Gold News of the day..... 31 MARCH 2014 -- Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - JPM Throws Down 229,400 Ounces of Gold To Meet Deliveries ( Jesse's Crossroads Cafe ) ..... Gold repatriation becomes an issue in the Solomon Islands ...... West to East Gold Exodus In Full Swing - Chinese gold demand remains extraordinary robust in 2014. Last week (17-03-2014/21-03-2014) wholesale demand, aka SGE withdrawals, was 36 metric tonnes, year to date demand is 523 tonnes ...... Highlights from Harvey Organ

From Gata.....

Gold repatriation becomes an issue in the Solomon Islands

Submitted by cpowell on Mon, 2014-03-31 05:56. Section: Daily Dispatches

Why Our Gold Bars Are in Hong Kong

By Daniel Namosuaia
Solomon Star
Honiara, Solomon Islands
Monday, March 31, 2014

http://www.solomonstarnews.com/news/business/23139-why-our-gold-bars-in-...

The Central Bank of the Solomon Islands says investing the country's gold bars in Hong Kong is important because of the closeness to buyers.

The bank was responding to questions raised by the Malaita Ma'asina Forum (MMF) as to why the bank has recently deposited its 31 gold bars in Hong Kong and not kept them in the country.

The MMF said it does not look right for a country like the Solomon Islands, whose economy and currency are going down, to deposit its gold bars overseas.

"When we deposit these gold bars in Hong Kong, they are the ones benefiting and not us here in the country," Charles Dausabea of the MMF said. "It seems that this country has been remote-controlled by foreigners. And the central bank and the government have to take action against these foreign influences because it seems that what the government and the bank are doing is not to benefit the people of this country."

But in response the central bank said Hong Kong is one of the major gold depositories in the world and is well connected by international flights, and hence Hong Kong's handling and shipment of physical gold are very efficient and secure and meet international standards.

The bank added that Hong Kong is also centrally located and close to the main gold markets in the region.

"The cost of bringing the gold from Hong Kong to the Solomon Islands would be very high not only in terms of transportation but more importantly in the substantial security cost in moving the gold from Hong Kong to Honiara.

"Also, if in the future if we want to sell the gold to an overseas buyer, and if the gold is held in Solomon Islands, it has to be transported from Honiara to the buyer's nominated depository overseas, which could very costly for us.

"So in view of the considerations above it was decided to keep the gold bars in Hong Kong, where they were originally stored," the bank said.

The bank said it has no intention of bringing the gold bars back to the country because of the hefty transportation and security costs.

The bank said that at market prices last week the country's gold was worth SBD$266 million (US$36.6 million).

Swiss, UK watchdogs step up scrutiny on forex traders

Submitted by cpowell on Mon, 2014-03-31 13:37. Section: Daily Dispatches

By Caroline Copley and Patrick Graham
Reuters
Monday, March 31, 2014

Swiss and British regulators stepped up their scrutiny of alleged manipulation of foreign exchange markets on Monday, as watchdogs take a closer look at whether banks have a tight enough grip on the behavior of their traders.

Switzerland's competition commission WEKO said it opened an investigation into several Swiss, British and U.S. banks over potential collusion to manipulate currency rates.

The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), meanwhile, said it will assess if banks have cut the risk of traders manipulating benchmark rates in the coming year, to see if lessons have been learned from the scandal over benchmark rate rigging.

WEKO said it is investigating UBS, Credit Suisse, Zuercher Kantonalbank), Julius Baer, JP Morgan, Citigroup, Barclays, and Royal Bank of Scotland. ...

... For the full story:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/31/us-swiss-forex-investigation-i...

Koos Jansen......

West to East Gold Exodus In Full Swing

Chinese gold demand remains extraordinary robust in 2014. Last week (17-03-2014/21-03-2014) wholesale demand, aka SGE withdrawals, was 36 metric tonnes, year to date demand is 523 tonnes.

This is a screen shot from the weekly Chinese SGE trade report; the second number from the left (blue – 本周交割量) is weekly gold withdrawn from the vaults in Kg, the second number from the right (green – 累计交割量) is the total YTD.  

Of course the big question is; where on earth is this gold coming from? Let’s have a look at global trade numbers published so far this year to shine some light on this mystery. As I have written about in 2013, the main gold vein that supplied China ran from the UK, through Switzerland, through Hong Kong eventually reaching the mainland. As we all know China mainland doesn’t disclose its gold trade numbers, but the other countries do (to a certain extent, monetary gold is usually not disclosed).

