http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_reserve#Officially_reported_gold_holdings

As of December 2012 (Top 40 based on World Gold Council data)^[10]
Rank	Country/Organization	Gold (tonnes)	Gold's share of national forex reserves (%)
1	United States	8,133.5	76%
2	Germany	3,391.3	73%
3	International Monetary Fund	2,814.0	N.A.
4	Italy	2,451.8	72%
5	France	2,435.4	71%
6	China	1,054.1	2%
7	Switzerland	1,040.1	11%
8	Russia	^[11]976.9	9%
9	Japan	765.2	3%
10	Netherlands	612.5	60%
11	India	557.7	10%
12	European Central Bank	502.1	33%
13	Taiwan	423.6	6%
14	Portugal	382.5	90%
15	Turkey	^[11]375.7	16%
16	Venezuela	365.8	75%
17	Saudi Arabia	322.9	3%
18	United Kingdom	310.3	16%
19	Lebanon	286.8	29%
20	Spain	281.6	30%
21	Austria	280.0	55.0%
22	Belgium	227.5	39%
23	Philippines	192.7	12%
24	Algeria	173.6	5%
25	Thailand	152.4	4%
26	Singapore	127.4	3%
27	Sweden	125.7	13%
28	South Africa	125.1	13%
29	Mexico	124.5	4%
30	Libya	116.6	5%
31	Bank for International Settlements	116.0	N.A.
32	Kazakhstan	115.3	22%
33	Greece	111.9	82%
34	Romania	103.7	12%
35	Poland	102.9	5%
36	South Korea	84.4	1%
37	Australia	79.9	9%
38	Kuwait	79.0	13%
39	Egypt	75.6	25%
40	Indonesia	73.1	4%
41	Kingdom of Denmark	66.5	4.1%
42	Islamic Republic of Pakistan	64.4	18.9%
43	Argentine Republic	54.7	6.4%
44	Federative Republic of Brazil	52.5	0.5%
45	Plurinational State of Bolivia	49.3	22.9%
46	Republic of Finland	49.1	24.6%
47	Republic of Bulgaria	39.9	12.0%
48	Republic of Belarus	38.5	41.4%
49	West African Economic and Monetary Union	36.5	12.9%
50	Malaysia	36.4	1.5%

Top fifty holders of Gold , including IMF and BIS.... Here is the question , how much is really present at the Top Central Banks ? Does the US have any

http://silverdoctors.com/1981-article-7000-tons-of-gold-bullion-removed-from-fort-knox-from-1973-74/#more-25319

1981 ARTICLE: 7,000 TONS OF GOLD BULLION REMOVED FROM FORT KNOX FROM 1973-74!

APRIL 19, 2013 BY THE DOC 16 COMMENTS

SD has discovered the manuscript of a 1981 article by The Globe which reported that 7,000 tons of gold bullion were removed from Fort Knox from $1973-74, and the only bullion that remained was from melted down gold coins & was of such poor quality (at least 10% copper) that it would not be accepted on the open market by any nation.

“300 truckloads of bullion were simply driven away.”

Full 1981 report by The Globe is below:

The American Gold Commission in Washington will this week begin an examination of Treasury documents to decide whether 7000 tons of gold, enough to fill 300 lorries, has been stolen from Fort Knox, the world’s biggest and most protected bullion store.

http://www.sprott.com/markets-at-a-glance/do-western-central-banks-have-any-gold-left/

Do Western Central Banks Have Any Gold Left???

By: Eric Sprott & David Baker

Somewhere deep in the bowels of the world’s Western central banks lie vaults holding gargantuan piles of physical gold bars… or at least that’s what they all claim. The gold bars are part of their respective foreign currency reserves, which include all the usual fiat currencies like the dollar, the pound, the yen and the euro.

Collectively, the governments/central banks of the United States, United Kingdom, Japan, Switzerland, Eurozone and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are believed to hold an impressive 23,349 tonnes of gold in their respective reserves, representing more than $1.3 trillion at today’s gold price. Beyond the suggested tonnage, however, very little is actually known about the gold that makes up this massive stockpile. Western central banks disclose next to nothing about where it’s stored, in what form, or how much of the gold reserves are utilized for other purposes. We are assured that it’s all there, of course, but little effort has ever been made by the central banks to provide any details beyond the arbitrary references in their various financial reserve reports.

