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JPMorgan’s COMEX Silver Stash: Another New Record High

9-9-2020 < SGT Report 25 1206 words
 

by Ed Steer, Silver Seek:



YESTERDAY in GOLD, SILVER, PLATINUM and PALLADIUM


The gold price rallied to its high of the day at the 10:15 a.m. morning gold fix in Shanghai on their Friday — and then didn’t all that much until 1 p.m. BST in London/8 a.m. in New York.  It was sold lower from there, with the low tick coming shortly after 9 a.m. in New York — and although it rallied a bit from there, it then continued lower until noon EDT.  A rather spirited rally commenced at that juncture, but that was capped and turned quietly lower starting around 2:45 p.m. in after-hours trading — and it didn’t do much of anything after that.



The high and low ticks in gold were reported by the CME Group as $1,956.60 and $1,921.60 in the December contract…$1,948.80 and $1,914.60 in October.  At the close on Friday, the October/December price spread differential in gold was $8.10 …December/February was $7.40 — and February/April was $5.10.


Gold was closed in New York yesterday afternoon at $1,934.80 spot, up $3.60 from Thursday.  Net volume was around 287,500 contracts — and there was a bit over 14,000 contracts worth of roll-over/switch volume on top of that.










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Silver’s choppy price action on Friday was mostly similar to gold’s — and I note that the rally that began at the COMEX close, was capped and turned a bit lower starting around 3:30 p.m. in after-hours trading in New York.  That 3:30 p.m. EDT price turned out to be silver’s high tick of the day.


The low and high ticks in silver were recorded as $26.455 and $27.245 in the December contract.


Silver was closed on Friday afternoon in New York at $26.935 spot, up an impressive 36.5 cents from Thursday.  Net volume was very high once again at a bit over 110,000 contracts — and there was only 4,300 contracts worth of roll-over/switch volume, almost all of which went into the New Year…mostly March.










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The platinum price had a quiet up/down move in Far East trading on their Friday — and was almost back at unchanged by shortly before the Zurich open.  It then rallied from there until around noon CEST — and then didn’t do much until 2 p.m. CEST/8 a.m. in New York.  After that, its price path was guided in a similar fashion as both silver and gold.  Platinum finished the day at $902 spot, up 19 dollars from its close on Thursday.










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The palladium price traded mostly flat until around 1:35 p.m. China Standard Time on their Friday afternoon — and from that juncture it was sold very unevenly lower until 9 a.m. in New York.  It rallied a bit from there, but was turned lower starting shortly before 3 p.m. in the very thinly-traded after-hours market.  Palladium was closed at $2,185 spot, down 17 bucks on the day.










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Based on the Kitco-recorded spot closes posted above, the gold/silver ratio worked out to a bit under 72 to 1 on Friday.


Here’s Nick’s 1-year gold/silver ratio chart, updated as of the close of trading on Friday.  Click to enlarge.










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The dollar index closed very late on Thursday afternoon in New York at 92.739 — and opened down 10 basis points once trading commenced around 7:48 p.m. EDT on Thursday evening, which was 7:48 a.m. China Standard Time on their Friday morning.  It then proceeded to trade quietly and somewhat unevenly sideways until a ‘rally’ commenced at 8:30 a.m. in New York when the job numbers hit the tape.  That rally ran out of gas at 11:05 a.m. EDT…five minutes after the London close.  It was all down hill from there until around 3 p.m. EDT — and it then crawled a bit higher until around ten minutes before trading ended at 5:30 p.m.  It shot higher at that point — and according to the DXY chart below, closed at 92.98 on the day…up about 24 basis points


However, it ended up getting marked-to-close at 92.719…down 2 basis points from Thursday.  And if you’re wondering what that was all about…I don’t know.  But it certainly appears that they can market the DXY index to close at whatever they wish.  They do that every day, but mostly it’s only by smallish amounts.


Here’s the DXY chart for Friday, courtesy of Bloomberg as always, so you can see what happened for yourself.  Click to enlarge.










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And here’s the 5-year U.S. dollar index chart, thanks to the fine folks over at the stockcharts.com Internet site.  The delta between its close…92.71…and the close on the DXY chart above, was about 1 basis point above its spot close on Friday.  Click to enlarge as well.










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Whether or not we have a new leg down in the offing, or a screaming and engineered short-covering rally in our future, remains to be seen.


And as I pointed out in my Thursday column…”Bill King of King Report fame had this to say about it in the Tuesday edition of his column:  “The dollar got slammed to a 2-year low during Asian trading.  After trading sideways during European trading, the dollar soared during NYSE trading.  Gold, which had rallied when the dollar sank, retreated.  Hedge funds and commercial traders are enormously short the dollar.  The probability of a short-squeeze on the buck is very high.  This, of course, would hinder gold.”


He would be right about that, dear reader.”



The gold shares were sold lower the moment that the equity markets opened in New York at 9:30 a.m. on Friday morning — and their collective lows were printed about 10:45 a.m. EDT…which was nowhere near the low tick in gold, or at the start of any rally.  From there they headed somewhat unevenly higher until the trading day ended at 4:00 p.m. EDT.  The HUI closed down 1.22 percent.










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The silver equities followed an identical price path…tick for tick…as the gold stocks — and that lasted until around fifteen minutes before trading ended at 4:00 p.m. EDT in New York.  Then they jumped higher because very thinly-traded Peñoles caught a bid.  But despite that, Nick Laird’s Intraday Silver Sentiment/Silver 7 Index still closed down 0.39 percent on the day, which was more than underwhelming considering how well the underlying precious metal performed.  Click to enlarge if necessary.


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