at CNT — and that’s all the ‘in’ activity there was. Only 50,375 troy ounces was shipped out — and that departed Loomis International. The link to this is here.

There was some activity over at the COMEX-approved gold kilobar depositories in Hong Kong on their Friday. They received 578 of them — and shipped out 157. All of this activity was at Brink’s, Inc. — and the link to that, in troy ounces, is here.

Archbishopric Salzburg, Wolf Dietrich Raitenau, Double Ducat 1595

Origin: Austria Material: Gold Full Weight: 6.97 grams

I have an average number of stories/articles for you today.

CRITICAL READS

**“This is Insanity!” – Jim Rogers Warns of “Horrible Time” Ahead**

The Fed has increased its balance sheet over 500% in the past decade; The Bank of Japan is printing money to buy bonds and stock ETFs; and The European Central Bank is mired in insane negative interests. And, according to legendary investor Jim Rogers, they will continue this “madness” as long as its necessary.

In an interview with RT’s Boom Bust, Rogers exclaims, that interest rates around the world have never been this low:

“… this is insanity, that’s not how sound economic systems are supposed to work.”

In 2008, Rogers notes that we had problems because of too much debt, however, “since then the debt has skyrocketed everywhere and it’s going higher and higher. We are going to have a horrible time when this all comes to an end.”

Adding that: “…eventually, the market is going to say: ‘We don’t want this, we don’t want to play this game anymore, and we don’t want your garbage paper anymore’.”

When it comes to an end, Rogers laments, “it will be the worst of my lifetime.”

The video interview with Jim starts at the 3:50 minute mark on the embedded video. It was posted on the rt.com Internet site last Friday — and another link to it is here.

Are the Fed’s Repo Loans Being Repaid by Wall Street’s Trading Houses or Just Rolled Over and Over?

Last Friday, the usually reliable and fact-intensive financial website, Wolf Street, threw a hissy fit over how The Wall Street Journal (and by extension, Wall Street On Parade) is reporting the tallies for the repo loans that the New York Fed has been pumping out every business day since September 17, 2019 to the trading houses on Wall Street.

The inflammatory headline blared: “The Wall Street Journal (and Other Media) Should Stop Lying About Repos.” The author of the piece, Wolf Richter, explained his criticism as follows:

“Here is the ‘in’ of a repurchase agreement [repo loan]: The Fed buys securities (mostly Treasury securities and some agency mortgage-backed securities) in exchange for cash. This adds liquidity to the market.”

“Here is the ‘out’ of a repurchase agreement: Every repo matures on a set date when the counterparties are obligated to buy the securities back from the Fed at a set price. At this point, the repo unwinds, and it drains liquidity from the market.”

The key flaw in Richter’s analysis is that last sentence: “At this point, the repo unwinds, and it drains liquidity from the market.”

Neither the public nor Congress have any proof that these repo loans are being unwound. One or more of the 24 trading houses on Wall Street (primary dealers), that are authorized by the New York Fed to borrow from its money spigot at super cheap interest rates, could simply be rolling over the same loans or using term money to pay off one loan while taking out another loan.

This commentary appeared on the wallstreetonparade.com Internet site on Monday morning EST — and I found it in a GATA dispatch. Another link to it is here. Gregory Mannarino‘s post market close rant for Monday…which is definitely ‘R‘ rated towards the end…is linked here — and I thank ‘Mac P.’ for bringing it to my attention.

The Federal Government’s “Quick-Fix” Money Policies Hurt the Market — Bill Bonner

In all this excitement surrounding the assassination in Iraq… and the impeachment in Washington… and Harry and Meghan’s split from the royal family… who was going to bother to go all the way to the second section of The Wall Street Journal, page 10, to discover:

Fed Adds $83.1 Billion in Short-Term Money to Markets

“The Federal Reserve Bank of New York added $83.1 billion in temporary liquidity to financial markets Thursday, as a top official said the central bank may keep adding temporary money to markets for longer than policy makers had expected in September.”

As the saying goes, there is nothing as permanent as a temporary agency in Washington.