Twelve years ago, few would have cared what central banks did with their gold. Gold had suffered a twenty year bear cycle and didn’t engender much excitement at $255 per ounce. It made perfect sense for Western governments to lend out (or in the case of Canada – outright sell) their gold reserves in order to generate some interest income from their holdings. And that’s exactly what many central banks did from the late 1980’s through to the late 2000’s. The times have changed however, and today it absolutely does matter what they’re doing with their reserves, and where the reserves are actually held. Why? Because the countries in question are now all grossly over-indebted and printing their respective currencies with reckless abandon. It would be reassuring to know that they still have some of the ‘barbarous relic’ kicking around, collecting dust, just in case their experiment with collusive monetary accommodation doesn’t work out as planned.

You may be interested to know that central bank gold sales were actually the crux of the original investment thesis that first got us interested in the gold space back in 2000. We were introduced to it through the work of Frank Veneroso, who published an outstanding report on the gold market in 1998 aptly titled, “The 1998 Gold Book Annual”. In it, Mr. Veneroso inferred that central bank gold sales had artificially suppressed the full extent of gold demand to the tune of approximately 1,600 tonnes per year (in an approximately 4,000 tonne market of annual supply). Of the 35,000 tonnes that the central banks were officially stated to own at the time, Mr. Veneroso estimated that they were already down to 18,000 tonnes of actual physical. Once the central banks ran out of gold to sell, he surmised, the gold market would be poised for a powerful bull market… and he turned out to be completely right – although central banks did continue to be net sellers of gold for many years to come.

As the gold bull market developed throughout the 2000’s, central banks didn’t become net buyers of physical gold until 2009, which coincided with gold’s final break-out above US$1,000 per ounce. The entirety of this buying was performed by central banks in the non-Western world, however, by countries like Russia, Turkey, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and the Philippines… and they have continued buying gold ever since. According to Thomson Reuters GFMS, a precious metals research agency, non-Western central banks purchased 457 tonnes of gold in 2011, and are expected to purchase another 493 tonnes of gold this year as they expand their reserves.¹ Our estimates suggest they will likely purchase even more than that.²The Western central banks, meanwhile, have essentially remained silent on the topic of gold, and have not publicly disclosed any sales or purchases of gold at all over the past three years. Although there is a “Central Bank Gold Agreement” currently in place that covers the gold sales of the Eurosystem central banks, Sweden and Switzerland, there has been no mention of gold sales by the very entities that are purported to own the largest stockpiles of the precious metal.³ The silence is telling.

Over the past several years, we’ve collected data on physical demand for gold as it has developed over time. The consistent annual growth in demand for physical gold bullion has increasingly puzzled us with regard to supply. Global annual gold mine supply ex Russia and China (who do not export domestic production) is actually lower than it was in year 2000, and ever since the IMF announced the completion of its sale of 403 tonnes of gold in December 2010, there hasn’t been any large, publicly-disclosed seller of physical gold in the market for almost two years.⁴ Given the significant increase in physical demand that we’ve seen over the past decade, particularly from buyers in Asia, it suffices to say that we cannot identify where all the gold is coming from to supply it… but it has to be coming from somewhere.

To give you a sense of how much the demand for physical gold has increased over the past decade, we’ve listed a select number of physical gold buyers and calculated their net change in annual demand in tonnes from 2000 to 2012 (see Chart A).

CHART A

Numbers quoted in metric tonnes.
† Source: CBGA1, CBGA2, CBGA3, International Monetary Fund Statistics, Sprott Estimates.
†† Source: Royal Canadian Mint and United States Mint.
††† Includes closed-end funds such as Sprott Physical Gold Trust and Central Fund of Canada.
^ Source: World Gold Council, Sprott Estimates.
^^ Source: World Gold Council, Sprott Estimates.
^^^ Refers to annualized increase over the past eight years.

