http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-03-24/another-gold-shortage-abn-halt-physical-gold-delivery
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 03/24/2013 16:44 -0400
http://www.gata.org/node/12378
and.......
http://www.caseyresearch.com/gsd/edition/sprotts-thoughts-silvers-investment-demand-conundrum/
Another Gold Shortage? Dutch ABN To Halt Physical Gold Delivery
Based on a letter to clients over the weekend, it appears Dutch megabank ABN Amro is changing its precious metals custodian rules and "will no longer allow physical delivery."Have no fear, they reassuringly add, your account will be settled at the bid or offer price in the 'market' and "you need to do nothing" as "we have your investments in precious metals."
Via Google Translate,
Changes in the handling of orders in bullionOn 1 April 2013,. ABN AMRO toanother custodian for the precious metals gold, silver, platinum and palladium. This we your investments in precious metals otherwise handle and administer. In this letter you can read more about it.What will change?With the transition to the new custodian will include the following from 1 April 2013 for you to change.
• You can have your precious metals to your investment account no longer physically let us extradite
• Gives you order in precious metals via the giro ABN AMRO? Then the settlement of orders that henceforth performed at bid prices or at the offer prices prevailing on the market for precious metals. No longer based on the mid-price, as you used to.
• The bid price is the price that merchants offer for precious metals that are offered for sale, so if you sell.
• The ask price is the price at which traders want to sell precious metals, so if you buy.
• We are the positions in these precious metals in your investment statements against future bid prices appreciateYou can read more about investing in precious metals in Chapter 4 (Supplementary conditions for investing in precious metals) of the Conditions Beleggersgiro. You can find these at abnamro.nl / Conditions investShould I do anything?You need do nothing. We ensure that we have your investments in precious metals now the new way to handle and administer.
(h/t MDG)
http://www.gata.org/node/12378
Swiss gold reserves make TV appearance hours after repatriation petitions are filed
Submitted by cpowell on Sat, 2013-03-23 15:58. Section: Daily Dispatches
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 03/23/2013 12:27 -0400
11:57p HKT Saturday, March 23, 2013
Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:
Our friend A.L. reports that the French-language state television service in Switzerland mysteriously gained access to a Swiss National Bank gold vault somewhere in Switzerland just hours after the Swiss gold repatriation movement filed the petitions necessary for a referendum on protecting the national gold reserves. The broadcast seems similar to the propaganda campaign arranged back in December by the Bank of England as concern about the simple existence of Western central bank gold reserves burst into the news:
Video of the Swiss broadcast is posted at the Radio Television Suisse Internet site here:
CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-03-23/texas-wants-its-gold-back-fed
Texas Wants Its Gold Back From The Fed
Submitted by Michael Krieger of Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,
Texas Moves to Repatriate its Gold from the Federal Reserve
This is one of the most interesting stories I have read regarding the precious metals market in quite some time. It appears that Texas Rep. Giovanni Capriglione has a bill in play that would move the state’s gold from New York (where its under the “safekeeping” of the ultra shady Federal Reserve) to a depository within the state of Texas itself. The reason this would be such a big deal if it happens, is because a lot of the gold bought and sold globally is not very likely not actually owned by those that “buy” it. From my perspective, pretty much the only countries that actually buy gold and bring it within their borders are China, Russia and Iran. Most other nations that claim they “bought” gold, most likely hold a certificate that states they have gold in London or New York. So in other words, they have no gold. It looks like Texas is wising up.
From the Star-Telegram:
Freshman Rep. Giovanni Capriglione, R-Southlake, is carrying a bill that would establish the Texas Bullion Depository, a secure state-based bank to house $1 billion worth of gold bars owned by the University of Texas Investment Management Co., or UTIMCO, and stored by the Federal Reserve.“If you think gold is a hedge, or a protection, you always want it as close to the individual and the entity as possible,” Paul told The Texas Tribune on Thursday.” Texas is better served if it knows exactly where the gold is rather than depending on the security of the Federal Reserve.”
You’ve gotta love Ron Paul. The guy is still raising hell even after he left Congress.
The highly political Governor also appears to be on board…
“If we own it,” Perry said, “I will suggest to you that that’s not someone else’s determination whether we can take possession of it back or not.”“We don’t want just the certificates. We want our gold. And if you’re the state of Texas, you should be able to get your gold.”
Come on Rick, that sounds like terrorist talk.
The United States and many other countries stopped pegging their currencies to the gold standard decades ago. Capriglione said the bill is not about putting Texas on its own gold standard. Rather, a depository would give the state a reputation as being more financially secure in the event of a financial crisis.Transporting gold from New York City or other banks to Texas would be impractical from a security and logistics standpoint, Capriglione said.