And there’s no more permanent form of inflation than temporary liquidity added by the Fed.

The technical details behind the Fed’s fix-a-flat money policies are too complex for this Diary.

But the inquiring minds of our readers probably want to know: How come the Fed is pushing such huge amounts of “liquidity” into the market just when everything is going so well?

This worthwhile commentary from Bill appeared on the bonnerandpartners.com Internet site on Monday morning EST — and another link to it is here.

Helicopter Money Is No Panacea — Jim Rickards

In recent decades, the Fed has engaged in a series of policy interventions and market manipulations that have paradoxically left it more powerful even as those interventions left a trail of crashes, collapses and calamities.

This contradiction between Fed omnipotence and Fed incompetence is coming to a head. The economy has been trapped in a prolonged period of sub-trend growth. I’ve referred to it in the past as the “new depression.” And the Fed has been powerless to lift the economy out of it.

You may think of depression as a continuous decline in GDP. The standard definition of a recession is two or more consecutive quarters of declining GDP and rising unemployment. Since a depression is understood to be something worse then a recession, investors think it must mean an extra-long period of decline. But that is not the definition of depression.

The best definition ever offered came from John Maynard Keynes in his 1936 classic, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money. Keynes said a depression is, “a chronic condition of subnormal activity for a considerable period without any marked tendency towards recovery or towards complete collapse.”

Keynes did not refer to declining GDP; he talked about “subnormal” activity. In other words, it’s entirely possible to have growth in a depression. The problem is that the growth is below trend. It is weak growth that does not do the job of providing enough jobs or staying ahead of the national debt. That is exactly what the U.S. is experiencing today.

This commentary from Jim, which I haven’t read as of yet, was posted on the dailyreckoning.com Internet site on Monday sometime — and another link to it is here.

The Odds of Getting a Good Leader — Jeff Thomas

The larger the country, the less the likelihood of getting a leader who can be trusted with the job.

On the surface of it, this would seem to be an illogical claim. Surely the size of a country has no bearing upon whether its leadership is competent or trustworthy, and yet, it’s very much the case.

This is due to a combination of conditions that can be found in every country.

First, studies have long revealed that, in any population, roughly 4%, or one in 25 people, will display significant sociopathic traits. These traits are as follows:

Glibness and Superficial Charm
Manipulativeness and Cunning
Grandiose Sense of Self
Pathological Lying
Lack of Remorse, Shame or Guilt

Picture a leading politician in your own country, of any party. Whether you supported this individual in the last election or opposed him, he is very likely to possess these traits.

But why should that be? Why should it be likely that sociopaths would rise to the top in politics?

This interesting and worthwhile commentary from Jeff appeared on the internationalman.com Internet site late on Monday morning EST — and another link to it is here.

After Missiles Fly, Iraq Becomes the Battleground — Tom Luongo

The future of the U.S.’s involvement in the Middle East is in Iraq. The exchange of hostilities between the U.S. and Iran occurred wholly on Iraqi soil and it has become the site on which that war will continue.

Israel continues to up the ante on Iran, following President Trump’s lead by bombing Shia militias stationed near the Al Bukumai border crossing between Syria and Iraq.

The U.S. and Israel are determined this border crossing remains closed and have demonstrated just how far they are willing to go to prevent the free flow of goods and people across this border.

The regional allies of Iran are to be kept weak, divided and constantly under harassment.

Iraq is the battleground because the U.S. lost in Syria. Despite the presence of U.S. troops squatting on Syrian oil fields in Deir Ezzor province or the troops sitting in the desert protecting the Syrian border with Jordan, the Russians, Hezbollah and the Iranian Quds forces continue to reclaim territory previously lost to the Syrian government.

This commentary/opinion piece showed up on Tom’s website on Friday — and I thank Larry Galearis for pointing it out. Another link to it is here.

China Car Sales Plunge 7.5% in 2019 and 3.6% For December, Marking the 18th Fall in 19 Months

Passenger car vehicle sales in China fell yet again in December, plunging 3.6% to 2.17 million units, according to the China Passenger Car Association.