As can be seen, the mere combination of only five separate sources of demand results in a 2,268 tonne net change in physical demand for gold over the past twelve years – meaning that there is roughly 2,268 tonnes of new annual demand today that didn’t exist 12 years ago. According to the CPM Group, one of the main purveyors of gold statistics, the total annual gold supply is estimated to be roughly 3,700 tonnes of gold this year. Of that, the World Gold Council estimates that only 2,687 tonnes are expected to come from actual mine production, while the rest is attributed to recycled scrap gold, mainly from old jewelry.⁵(See footnote 5). The reporting agencies have a tendency to insist that total physical demand perfectly matches physical supply every year, and use the “Net Private Investment” as a plug to shore up the difference between the demand they attribute to industry, jewelry and ‘official transactions’ by central banks versus their annual supply estimate (which is relatively verifiable). Their “Net Private Investment” figures are implied, however, and do not measure the actual investment demand purchases that take place every year. If more accurate data was ever incorporated into their market summary for demand, it would reveal a huge discrepancy, with the demand side vastly exceeding their estimation of annual supply. In fact, we know it would exceed it based purely on China’s Hong Kong gold imports, which are now up to 458 tonnes year-to-date as of July, representing a 367% increase over its purchases during the same period last year. If the imports continue at their current rate, China will reach 785 tonnes of gold imports by year-end. That’s 785 tonnes in a market that’s only expected to produce roughly 2,700 tonnes of mine supply, and that’s just one buyer.

Then there are all the private buyers whose purchases go unreported and unacknowledged, like that of Greenlight Capital, the hedge fund managed by David Einhorn, that is reported to have purchased $500 million worth of physical gold starting in 2009. Or the $1 billion of physical gold purchased by the University of Texas Investment Management Co. in April 2011… or the myriad of other private investors (like Saudi Sheiks, Russian billionaires, this writer, probably many of our readers, etc.) who have purchased physical gold for their accounts over the past decade. None of these private purchases are ever considered in the research agencies’ summaries for investment demand, and yet these are real purchases of physical gold, not ETF’s or gold ‘certificates’. They require real, physical gold bars to be delivered to the buyer. So once we acknowledge how big the discrepancy is between the actual true level of physical gold demand versus the annual “supply”, the obvious questions present themselves: who are the sellers delivering the gold to match the enormous increase in physical demand? What entities are releasing physical gold onto the market without reporting it? Where is all the gold coming from?

There is only one possible candidate: the Western central banks. It may very well be that a large portion of physical gold currently flowing to new buyers is actually coming from the Western central banks themselves. They are the only holders of physical gold who are capable of supplying gold in a quantity and manner that cannot be readily tracked. They are also the very entities whose actions have driven investors back into gold in the first place. Gold is, after all, a hedge against their collective irresponsibility – and they have showcased their capacity in that regard quite enthusiastically over the past decade, especially since 2008.

If the Western central banks are indeed leasing out their physical reserves, they would not actually have to disclose the specific amounts of gold that leave their respective vaults. According to a document on the European Central Bank’s (ECB) website regarding the statistical treatment of the Eurosystem’s International Reserves, current reporting guidelines do not require central banks to differentiate between gold owned outright versus gold lent out or swapped with another party. The document states that, “reversible transactions in gold do not have any effect on the level of monetary gold regardless of the type of transaction (i.e. gold swaps, repos, deposits or loans), in line with the recommendations contained in the IMF guidelines.”⁶ (Emphasis theirs). Under current reporting guidelines, therefore, central banks are permitted to continue carrying the entry of physical gold on their balance sheet even if they’ve swapped it or lent it out entirely. You can see this in the way Western central banks refer to their gold reserves. The UK Government, for example, refers to its gold allocation as, “Gold (incl. gold swapped or on loan)”. That’s the verbatim phrase they use in their official statement. Same goes for the US Treasury and the ECB, which report their gold holdings as “Gold (including gold deposits and, if appropriate, gold swapped)” and “Gold (including gold deposits and gold swapped)”, respectively (see Chart B). Unfortunately, that’s as far as their description goes, as each institution does not break down what percentage of their stated gold reserves are held in physical, versus what percentage has been loaned out or swapped for something else. The fact that they do not differentiate between the two is astounding, (Ed. As is the “including gold deposits” verbiage that they use – what else is “gold” supposed to refer to?) but at the same time not at all surprising. It would not lend much credence to central bank credibility if they admitted they were leasing their gold reserves to ‘bullion bank’ intermediaries who were then turning around and selling their gold to China, for example. But the numbers strongly suggest that that is exactly what has happened. The central banks’ gold is likely gone, and the bullion banks that sold it have no realistic chance of getting it back.