Ok, that’s just weird. Gold is shipped all over the world every single day. This isn’t even an international shipment. My guess is that the Fed has already made it clear they will not be sending any gold to Texas.
He believes that it makes more sense to sell the gold that Texas has elsewhere and repurchase it within state lines.He said the measure wouldn’t pose a significant expense, because the gold bars could be safeguarded in a small area, no bigger than 20 square feet.Again, if that’s all it is what’s so hard about shipping it?Such a bill might not divide lawmakers strictly along party lines. Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, called it “an interesting concept” but said he wants to learn more about it and talk to “colleagues in the financial industry” before weighing in on its merits.
Great idea Rodney, because taking advice from Wall Street leads to such favorable outcomes.Full article here.
and.......
http://www.caseyresearch.com/gsd/edition/sprotts-thoughts-silvers-investment-demand-conundrum/
¤ YESTERDAY IN GOLD & SILVER
NOTE: I will be on the road most of next week...and will be writing my column on my laptop, which is an ordeal that I put myself through as few times a year as possible. They will also be as short as I can make them...and the 'Critical Reads' section will shrink alarmingly during this time period.
The gold price didn't do a lot for most of the trading day in the Far East on Friday, but starting around 3:00 p.m. Hong Kong time, the price developed a negative bias...and shortly before 1:00 p.m. in London, the decline began more severe. About forty minutes later...shortly after 8:30 a.m. in New York, it had hit its low tick of the day, which Kitco reported as $1,602.80 spot.
The subsequent rally lasted until 10:15...and the price sagged a bit from there until shortly before 2:00 p.m. Eastern. The gold price gained a couple of dollars from there going into the 5:15 p.m. electronic close.
In actual fact, it was all a tempest in a teapot, as volume was very light once again yesterday...around 84,000 contracts net, the same as Thursday's volume. The gold price closed at $1,609.20 spot...down $5.60 on the day.
Silver opened virtually on its high of the day at the beginning of Far East trading on Friday...and was down about twenty cents to the $29 spot price just minutes before 8:30 a.m. in New York.
Less than ten minutes later, the price had cratered by about 40 cents...and from there, the price pattern was almost identical to gold's, with the only minor difference being the fact that the absolute low tick [$28.45 spot] came on a quick spike down at 12:15 p.m. Eastern time.
Silver closed at $28.76 spot...down 42 cents from Thursday. Gross volume was pretty decent at around 42,500 contracts.
I couldn't help but notice that Friday's silver price path was almost a mirror image of the Thursday price pattern, which is hardly a coincidence I would think.
The dollar index opened at 82.86 in early Far East trading on their Friday morning...and more or less traded flat until shortly after 8:30 a.m. in London. From there it rolled over a hair...and headed south. The absolute low tick came moments before noon in New York...and then didn't do much after that...closing the day at 82.37...down 49 basis points from the Thursday close.
Once again there was absolutely no correlation between what the dollar index was doing...and what was going on in the Comex paper markets in gold and silver.
* * *
The Comex Daily Delivery Report showed that 99 gold and 243 silver contracts were posted for delivery on Tuesday within the Comex-approved depositories. In gold, it was 'all the usual suspects'. In silver, the two big short/issuers were JPMorgan Chase and ABN Amro with 120 and 111 contracts respectively. The biggest long/stoppers were Canada's own Bank of Nova Scotia with 168 contracts...and then JPMorgan Chase with 59 contracts. The link to yesterday's Issuers and Stoppers Report is here.
There were no reported changes in GLD yesterday but, once again, the big surprise came from SLV, where an authorized participant added 1,691,162 troy ounces of silver...and is virtually the same size of deposit that was made into SLV on Thursday...almost to the ounce, so I'm wondering if this was an double entry error. We'll find out for sure on Monday if/when they revise their number.
Over at Switzerland's Zürcher Kantonalbank for the period ending March 21st...they reported that their gold ETF declined by a tiny 8,017 troy ounces...and their silver ETF declined by 200,557 troy ounces during the same period.
The U.S. Mint had a smallish report. They sold only 500 ounces of gold eagles...along with 1,000 one-ounce 24K gold buffaloes. Month-to-date the mint has sold 45,500 ounces of gold eagles...10,000 one-ounce 24K gold buffaloes...and 2,438,000 silver eagles. Based on these numbers, the silver/gold sales ratio for the month so far is a hair under 44 to 1...which is pretty amazing...and I hope you're getting your share.
Over at the Comex-approved depositories on Thursday, they reported receiving 945,922 troy ounces of silver...and shipped 369,222 troy ounces of the stuff out the door. The link to that activity is here.
The Commitment of Traders Report was a surprise. Silver showed a big improvement in the Commercial net short position...and gold showed a big deterioration in its Commercial net short position.