This marks the 18th drop in the past 19 months for the country, which feels to be single-handedly spearheading a global recession in the industry. For the full year, sales in China declined 7.5%, marking the second straight annual decline. Click to enlarge.

Automakers continue to struggle with a slowing economy and tariff uncertainties, despite “Phase 1” of the U.S./China trade deal supposedly being finished (even though it still has not been signed), according to Bloomberg.

G.M. said on Tuesday that its sales were down 15% in China and said that pressure into 2020 would likely continue.

But, some analysts say there’s reasons for optimism: namely, that the pace of declines has slowed for four months in a row as comps have become easier. This will only hold true heading into 2020, where 2019’s comps will be much easier to catch than those of years prior, while the auto market was booming.

This Zero Hedge news item was posted on their Internet site at 2:45 a.m. on Monday morning EST — and another link to it is here.

The World’s Most Precious Metal Leaves Everything Else in the Dust

Palladium’s great start to the year pales in comparison to its lesser known, but much more expensive sister metal, rhodium.

Rhodium — mainly used in auto catalysts and five times more costly than gold — surged 31% already this month, touching the highest since 2008. Stricter emissions rules have fueled a multiyear rally and there’s speculation that investors are also jumping in, betting that prices will climb toward a record. Click to enlarge.

Rhodium rallied 12-fold in the past four years, far outperforming all major commodities, on rising demand from the auto sector. Like palladium, the metal is mined as a byproduct of platinum and nickel, but it is a much smaller market and so is liable to big price moves when supply or demand changes.

“Rhodium is subject to crazy volatility,” said Anton Berlin, head of analysis and market development at Russia’s MMC Norilsk Nickel PJSC, which mines about 10% of all rhodium. Supplies are tight and speculators stepped up buying metal after large industrial users secured volumes late last year, he said.

Well, dear reader, rhodium has no COMEX futures market pricing mechanism attached to it, so it doesn’t have JPMorgan et al. sitting on it 24/7…so it trades in a totally free-market environment. And as you already know, that’s certainly not the case in the other four precious metals. This Bloomberg story appeared on their website at 4:01 p.m. PST on Sunday evening — and was updated about 17 hours later. I found it on the gata.org Internet site — and another link to it is here. There’s a companion story to this from the rt.com Internet site — and it’s headlined “Unstoppable rally: World’s most precious metal rhodium is now 5 times more costly than gold” — and I thank Larry Galearis for that one.

Why are Indians in the grip of a gold obsession?

Between April and November, India imported 533,376kg of gold, around 20.3% less than 669,339kg imported during the same period in 2018. This is hardly surprising since gold has turned costlier this fiscal. Between April and November, the average price of gold was ₹35,337 per 10g, against ₹30,689 during the same period a year ago. Since November, prices have rallied higher due to Iran-US tensions. Over and above this, the easy money policy of the U.S. Federal Reserve has made a comeback. The Fed has resumed printing money in order to drive down interest rates. This has pushed up gold prices as well. Click to enlarge.

Since very little gold is produced in India, almost all of the metal consumed is imported. Over the years, Indians have continued to love gold. In FY19, India imported 983,000kg of gold, the highest since FY14. A major reason for our love for gold remains tradition. But there is more to it than just that. As Richard Davies writes in Extreme Economies, “Gold also acts as a kind of informal insurance mechanism.” He writes this in the context of Aceh, a semi-autonomous province of Indonesia, and how survivors of the 2004 Asian tsunami rebuilt their lives using the gold they had on their bodies.

As Davies writes: “While some lost gold in the disaster, I met many survivors who were able to sell jewellery they were wearing… Wearing a gold bangle is like having enough cash on your wrist to employ a builder for a year… This traditional form of finance insulated Aceh and provided its entrepreneurs with rapid access to cash.”

How is this linked to India’s love for gold?

Like in Aceh, India also has a very strong informal system of exchange where gold can be rapidly turned into cash, especially in times of emergency. As Davies writes again in the context of Aceh: “In an economy buffeted by the ups and downs of farming and fishing, the people are used to buying gold after bumper harvests or fishing seasons and selling it after lean ones.” This applies as much to India as it does to Aceh, with a bulk of the country’s workforce still dependent on agriculture for a living.