CHART B

Sources:
1) http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/statistics/Documents/reserves/2012/Aug/tempoutput.pdf2) http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/IR-Position/Pages/08312012.aspx
3) http://www.ecb.int/stats/external/reserves/html/assets_8.812.E.en.html
4) http://www.boj.or.jp/en/about/account/zai1205a.pdf
5) http://www.imf.org/external/np/exr/facts/gold.htm
6) http://www.snb.ch/en/mmr/reference/annrep_2011_komplett/source

Notes:
ECB Data as of July 2012. Bank of Japan data as of March 31, 2012.

* European Central Bank reserves is composed of reserves held by the ECB, Belgium, Germany, Estonia, Ireland, Greece, Spain, France, Italy, Cyprus, Luxembourg, Malta, The Netherlands, Austria, Portugal, Slovenia, Slovakia and Finland.
** Bank of Japan only lists its gold reserves in Yen at book value.

Our analysis of the physical gold market shows that central banks have most likely been a massive unreported supplier of physical gold, and strongly implies that their gold reserves are negligible today. If Frank Veneroso’s conclusions were even close to accurate back in 1998 (and we believe they were), when coupled with the 2,300 tonne net change in annual demand we can easily identify above, it can only lead to the conclusion that a large portion of the Western central banks’ stated 23,000 tonnes of gold reserves are merely a paper entry on their balance sheets – completely un-backed by anything tangible other than an IOU from whatever counterparty leased it from them in years past. At this stage of the game, we don’t believe these central banks will be able to get their gold back without extreme difficulty, especially if it turns out the gold has left their countries entirely. We can also only wonder how much gold within the central bank system has been ‘rehypothecated’ in the process, since the central banks in question seem so reluctant to divulge any meaningful details on their reserves in a way that would shed light on the various “swaps” and “loans” they imply to be participating in. We might also suggest that if a proper audit of Western central bank gold reserves was ever launched, as per Ron Paul’s recent proposal to audit the US Federal Reserve, the proverbial cat would be let out of the bag – with explosive implications for the gold price.

Notwithstanding the recent conversions of PIMCO’s Bill Gross, Bridgewater’s Ray Dalio and Ned Davis Research to gold, we realize that many mainstream institutional investors still continue to struggle with the topic. We also realize that some readers may scoff at any analysis of the gold market that hints at “conspiracy”. We’re not talking about conspiracy here however, we’re talking about stupidity. After all, Western central banks are probably under the impression that the gold they’ve swapped and/or lent out is still legally theirs, which technically it may be. But if what we are proposing turns out to be true, and those reserves are not physically theirs; not physically in their possession… then all bets are off regarding the future of our monetary system. As a general rule of common sense, when one embarks on an unlimited quantitative easing program targeted at the employment rate (see QE3), one had better make sure to have something in the vault as backup in case the ‘unlimited’ part actually ends up really meaning unlimited. We hope that it does not, for the sake of our monetary system, but given our analysis of the physical gold market, we’ll stick with our gold bars and take comfort as they collect more dust in our vaults, untouched.

1	http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-04/central-bank-gold-buying-seen-reaching-493-tons-in-2012-by-gfms.html
2	See notes in Chart A.
3	http://www.gold.org/government_affairs/reserve_asset_management/central_bank_gold_agreements/
4	http://www.imf.org/external/np/exr/faq/goldfaqs.htm
5	Mine supply estimate supplied by World Gold Council; YTD gold mine production data suggests that total 2012 gold mine supply will come in lower around 2,300 tonnes, ex Russia and China production. In addition, Frank Veneroso has recently published a new report that warns that the supply of recycled scrap gold could drop significantly going forward due to the depletion ofthe inventories of industrial scrap and long held jewelry over the past decade.
6	http://www.ecb.int/pub/pdf/other/statintreservesen.pdf

http://silverdoctors.com/us-mint-official-to-cnbc-fort-knox-is-a-closed-facility/