In silver, the Commercial net short position declined by 14.9 million ounces...and as of the Tuesday cut-off stands at 132.2 million ounces. Once the market-neutral spread trades are subtracted out of the total open interest, the Big 4 traders are short 38.8% of the entire Comex silver market on a 'net' basis. The '5 through 8' traders are short an additional 11.6 percentage points on a net basis. Add them up and the Big 8 are short 50.4% of the entire Comex silver market...and that's a minimum percentage.
In gold, the Commercial net short position increased by a whopping 2.02 million ounces...blowing out to 16.24 million ounces. But the 'good' news, as Ted Butler pointed out to me on the phone yesterday, was that there was no increase in the short position of the 'Big 8' traders...which includes the BIG 3...JPMorgan, Canada's Bank of Nova Scotia...and HSBC USA. All of the increase was the result of the smaller Commercial traders selling some of their long positions for a profit.
On a 'net' basis the Big 4 traders Commercial traders are short 25.4% of the entire Comex gold market...and the '5 through 8' traders are short an additional 13.7 percentage points of the gold market. So the Big 8 are short 39.1% of the entire Comex gold market on a 'net' basis.
In terms of troy ounces held short, the Big 8 are short 13.97 million ounces of gold...which represents 86.0% of the Commercial net short position in that metal. In silver, the Big 8 are short 264.4 million ounces...and that amount of silver represents 200.0% of the Commercial net short position.
Looking at the numbers in the previous paragraph it's easy to see that, compared to silver, gold appears to be almost a free market...which it isn't, as the gold market is also rigged seven ways to heaven.
Here's Nick Laird's incomparable "Days of World Production to Cover Comex Short Positions" chart as of the March 19th cut-off.
(Click on image to enlarge)
Selected news items............................
Simon White: Cyprus -- the 'glue' of Europe
Hinde Capital's risk management executive Simon White writes today that even if the expropriation in Cyprus is limited to uninsured bank deposits of E100,000 and more, this may cause the flight of uninsured deposits in other euro-zone countries, which would be catastrophic for economic growth.
"Once again the question of the survival of the euro has come into view," White writes. "That the catalyst has been a seemingly innocuous country such as Cyprus does not fill one with confidence given the much larger, and much less tractable, problems Europe will eventually have to deal with. It looks like there will be plenty more horses heading to the glue factory."
This short essay was posted on the hindecapital.com Internet site yesterday. I found it in a GATA release...and I thank Chris Powell for wordsmithing the introductory paragraph above.
Doug Noland: Cyprus and Money
I wouldn’t be surprised if history looks back at this week’s developments and finds some significance. There was some real money lost this week. And I mean “money” as in perceived safe and liquid nominal stores of value – like euro-denominated bank deposits (in contrast to non-money-like Greek sovereign bonds or subordinated bank debt). Cypriot deposits (small and large) had retained their “moneyness” based on what is now clearly a misperception that Germany and the EU would backstop their value. And there’s literally Trillions of suspect Credit and “money” throughout Europe whose value is today inflated based upon similar (mis)perceptions.
While we’re on the subject, there are tens of Trillions of securities and “money” that retain full and inflated market values based on the perception of the wealth-creating capacity of the Fed’s printing press. And there are as well monetary partners in crime in Japan, China, the developing economies and rest-of-world. For going on five years now, since the 2008 Credit crisis, the global “system” has been grossly over-issuing “money.” I have referred to the Greek collapse and “European” crisis as the initial crack in the “global government finance Bubble.” It is tempting to see Cyprus as the first crack in “money.”
Doug Noland's Credit Bubble Bulletin is certainly a must read this week...and it's posted over at the prudentbear.com Internet site.
The Battle of Cyprus
Most people would be surprised to learn that they are legally considered ''creditors'' of their banks rather than customers who have trusted the bank with their money for safekeeping, but that seems to be the case. According to Wikipedia...
In most legal systems, the funds deposited are no longer the property of the customer. The funds become the property of the bank, and the customer in turn receives an asset called a deposit account (a checking or savings account). That deposit account is a liability of the bank on the bank's books and on its balance sheet. Because the bank is authorized by law to make loans up to a multiple of its reserves, the bank's reserves on hand to satisfy payment of deposit liabilities amounts to only a fraction of the total which the bank is obligated to pay in satisfaction of its demand deposits. [5]
The bank gets the money. The depositor becomes only a creditor with an IOU. The bank is not required to keep the deposits available for withdrawal but can lend them out, keeping only a ''fraction'' on reserve, following accepted fractional reserve banking principles. When too many creditors come for their money at once, the result can be a run on the banks and bank failure.
If you know nothing about how a bank works, then this short essay posted over at the Asia Times website yesterday falls into the must read category...and I thank Swiss reader B.G. for digging it up for us.
