http://www.caseyresearch.com/gsd/edition/indias-july-silver-imports-highest-in-5-years
¤ YESTERDAY IN GOLD & SILVER
As you're already aware, gold got sold down by the high-frequency traders in the illiquid Far East market on their Friday afternoon. This got quickly reversed the moment that the jobs report came out at 8:30 a.m. EDT in New York.
A seller of last resort appeared almost instantly...and about twenty minutes later, the high of the day was in...and after that, the gold price didn't do much for the remainder of the New York trading session.
The 8:30 a.m. EDT low tick was reported by Kitco as $1,282.70 spot...and the high tick about twenty minutes later was recorded as $1,319.70 spot...a $37 move in twenty minutes.
The gold price finished the Friday trading session at $1,313.50 spot...up $4.60 from Thursday's close. Net volume was way up there at 206,000 contracts.
The sell-off in silver during the Far East and London trading session had one difference from gold...and that was silver's low tick, which was in shortly after the 10:30 a.m. BST London gold fix.
The blast off at the release of the jobs numbers in New York was even more visually impressive than the concurrent gold rally...and that 25-minute rally, from low tick to high tick was over a buck....$19.25 to $20.41 spot. One has to wonder what the silver price would have done if that not-for-profit seller hadn't show up. Some day we're going to find that out.
After the high tick was in, silver got sold down about 50 cents within fifteen minutes...and then wandered around the $19.90 spot price range for the rest of the New York trading session. Silver closed at $19.89 spot...up 26 cents from Thursday. Net volume was very impressive...around 55,500 contracts.
Here's the New York Spot Silver [Bid] chart on its own. You can see that the price was 'no ask' right from the open...and the short seller of last resort was there within a minute or so at the most.
The rallies in platinum and palladium did not go unopposed, either. Here are the charts...
The dollar index closed on Thursday afternoon in New York at 82.35...and hit its high tick of 82.48 just moments before the jobs report was released yesterday morning. It fell like a stone to the 81.99 mark...rallied a bit...and then rolled over, hitting its low of 81.86 at 11:30 a.m. EDT. From there it recovered a handful of points going into the 5:15 p.m. New York close...finishing the Friday trading session at 81.92.
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The CME's Daily Delivery Report for 'Day 3' of the August delivery month showed that 166 gold, along with 5 silver contracts were posted for delivery on Tuesday within the Comex-approved depositories. The largest short/issuer in gold was Barclays...and it should come as no surprise that JPMorgan was the biggest long/stopper with 143 of the 166 contracts...133 in it's proprietary trading account...and 10 for its customer account. The link to yesterday's Issuers and Stoppers Reportis here.
As Ted Butler pointed out yesterday, there are still a bit over 3,000 gold contracts open in the August delivery month...and it will be interesting to see how long it takes for the short/issuer to step up to the plate and make delivery. But when they do, it will be an easy guess as to who the big long/stopper will be.
Another 77,283 troy ounces of gold were removed from GLD by an authorized participant yesterday. In SLV, a smallish 138,651 ounces were withdrawn...and I'm guessing that this would represent a fee payment of some kind.
Joshua Gibbons, the Guru of the SLV Bar List, posted an inventory update for the close of SLV business on Wednesday, July 31st. Here, in part, is what he had to say..."Analysis of the 31 July bar list...and comparison to the previous week's list: "6,062,731.5 oz. were added (4.3M oz. to Brinks London...1.8M oz. to JPM London V). 1,721,703.6 oz. were removed...(1.4M oz. from Brinks London, 0.3M oz. from Via Mat)...and 400 bars had a serial number change (all at Brinks London)."
"The bars added were from: Solar Applied Materials (1.8M oz.), Nordeutsche (1.5M oz.), Inner Mongolia Qiankun (0.7M o.z)...and 7 others. The bars removed were from: Aurubis AG (0.6M oz.), Inner Mongolia Qiankun (0.6M oz.), Nordeutsche (0.2M oz.)...and 2 others."