US MINT OFFICIAL TO CNBC: "FORT KNOX IS A CLOSED FACILITY"

JUNE 15, 2011 BY THE DOC 10 COMMENTS

As our readers are aware, Ron Paul has been strongly pushing for an audit of the Fort Knox gold. Steve Liesman, CNBC’s senior economics reporter decided to do a story on the topic, and CNBC requested a tour of Fort Knox to obtain video footage of the gold for the report. A US Mint official responded by saying that no one from Congress has toured Fort Knox since 1974, and that Fort Knox is a closed facility.

Well, it appears safe to say we can reduce the Treasury’s $15 million estimate to conduct an audit down to about $5 to cut the padlock and flip the lights on.
Its also safe to say that someone at CNBC is losing their job over the publishing of these comments.

As a postscript to the story, CNBC asked for a tour of Fort Knox to film the gold, since our only footage of Fort Knox is from 1974. An official at the Mint told us that he was not aware that any member of Congress had toured the facility since that year. Fort Knox is “a closed facility,” the official said.

Click here for full CNBC report:

Market manipulations cause gold and silver scarcity as buyers pile into physical market.....

Manipulations.....

Gold was smashed to hide delivery failure, Sinclair says

Submitted by cpowell on Fri, 2013-04-19 19:59. Section: Daily Dispatches

4p ET Friday, April 19, 2013

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:

Mining entrepreneur and gold trader Jim Sinclair today tells King World News that the price of gold on commodity exchanges was smashed to conceal the inability of exchanges to deliver, that bank depositors in the United States are going to get the Cyprus treatment, and that the price of gold is going to have more zeroes behind it than anyone expects. An excerpt from the interview is posted at the King World News blog here:

http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2013/4/19_Si...

CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.

http://silverdoctors.com/gold-silver-cot-report-bottom-not-in-yet-commercials-add-23-million-oz-to-silver-shorts/Submitted By Bill Holter, Miles Franklin Ltd,:

When there are more buyers than sellers…the “price” goes up, when there are more sellers than buyers…the “price” goes down…right? This is the way it works? Or is supposed to? As you know, we live in a world where nearly everything real has 2 markets, the paper market and the physical market. Originally the paper markets were created so that farmers could “hedge” their crop and outright buyers or speculators could have access to the commodity. This has morphed into a situation where the paper markets have outsized the real physical markets and become more important to “price”. It is a “Wag the Dog” scenario where in Gold for example there are at least 100 “paper” ounces for every real ounce (thank you Jeffery Christian for this admission) and the paper markets have “made” the price for years now. We knew all of this before and what has happened since last Wednesday only supports this view and confirms it.

First let’s see what has happened in the paper markets. The open interest in Gold went up during Friday’s trading by some 13,000 contracts while Silver dropped about 1,000 contracts, yesterday Gold open interest increased another 10,000 contracts and Silver increased by 3,500. So, while Gold and Silver’s price was monkey hammered, the amount of contracts open actually increased? How can this be? Weren’t people “selling”, the price went down…more sellers than buyers…right? Well yes, what apparently happened was that there WERE more sellers, the increase in open interest was initiated by “short sellers”. Were the last 2 trading days an event where “longs” finally panicked out and sold, open interest would have gone down, it did not and in Gold’s case the open interest actually rose substantially. The obvious fingerprints of what GATA has been saying for 15 years now are all over this move, it was a fake and “made” to happen!

Now let’s look at the physical side of the market, on Friday Miles Franklin did 116 orders, there was only 1 buyback, yesterday they did 90 orders with only 3 being sells. So what is this “buy to sell” ratio, at least 30 to 1 buys over sells? Does this sound like a panicked market where everyone wants out of the water? We also can look at what other dealers are doing by going online to look at pricing and availability. “Junk” for all intents and purposes is gone, the only thing left are the scraps that your local dealer has to sell as “bags” are not available and were last trading at $5 (20%) over spot on Friday morning. Other Silver product has become spotty as to availability and premiums rose dramatically over the last week…low price in the physical market IS doing what it is supposed to do, it is bringing out demand and drying up supply. But, if real demand has been exploding and supply is tight then how did the price get here in the first place? It is obvious that the futures market “wagged this dog” BIGtime!