Three King World News Blogs
The first interview is with Egon von Greyerz...and it's entitled "The Reality is That the Financial System Could Fail at Any Time". Next is this very interesting blog with Dr. Paul Craig Roberts. It's headlined "Former U.S. Treasury Official - Threats, Cyprus and Massive Crisis". The last blog is also with Dr. Paul Craig Roberts. The title reads "Banks Move to Enslave Humanity".
Martin Sibileau: Central bank secrecy means a manipulated gold market
Sibileau asks: "Why should the morphing of gold reserves into fiat gold (via gold loans) be called a manipulation? There is nothing different between the creation of fiat gold out of bullion and the creation of U.S. dollars out of U.S. Treasuries.
"The answer is simple: There should be nothing wrong with it if it was not hidden. ...
"If the central banks did not show the bullion swapped as [being] gold in their possession and if the bullion banks showed the reserve ratio of fiat gold to bullion, just like banks do with fiat money, this could not be called a manipulation. Even with consistent selloffs at 8:20 a.m. ET or 4 a.m. ET we would still not be able to call this a manipulation. ...
"How would the market react therefore if there was full disclosure? Physical gold would trade at a premium."
Sibileau's analysis seems to match GATA's pretty closely. He concludes that gold market manipulation probably can continue far longer than most observers expect.
This 3-part story is all contained in one GATA release from yesterday...and it includes an extensive preamble by Chris Powell. It's a must read.
Sprott's Thoughts: Silver's Investment Demand Conundrum
The silver market is increasingly becoming an exercise in contradiction. On one hand, the silver spot price has disappointed thus far in 2013, falling from the low-thirties in early January down to its current level around US$29.00/oz. Given that price direction, one would be forgiven for assuming that the silver ETFs had experienced outflows over that time - but they have not. While we have seen the SPDR Gold Trust (GLD) shed 141 tonnes of gold year-to-date with the price of gold reacting accordingly, silver ETFs have in fact ADDED to their stockpiles since January 2013, representing more than 20 million ounces of additional silver.
In addition to the ETFs, we are also seeing this divergence play out in the physical market, where the US Mint's silver coin sales have already reached an all-time high of 13.2 million ounces in the first three months of 2013. If annualized, the Mint is on track to surpass 52.8 million ounces of silver sales by the end of the year - which would represent a new all-time annual record. These are certainly not the levels of physical sales one would expect to see during a prolonged doldrums phase for silver. In fact, when we compare the dollars invested in silver eagles vs. gold eagles, the divergence becomes even more pronounced. On a year-to-date basis, investors have spent slightly more on one-ounce silver eagle coins ($383mm) than they have on one-ounce gold eagles ($360mm). In other words, more dollars are going into physical silver than gold, implying that investors are buying 56X more silver ounces than gold ounces - and yet the silver price continues to languish. Silver is not 56X more available than gold on a supply basis either.
This short, but very excellent article on silver written by David Baker over Sprott Asset Management, quotes Ted Butler's work at length...with attribution, for a change. It's a must read as well, of course.
¤ THE WRAP
There are no market anymore...only interventions. - Chris Powell, GATA
Today's pop 'blast from the past' takes me back to my last year in high school in 1966. This 'Go-Go' tune got seemingly endless air time when it was first released...and it's still a classic to this day. The group was basically a one-hit wonder...but what a hit it was! It's old enough that the youtube.comvideo clip is in black in white. I hope you enjoy it...and the link is here.
Today's classical selection is a tone poem by Finnish composer Jean Sibelius.
The Swan of Tuonela was originally composed in 1893 as the prelude to a projected opera called The Building of the Boat. Sibelius revised it two years later as the second of the four sections of the Lemminkäinen Suite (Lemminkäis-sarja), also known as the Four Legends from the Kalevala, Op. 22, which was premiered in 1896. Sibelius revised the tone poem twice, once in 1897 and again in 1900.
Here's the Norwegian Radio Orchestra under the baton of Avi Ostrowsky. This recording is as good as it gets...as is the divine playing of the cor angl'e soloist. The link is here. Enjoy.
Well, it was another case of JPMorgan et al moving the markets because they could...not because there were any fundamental changes in supply and demand in both gold and silver. If you take a quick peek at platinum and palladium, their chart patterns were unscathed yesterday.
As I mentioned earlier this week, "da boyz" can move these market any which way they want...as there are no adults in charge anymore...either at the CFTC or in the mining companies. Gold seems to have topped out just above the $1,600 price mark for the moment...and silver is safely back under the $29 spot price mark. Where these markets go from here is unknown, but whatever direction we go in, will have nothing to do with real supply and demand fundamentals.
That's all I have for today. As I mentioned at the top of this column, I'll be out of town for a large portion of next week...and I can absolutely guarantee that the columns I post while gone, will bemuch shorter.
I await the Sunday night opening in New York with some degree of interest.
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