The Physical Gold Distribution From West To East

The UK net exported 1425 metric tonnes in total in 2013. The peak was in May, 338 tonnes were net exported to meet demand in the east after the drop in the price of gold in April, whereafter UK gold export somewhat slowed. Chinese demand came down from unprecedented highs in April, but remained robust throughout 2013. UK gold export and Chinese demand were correlated during last year.

Around new year and the Chinese Lunar year demand for gold in the mainland picked up again as we can see in the chart below (and as I have reported here, here and here).

Now the global trade numbers from that period are released we again see matching trends in global gold trade and Chinese demand (/SGE withdrawals). In January 2014 there was a steep increase in UK’s net gold export; 143 tonnes in total, 118 tonnes were net exported to Switzerland and 33 tonnes net to Hong Kong.

What a surprise, there is still gold left in the London vaults. Most analyst thought these vaults were practically empty at the end of 2013. Like Kenneth Hoffman, who stated in December 2013 on Bloomberg TV that the London gold vaults were virtually empty. All gold was exported to Switzerland, remelted into kilobars and sent to China. He also stated: The most interesting thing is, as we look into 2014, if there ever is interest in gold again, that gold is just not there anymore. Well guess what, there is interest in gold again, coming from China. And doesn’t seem to stop at these prices.

Another reason why analysts thought the UK wouldn’t be coughing up more physical gold was because GLD inventory stopped falling since the beginning of January. After being drained for 552 tonnes in 2013, year to date GLD is up 22 tonnes.

A Gift From Switzerland 

Since January the Swiss Customs Department decided to change the way they disclose their gold trade numbers. Previously they only disclosed total gold and silver trade numbers, now they break it down per country. This gives us gold analysts very valuable insights. A pleasant side-effect is that the Swiss publish their data much sooner than all others.

In total Switzerland gross imported 477 metric tonnes of gold in first two months of 2014. The biggest supplier was the UK, smaller ones were Brazil, Burkina Faso, Chile, Peru, Russia, South Africa and the US. Total Swiss gross gold export over this period accounted for 400 metric tonnes.

A we can see from the chart not only did the UK net exported 118 tonnes to Switzerland in January, in February another 114 tonnes were shipped to the Alps. In two months the Brits net exported 232 metric tonnes to Switzerland, while GLD inventory was up! What Keynesian is still selling in the UK? Or more important, how much is there left to sell? There are probably a few thousand tonnes left in the vaults of the Bank of England, but that’s all owned by foreign nations.

As we heard from the biggest Swiss refinery in December 2013, they were having a very hard time throughout 2013 sourcing the gold for demand from China. An event that never happened in the last 37 years, according to the managing director of this refinery. Yet, in February the Brits shipped 114 tonnes to Switzerland. Anybody who knows the seller please comment below.

Also worth noting; in January Switzerland net exported 12 tonnes to China and 85 tonnes to Hong Kong. In February net export to China accounted for 37 tonnes and to Hong Kong 98 tonnes. Coming months will point out if this change, direct exporting to China bypassing Hong Kong, will become a trend.

Reaching Asia

In January Hong Kong net imported more gold than they net exported to the mainland. The Special Administrative Region net imported a staggering 114 metric tonnes (some of this gold is smuggled into the mainland in jewelry form by mainland tourist, please read at the end of this post), while they only net exported 89 tonnes to the mainland.

If we gather all the data we have from January we must conclude that although the main gold vein is still in full swing, it’s not enough to supply the Shanghai Gold Exchange. SGE withdrawals in January accounted for 246 tonnes.

This is a screen shot from the monthly Chinese SGE trade report; the second number from the left (blue – 月交割量 ) is monthly gold withdrawn from the SGE vaults in Kg.

In January China net imported 89 tonnes from Hong Kong, 12 tonnes from Switzerland, domestic mine supply was 36 tonnes, domestic scrap supply couldn’t haven’t been more than 25 tonnes, which leaves 83 tonnes that had to be imported from other countries. I still don’t have any estimates on how much gold China imports from its own overseas mines, however I doubt its 83 tonnes a month. Concluding not only in the UK, also in other countries around the world large stock piles of gold are still being sold to China.

http://harveyorgan.blogspot.com/2014/03/march-31gld-loses-389-tonnes-of-goldno.html

( Highlights.... )

Monday, March 31, 2014

march 31/GLD loses 3.89 tonnes of gold/No change in silver/gold and silver whacked again/Over 20 tonnes of gold standing on first day notice in the April contract month