As I wrote yesterday, I can see the possibility of a force majeure in both Gold and Silver. I should have clarified and written more correctly however. A force majeure is when supply gets disrupted which the mine collapse in Utah could cause but not immediately as they can process existing ore, the Barrick situation pertains only to future potential production (which is sorely needed). A”default” on the other hand can occur if too many longs stand for delivery. This very well could happen and the likelihood has risen in just the last 2 trading days as open interest has increased rather than decreased. If something like 10% of the longs stood for delivery in Silver, the inventory would be wiped out. The fact that the “drop” in price was CAUSED by new shorts opening positions rather than longs scurrying away tends support the case that the long position is a resolute buyer with deep, VERY DEEP pockets. If they hold in and meet the margin calls created by the price drop AND higher (18+%) margin requirements as of yesterday the shorts and the exchange itself have a very big problem on their hands as the availability to deliver on the open interest just does not exist.

I will say this, if open interest does not decline after the drop in price and this latest margin hike (and maybe more to come) the odds of longs standing in a big way for delivery increases exponentially. As for the physical markets,the longer they keep the “price” down the more and more physical metal will be gobbled up. We were already extremely tight in the physical Silver market, the last 2 days price action has cleaned up inventory and left shelves nearly bare of Silver. This is what you’d expect in a real market. As always, Mother Nature will take care of price when availability is short. Premiums have risen as supply dwindled. I do not believe that the “price” in the physical market can stay where it is now for very long, otherwise we will have a supply “event” where there is none to be had…UNTIL price rises to entice sellers. This low price will also add incentive to paper longs to stand for delivery if the physical price is far higher than the paper price. It would simply be an arbitrage where COMEX Silver is purchased at one price and sold on the physical market for another (higher) price. It very well may be that the COMEX is engineering it’s own demise that ends in a default because they so blatantly defied supply and demand in the real world.

Regards, Bill H.

GOLD & SILVER COT REPORT: BOTTOM NOT IN YET, COMMERCIALS ADD 23 MILLION OZ TO SILVER SHORTS!,

APRIL 19, 2013 BY THE DOC 4 COMMENTS

By SD Contributor Marshall Swing:

Gold & Silver COT Report 4/19/13:

Commercial longs added 581 contracts to their total and 5,155 shorts to end the week with 46.34% of all open interest, a huge increase of 3.18% in their share of total open interest since last week, and now stand as a group at 112,490,000 ounces net short, which is an increase of just under 23 million net short ounces from the previous week!

I will go on record and say the bottom is not in yet.

Large speculators added 1,209 longs covered a massive 8,474 short contracts increasing their net long position to 87,990,000 ounces, a huge increase in their net long position of well over 48 million ounces from the prior week.

Small speculators sold off a huge 3,077 long contracts but also picked up 2,032 additional short positions for a net long position of 24,500,000 ounces a serious decrease of over 25 million ounces net long from the prior week.

Now we know exactly what happened last week as price dropped from $27.91 all the way as low as $22 even before ending the COT week at $23.36 Price has moved very little since close on Tuesday afternoon and now stands at $23.20

The waterfall started last Friday morning and finished after hours on Monday for a total fall of $5.91

And we have the large speculators, hedge funds, to thank for this misery, all in the name of profit taking.

We cannot in any way blame the commercials for this situation as they picked up new shorts on the way to the bottom with some speculator long buying.

We knew this was coming as those hedge funds had been taking short positions hand in fist, right and left, in previous weeks since February 5th. We just did not know when the profit taking was coming.

Is this the bottom? When the hedge funds started the short selling the large specs had 6,588 contracts and the small specs had 10,961 contracts. After this past week’s bloodletting those numbers stand at 22,103 shorts for the large specs and 17,777 for the small specs. That is a difference of over 20,000 short contracts. Traders who sell short want to cover for profit just like those who buy long want to sell for profit.