The link to his website...and the remainder of his commentary...is here.
The U.S. Mint had a tiny sales report yesterday. They sold 500 ounces of gold eagles...and 1,000 one-ounce 24K gold buffaloes.
The August 1st report from the Comex-approved depositories showed that a very small 4,822 troy ounces of gold were shipped out. The link to that 'activity' is here.
Silver was slightly different. They reported receiving 605,915 troy ounces of the stuff...and shipped 743,281 troy ounces out the door. But the reported receipt was another movement of silver from Scotia Mocatta to JPMorgan Chase...605,915 troy ounces. As I mentioned once already this week, this is the fifth or sixth time there has been a movement of silver of this amount [in the last three weeks or so] from this depository to the other. The link to that action is here.
The Commitment of Traders Report came in pretty much as I expected it would, as there was improvements in the Commercial net short position of both silver and gold.
In silver, the Commercial net short position declined by 9.0 million ounces...and is now down to 41.5 million troy ounces. Not the lowest it's been, but very close. Ted Butler mentioned that the Big 4...read JPMorgan...covered about 8 million ounces of their short position.
In gold, the Commercial net short position declined by 890,000 ounces...and is back down to 2.58 million ounces. Like silver, it's not the lowest it's been, but very close as well. Reader E.W.F...who tracks this data in chart form...says that the small traders in gold, the Nonreportable category, hold their largest net short position since 13 February 2001. It's numbers like these that show how historic the COT structure has become in both precious metals.
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Selected news on or touching the precious metals....
Top Fed economist slams 'incoherent' ECB
In a rare breach of central bank etiquette, a paper by the Richmond Fed said the ECB is hamstrung by institutional problems and acts on the mistaken premise that excess debt is the cause of the eurozone crisis when the real cause is the collapse of growth, which has, in turn, spawned a debt crisis that could have been avoided.
“The ECB lacks a coherent strategy for creating the monetary base required to sustain the money creation necessary for a growing economy,” said the paper, written in July by Robert Hetzel, the bank’s senior economist.
It called for direct action to buy “bundles” of small business loans, as well as “packages of government debt” across EMU states, including German Bunds. “The ECB will have to be clear that surplus countries will experience inflation above 2pc for extended periods of time,” and must be prepared to “explain to the German public” that this is desirable.
“Most important, the ECB needs to start by recognising that Europe’s problems are more than structural. It needs to stop using monetary policy as a lever for achieving structural changes and to end its contractionary policy.”
This Ambrose Evans-Pritchard commentary was posted on The Telegraph's website early Thursday evening BST...and I thank Roy Stephens for finding it for us.
Two King World News Blogs
The first interview is with GATA's secretary treasurer, Chris Powell...and it's headlined "More “Holy Grail” Gold Evidence Panics Western Central Banks". The second interview is with billionaire Hugo Salinas Price...and it bears the title "Elites Plan to Control the World".
Eric Sprott: “All The Paperwork Has Been Laid Out—For Bail-Ins As The Solution In The West”
It was a powerful conversation as Eric spoke to the “gargantuan rise” he sees coming for precious metals and their corresponding equities, one which he expects will take gold to new highs within the next twelve months. He also spoke to the incredibly fragile Western financial system, and pointed out the one event, which when it occurs—will completely take the lid off of gold.
Speaking to the gut-wrenching decline in metals and miners over the last two years, Eric said, “We’ve had many downturns in the gold market and as a portfolio manager…You just have to put up with these things. We had a horrendous decline in ’08…but sure enough, a year later [it was] right back where it should have been and anyone who sold at that time was severely misguided.”
The depth of this bear-market has set the stage for an epic rebound Eric explained, in that, “This event that we’ve gone through…which I think is now officially over on June 28th, is setting us up for a gargantuan rise in precious metals equities. It’s my own view that gold will go to a new high within the next twelve months and…I think when it goes to new highs, we’ll see a lot of people come into the space…such that I can imagine a very, very significant increase in precious metal equity prices. I have in my mind 300% to 500%.”