This gold-related news item was posted on the livemint.com Internet site at 9:53 p.m. IST [India Standard Time on their Sunday evening, which was 11:23 a.m. in New York on Sunday morning — EST plus 10.5 hours. I plucked it out of a GATA dispatch. Another link to it is here.

Outlook For Gold in 2020 — Nick Barisheff

Good afternoon. It is a pleasure to speak at the Empire Club today.

The first time I spoke at the Empire Club was in 2005. I said then that it would not matter to bullion investors if gold ended the year at $400/ounce or $500/ounce, based on the long-term price outcome. Gold ended the year at USD $513.

Gold had a good year in 2019, rising about 18%. Since 2000, gold has averaged 11% annually in the major currencies, with 9.7% in USD and 8.8% in Canadian.

According to the OECD, the average annual 15-year pension returns were 6.6% in Canada and 2.6% in the U.S. You don’t need a complicated algorithm or a computer to conclude that an allocation to gold would have improved returns and reduced volatility. However, other than three global pension funds, none have any gold and most have no allocation to REITs.

Yes, today, investors are euphoric and financial markets have set historic highs regularly, but they are highly overvalued by every conventional measure. This year, I promise my annual offering of doom and gloom, but I would also like to offer a contrarian strategy for protecting against losses, and even profiting during the inevitable market correction.

This is the first time during the 40 years I have been in business that a simultaneous triple bubble in equities, bonds and real estate has occurred. There is a direct correlation to the amount of liquidity central banks are injecting into the system on a daily basis and these inflated asset prices.

This worthwhile 16:28 minute video presentation, complete with a full transcript…plus charts, showed up on the bmg-group.com Internet site very recently. I thank Judy Sturgis for bringing it to my attention — and now to yours — and another link to it is here.

World’s super-rich are hoarding physical gold in secret bunkers

The strategic case for owning gold remains strong, according to analysts at Goldman Sachs. They point to such factors as political uncertainty, recession fears and other worries among the global elite.

Data from Goldman research showed that owning the physical metal seems to be the global elite’s preferred way to hedge against tail events. Physical buying of gold has increased at a rapid pace in the past three years, statistics showed.

“Since the end of 2016 the implied build in non-transparent gold investment has been much larger than the build in visible gold ETFs (Exchange-traded funds),” Goldman said in a note sent to clients and seen by Yahoo Finance.

That simply means that for those including gold in their luxurious bunkers, demand for which has been growing at a fast pace, owning bullion is a must. Click to enlarge.

“This [data] is consistent with reports that vault demand globally is surging,” Goldman said.
Gary Lynch, general manager of Texas-based Rising S Company, told CNN that 2016 sales for their custom high-end underground bunkers grew 700 percent compared to 2015, while overall sales have grown 300 percent since the November U.S. presidential election alone.

“Political risks, in our view, help explain this, because if an individual is trying to minimize the risks of sanctions or wealth taxes, then buying physical gold bars and storing them in a vault – where it is more difficult for governments to reach them – makes sense.”

The investment bank added: “Finally, this build can also reflect hedges by global high net worth individuals against tail economic and political risk scenarios in which they do not want to have any financial entity intermediating their gold positions due to the counter-party credit risk involved.”

This very interesting gold-related news item was posted on the rt.com Internet site on Saturday sometime — and I found it on Sharps Pixley. Another link to it is here.

The PHOTOS and the FUNNIES

Our brief photo op at Three Valley Gap in Eagle Pass on the Trans-Canada Highway on August 4 only lasted about twenty minutes or so — and along with the one photo from this location that graced Saturday’s column — are these three here. And expect for photo No. 1 below, all were taken from this boat launch that you see in the foreground of this shot. If you look along the shoreline of Three Valley Gap Lake, you’ll see a very tiny sandy beach and cabin on the left side of this photo. I slapped on the 400mm lens and took the second shot — and because it was so far away, I had had to crop the heck of it…which I can get away with when working with a photo that’s almost 24 megabits in size. Looking in the other direction down the lake [east towards Revelstoke] is the 3 Valley Lake Chateau. Its setting and colour were perfect…as was the lighting — and the weather. How could I resist? Click to enlarge.