If the small specs are correct, we are quite some ways from the bottom as they picked up another 2,032 short contracts this last reporting period.

The commercials overall and the producer merchant significantly strengthened their net short positions so they could induce more downward motion but my guess is they are willing to sit back and let the speculators slice and dice for profit as low as they want.

In gold, it is extremely important to note the producer merchant and the swap dealer are within 500,000 net short of each other and that could be a dire circumstance to keep on the watch list. With all the interrelated, automatic, dependent trading between gold and silver, it would not take much for the gold producer merchant to have offloaded the lion’s share of short positing onto the swap dealers.

In both metals, leftover shorts could opt out by slow, protracted covering, and seek long positions.

I will go on record and say the bottom is not in yet.

Effect of manipulations........

http://gulfnews.com/about-gulf-news/al-nisr-portfolio/xpress/gold-in-short-supply-in-dubai-1.1171987

Gold in short supply in Dubai

Buyers come in droves to buy coins and biscuits

By Jay B. Hilotin, Chief Reporter
Published: 22:17 April 17, 2013

Image Credit: AHMED RAMZAN/XPRESS
gold rush: Be it Dubai, Sharjah or Abu Dhabi, shops are flooded with people buying gold jewellery, biscuits and coins like there’s no tomorrow

Image 1 of 3: 1 2 3

Dubai: Dubai has run out of gold. Well not exactly, but salespersons at jewellery outlets say there is no supply of gold coins and biscuits.

And those hoping to cash in on tumbling gold rates are likely to be disappointed if they head to retail outlets as the men manning the counters say the the city has run out of coins and biscuits. “There seems to be no gold coin or bar available in Dubai,” a salesperson in Karama told this reporter.

“It’s unthinkable for gold to come down to this level,” said Pradeep, an Indian logistics executive who joined the throng of buyers at Karama Shopping Centre, where a cluster of gold shops were abuzz with customers.

On Friday global gold prices closed down five per cent, precipitated by fears of a gold selloff by European central banks to pay for bailouts by ailing countries.

“All our gold biscuits weighing 10, 20, 50 and 100 grams are sold out as of today,” a staff from Malabar Gold told XPRESS from the Karama branch on Monday.

“Sorry, we can’t talk to journalists right now,” said Sudarsan, a salesman at Joyalukkas, pointing to the ‘unusually huge’ number of customers in his shop.

Chinese Gold Exchange Sold Out - Begins Importing From Switzerland

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/19/2013 14:02 -0400

Submitted by Michael Krieger of Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

Chinese Gold & Silver Exchange Society Runs Out of Gold... Importing from Switzerland and London

Hong Kong’s Chinese Gold & Silver Exchange Society has been in operations for over a century, and it’s President Haywood Cheung was interviewed by Bloomberg news earlier today. Whoever orchestrated the attack on gold and silver in the last week or so has gravely miscalculated, since the response to the drop has been surging demand for physical gold and silver. While I tend to be skeptical when I hear about silver shortages since these reports have been so exaggerated in the past, the lack of silver coin availability and premiums are the most extreme I have seen since the financial and economic meltdown of 2008. Now we discover that the Chinese Gold & Silver Exchange Society has essentially sold out of gold bullion, and must wait until Wednesday for shipments to arrive from Switzerland and London.

http://silverdoctors.com/gold-futures-raid-leads-to-extraordinary-demand-for-bullion-globally/#more-25328

GOLD FUTURES RAID LEADS TO ‘EXTRAORDINARY’ DEMAND FOR BULLION GLOBALLY

APRIL 19, 2013 BY THE DOC 20 COMMENTS

U.S. gold coins sales have been at record levels this week. Lower prices and the tragic events in Boston may have contributed to increased buying due to concerns about the risk of terrorist attacks. Premiums are rising in Europe and the U.S. and there are delays of a few weeks on some smaller coins and bars showing the growing tightness in the market.
“We are hearing of huge jumps in premiums for all gold products at the street level, so there is a sense that the downdraft for gold futures has overrun the rear physical metal market in a big way,” said Gene Arensberg, editor of the Got Gold Report.
“High premiums mean supply is drying up and it is just a question of time before that shows up in the paper gold markets,” he said.