Gold closed down $10.40  at $1283.40 (comex to comex closing time ). Silver was down 4 cents to $19.73  

In the access market tonight at 5:15 pm

gold: $1284.00

silver:  $19.75

All last week, I told you that gold and silver will be under pressure and the boys did not disappoint me with the criminal antics. Manipulation is occurring on all
markets and even 60 minutes was given the green light to present manipulation by the High Frequency traders.  And also remember that the bankers use the HFT boys to further their cause in metal manipulation. Today is first day notice for the April gold contract and over 20 tonnes of gold will stand but that will dissipate as Blythe and her cronies offer fiat to our holders instead of taking delivery. Also today, the total gold comex OI collapsed to 365,000 contracts and this low level was hit in the turmoil of 2009.

This morning we were greeted with news of a huge corruption scandal in China with the former Premier, Zhou.  We wonder how far this will stretch.  In France, the mini election saw the extreme right wingers elected which is scary.

In Turkey..who knows?

In Italy (Vatican) 4 $TRILLION bonds tried to enter the Vatican.  They were fake.

***

from Paul Yussem:


"Out of curiosity, I was traveling around the LBMA website. I could gain access to clearing statistics, various bar lists, and other items on the website. Everything seems to be working fine except when you try to find GOFO rates.

Here is the link for archived 2013 GOFO rates. If the LBMA was updating their website, why can I not get access to 2013 archived GOFO rates that were available on Thursday, but I can access clearing statistics etc. ?

http://www.lbma.org.uk/pages/index.cfm?page_id=55&show=2013

The LBMA had been talking about getting rid of GOFO rates a few months ago. The banksters don’t like us to have good data to track the gold market. Maybe GOFO rates are now only available to LBMA members? I guess we will find out for sure on Monday. At this point, I think that we can kiss the GOFO rates goodbye.

*After waiting another work day, the GOFO rate is still gone…

Banker Vortex - missing GOFO rates"

Paul Yussem

***

The total gold comex open interest  fell dramatically today by 16,864 contracts from 382,195 all the way down to 365,331  with gold down by $0.90 on Friday.The OI for the March non active gold contract month is now off the board . The next big active contract month is April and here the OI fell by another 24,853 contracts  to 6,486. The next non active delivery month is May and here the OI fell by 98 contracts down to 6603.  The next big active delivery month is June and here the OI fell by 13,214 as the comex players refused to roll as they just vacated the arena.  The OI for June stands at 234,079.    The estimated volume today was awful at 118,203 contracts .    The confirmed volume on Friday was very good at 247,283. 

***

Comex gold contract month

March 31.2014   the March delivery month.

First day notice for April

Gold	Ounces
Withdrawals from Dealers Inventory in oz	nil
Withdrawals from Customer Inventory in oz	nil
Deposits to the Dealer Inventory in oz	9,645.000  (Brinks/300 Kilobars???)
Deposits to the Customer Inventory, in oz	32,103.24 oz (HSBC)
No of oz served (contracts) today	2642  (264,200 oz)
No of oz to be served (notices)	3844 contracts (384,400  oz)
Total monthly oz gold  served (contracts) so far this month	2642  (264,200 oz)
Total accumulative withdrawals  of gold from the Dealers inventory this month	oz
Total accumulative withdrawal of gold from the Customer inventory this month	oz

***

And now the Gold inventory at the GLD:


March 31.2014:


Tonnage; 813.08/today we lost  3.89 tonnes of gold over to Shanghai

****

and......

http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/2014/03/gold-daily-and-silver-weekly-charts-jpm.html

31 MARCH 2014

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - JPM Throws Down 229,400 Ounces of Gold To Meet Deliveries

Today was the end of quarter. The positions can be marked to market.

There was intraday commentary on a widely reported story concerning market rigging here.

On Friday JPM moved 229,400 ounces of gold from the eligible to deliverable category in their Comex warehouse, in preparation for the April delivery period which starts about now. 

It looks like that gold that was moved over to the registered category by JPM is to fill the delivery requests that the Comex received on Friday, according to this report.    I have included a screen shot of the relevant page below.

JPM filled 2,640 April futures contracts for 264,000 ounces.  So they needed to issue at least some of those additional warrants, since they only had 214,097 going in.  And most of that came out of their 'house account.'

I thought that it was interesting that a good chunk of that gold is being stopped by Nova Scotia, for their own house account.   Special thanks for the link to the famed Samoan gold analyst from Investment Research Dynamics, Salelologa Dave.

And the band played on.

Have a pleasant evening.

***