The WRAP

With volume not overly heavy in either gold or silver on Monday, it’s too soon to say how serious the current engineered price declines will get in these two precious metals, as only a small handful of trading days have occurred since the peak prices of last week.

The events in the Middle East have cooled off a bit, but could erupt again with no notice on some sort military action or false flag event. You should not underestimate the duplicity of the deep state and the military/industrial complex. This certainly would bid gold and silver higher.

Then there’s Ted’s discovery that some of the commercial traders have been covering their short positions for a loss for the very first time — and that could be a factor going forward as well if more of these traders decide to follow suit, or cover more of the short position that they have.

And as boring as it is, we’re back in that old familiar “so we wait some more” mode.

Here are the 6-month charts for the Big 6 commodities. In the four precious metals, there’s not a lot to see other than what you already know. Copper caught a bid yesterday…up 5 cents, but WTIC was closed below its 50-day moving average on Monday — and came within a whisker of touching its 200-day moving average as well. Click to enlarge.

And as I type this paragraph, the London open is less than a minute away — and I see that the gold price began to get sold lower starting around 7:45 a.m. China Standard Time on their Tuesday morning — and that went on until shortly after 9 a.m. CST. It chopped quietly sideways from that point until the current low tick was set about 1:35 p.m. in Shanghai. It has edged a bit higher since — and is down $5.00 an ounce. The price pattern in silver has been almost the same — and as London open, silver is lower by 20 cents. Ditto for platinum — and it’s down 4 bucks. Palladium hit its current Tuesday low tick a few minutes before 9 a.m. CST. It has been wandering quietly and unevenly higher since — and as Zurich opens, palladium is up a dollar the ounce — and back above $2,100 the ounce.

Net HFT gold volume is very heavy already at a bit over 82,000 contracts — and there’s around 4,800 contracts worth of roll-over/switch volume in this precious metal. Net HFT silver volume is a bit over 26,500 contracts already — and there’s 2,650 contracts worth of roll-over/switch volume on top of that.

The dollar index opened up about 1 basis point once trading commenced around 7:45 p.m. EST in New York on Monday evening, which was 8:45 a.m. China Standard Time on their Tuesday morning. It rallied a small handful of basis points within the next thirty minutes or so — and has chopped quietly sideways since. As of 7:45 a.m. GMT in London/8:45 a.m. CET in Zurich, the dollar index is higher by 5 basis points. Nothing to see here.

Today, at the close of COMEX trading, is the cut-off for this Friday’s COT Report — and I’ll wait until I can see Tuesday’s dojis on the above charts before I stick my neck out on what might be in it. Although, based on the last four dojis — and the current price action, it’s a fairly safe bet that we’ll see some rather impressive improvements in the commercial net short position in both silver and gold.

Ted will have something to say about it in his mid-commentary tomorrow — and since he’s the real authority on the COT Report, I’ll be very interested in reading his thoughts on this.

And as I post today’s column on the website at 4:02 a.m. EST, I note that the gold price continued to crawl quietly higher in the first hour of London trading — and is down $2.90 the ounce at the moment. Silver is struggling — and is down 22 cents as the first hour of London trading ends. Platinum hasn’t done much in the last hour — but is now down 6 bucks. Palladium is now up 3 dollars as the first hour of Zurich trading draws to a close.

Gross gold volume is soaring 15 a bit over 111,000 contracts — and minus current roll-over/switch volume, net HFT gold volume is around 96,700 contracts. Net HFT silver volume is a bit over 29,000 contracts — and there’s 2,700 contracts worth of roll-over/switch volume in this precious metal.

The dollar index continues to chop quietly sideways — and is up up 3 basis points as of 8:45 a.m. in London/9:45 a.m. in Zurich.

That’s all I have for today — and I’ll see you here tomorrow.