From Goldcore:

Today’s AM fix was USD 1,414.00, EUR 1,080.46 and GBP 920.63 per ounce.
Yesterday’s AM fix was USD 1,397.00, EUR 1,070.17 and GBP 917.09 per ounce.

Cross Currency Table – (Bloomberg)

Gold rose $14.80 or 1.08% yesterday to $1,388.00/oz and silver ended with a loss of 0.26%.

Gold in USD, by Tick, – (Bloomberg)

Gold extended gains above $1,400 an ounce on signs that jewelers, investors and store of value buyers of gold are taking advantage of the biggest slump in prices in three decades.

Global demand for physical is very clearly seen in rising premiums being seen internationally. The drop in prices ignited a spate of buying in gold coins and bars, sending premiums for gold bars to multi-month highs throughout Asia. Demand intensifed overnight as prices rose over $1,400/oz.

XAU/EUR Currency, by Tick, 2 Weeks – (Bloomberg)

Indian gold premiums, always a good indicator of demand for physical have jumped due to tight supplies. Premiums charged by banks for gold has increased from around $1.20 to between $3 to $5 per ounce.

The premium for metal on the Shanghai Gold Exchange is up to as much as $10, in Turkey it’s almost $20 and in Asia it’s about $5. Premiums for gold bars in Hong Kong were at $1.90 to $2.00 an ounce to spot, their highest level since early last year. Premiums in Singapore and Tokyo were also at multi-month highs.

Government mints, bullion refineries and dealers around the world report a dramatic increase in demand for coins and bars.

Bullion refiner, MKS said that “physical demand is extraordinary.”

Digital gold provider, Bullion Vault, said that Monday and Tuesday were their “strongest 48 hour period for new customers this year.” Bullion Vault said that they saw record volumes of digital gold and silver transactions on Monday “beating the previous peak of September 2011.”

There has been a marked increase in demand since the price plunge. We saw a huge amount of panic selling Monday but Tuesday saw as many buyers as sellers. Since Wednesday, we have experienced more buying than selling and most of the selling was of small orders, less than fifty ounces, while there were lumpier buy orders from high net worth clients.

Ironically, the gold futures price plunge has resulted in one of our best weeks in terms of sales so far in 2013. In some ways, the price shake out was needed by the market as buyers are no longer on strike and are seeing value at these levels.

Demand for gold is also coming from contrarian investors who are concerned that stock markets are at multiyear and all time record highs and looking toppy at these levels and there are also concerns about deposits in Europe.

XAU/GBP, by Tick – (Bloomberg)

In terms of transactions, gold buyers outnumbered sellers by a ratio of nearly five to one yesterday. In terms of volume, gold buyers outnumbered sellers by a ratio of nearly nine to one yesterday. Meaning that there were more buyers than sellers and buyers were placing larger orders than those selling and this trend has continued today.

U.S. gold coins sales have been at record levels this week. Lower prices and the tragic events in Boston may have contributed to increased buying due to concerns about the risk of terrorist attacks.

Premiums are rising in Europe and the U.S. and there are delays of a few weeks on some smaller coins and bars showing the growing tightness in the market.

“We are hearing of huge jumps in premiums for all gold products at the street level, so there is a sense that the downdraft for gold futures has overrun the rear physical metal market in a big way,” said Gene Arensberg, editor of the Got Gold Report.

“High premiums mean supply is drying up and it is just a question of time before that shows up in the paper gold markets,” he said.

http://silverdoctors.com/silver-update-force-majeure/#more-25315

SILVER UPDATE: FORCE MAJEURE

APRIL 18, 2013 BY THE DOC 5 COMMENTS

BrotherJohnF discusses silver’s technicals and whether a force majeure default by the COMEX is imminent in the wake of the Kennecott mine collapse and Barrick’s Pascua Lama shutdown in his latest Silver Update: Force Majeure

http://silverdoctors.com/odds-of-comex-default-increasing-exponentially/#more-25188

Submitted By Bill Holter, Miles Franklin Ltd,:

Regards, Bill H.

Catharsis Ours

Friday, April 19, 2013