Such gains should be expected Eric added, for the reason that, “We’ve seen gains like that before in the precious metals equities. As you know the HUI index at its low was 35, and I think at its high was something over 600…[So] after this monstrous shakeout…the rebound [should] be incredibly exciting.”
The link to the partial transcript...and the mp3 audio interview...is here. It was posted on the bullmarketthinking.com Internet site yesterday...and I thank Edmonton reader B.E.O. for digging it up for us.
Gold imports jump 102% in Pakistan; ban imposed
India's neighbour Pakistan has decided to temporarily ban the import of gold for one month, to save its foreign currency reserves and to curtail the rampant smuggling going on in the nation.
On Wednesday, July 31, Pakistan imposed a temporary ban on the import of gold.
Following the Indian government’s decision to discourage gold import by imposing 8% duties, buyers have reportedly shifted to Pakistan where the precious metal is allowed to be imported duty free since 2001.
This story broke earlier this week, but this mineweb.com article from yesterday...filed from Mumbai...goes into far more detail than the story I posted at the time.
500,000 workers lose jobs as jewellers curb gold imports
Vijay Gopal, a goldsmith at one of India's leading branded jewellery manufacturing unit in Coimbatore, lost his job last month. “Since last three decades I was working in this market and never felt the need to learn any other skill. I am clueless on how I will feed my family of six,” said Gopal.
Gopal is not alone.
The government’s move to tighten the screws on gold imports, and the decision by major jewellers such as Tata Group's Tanishq, TBZ, Geetanjali Jems and others to curb gold sales, have caused some collateral damage: a cloud over the future of industry workers.
According to industry estimates, as many as 500,000 artisans, craftsmen and salesmen have lost their jobs since June. And if the trend continues, thousands more may join their ranks.
This must read news item was posted on the hindustantimes.com Internet site just before midnight IST on their Friday. I thank reader M.A. for his last contribution to today's column.
India's July silver imports highest in 5 years
Silver imports recorded a staggering 258.65% growth at 857 metric tonnes (MT) in the first four months (April-July) of 2013-14 as compared to 239 MT by July 2012.
The imports of 274.922 MT in July are the highest in last five years in the first four months of a financial year. In fact, silver imports in July 2013 are the second highest in any month in the last five years.
On the other hand, gold has seen a steep decline in imports in June (only 8.908 MT) compared to 37.618 MT in May, the second lowest in last five years. Overall, in the first four months, gold imports have grown by 104.27% at 78 MT.
Experts say traders are importing more silver because of trade restrictions on gold by the Government of India since June 3. The decrease in silver prices over the last three months is also driving imports. "Due to restrictions on gold, these figures were expected and traders are waiting for gold prices to fall further before they start buying," said Kishore Javeri of Javeri and Company.
The imports of 274.922 MT in July are the highest in last five years in the first four months of a financial year. In fact, silver imports in July 2013 are the second highest in any month in the last five years.
On the other hand, gold has seen a steep decline in imports in June (only 8.908 MT) compared to 37.618 MT in May, the second lowest in last five years. Overall, in the first four months, gold imports have grown by 104.27% at 78 MT.
Experts say traders are importing more silver because of trade restrictions on gold by the Government of India since June 3. The decrease in silver prices over the last three months is also driving imports. "Due to restrictions on gold, these figures were expected and traders are waiting for gold prices to fall further before they start buying," said Kishore Javeri of Javeri and Company.
Here's another must read story for you. This one was posted on the timesofindia.com Internet site in the wee hours of Friday morning IST. I thank Ulrike Marx for her final offering in today's column.
Alasdair Macleod & Bill Murphy joined The Doc this week for a special episode of the SD Weekly Metals & Markets. 
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