Gold Is Going Higher…But Brace Yourself For Volatility

Short of a raid orchestrated by the central planners to fasten tighter the cap on gold (which remains a real possibility given the historical record), the yellow metal shouldn’t encounter much price resistance until above $1,500/oz.  – Adam Taggart, Peak Prosperity

I agree with the statement above from Adam Taggart but an aggressive price attack by the banks who operate the Comex is inevitable.  In fact, based on the big jump in gold contract open interest and the spike up in EFP/PNT transactions – Privately Negotiated Transactions /Exchange for Physicals – it’s likely the banks have been setting the trap for another massive open interest liquidation price control operation.

Let me explain.  The banks are unconstrained by the amount of paper contracts they print and feed into the market to supply the demand from the hedge funds, who are the primary buyers. By unconstrained, I mean that the amount of gold represented by paper derivative open interest is far greater than the amount of actual physical gold held in Comex vaults.  Gold and silver are the ONLY commodity contract products for which this disparity between open interest and underlying supply of the physical commodity is allowed to occur.

As an aside, if the Comex were a true price discovery market, the amount of gold/silver represented by the paper contracts would be tied closely to the amount of gold held in Comex vaults.  When hedge funds rush in to buy futures, the market makers would then be required to wait until an entity holding contracts was willing to sell. This is how a bona fide price discovery market functions using price to clear the market’s supply and demand.

Instead, with CME gold and silver contracts, the banks print up new paper contracts to satiate buying demand.

Last week when the price of gold began to spike higher in response the FOMC policy statement released on Wednesday, the price of gold began soar.  Between Wednesday and Friday, the open interest in gold contracts spiked up by over 50,000 contracts – nearly 10%. This amount of paper represents over 5 million ozs of gold. As of Friday, the Comex warehouse report shows just 322,910 ozs of gold available for delivery (“registered”) and 7.6 million total ozs of gold. But the total open interest is 572,000 contracts, or 57.2 million ozs of gold, nearly 8x the amount of total gold held in Comex vaults.

But wait, there’s more.  During periods of aggressive price control, the activity of PNT/EFP’s also soars.  These transactions avoid settlement in 100 oz Comex bars per basic contract terms. Instead, it’s way for the banks to “deliver” under the terms of the Comex contract without producing and delivering the actual physical bar, recording the serial number on the bar under the receiving party’s name and moving the bar into an allocated account. It’s an extension of the fractional bullion system that is used to manipulate the gold price. It allows the banks to deliver phantom gold in lieu of delivering real bars.

On Tuesday the PNT/EFP volume was 8k and 5.9k respectively. On Wednesday the volume was 11.5k and 9.1k. On Thursday, when gold was soaring over $1400, the volume in PNT/EFP’s was  30k and 22k respectively.  On Friday the volume was 21k and 11.3.

On average, the daily volume of these two transactions is typically under 10k – except when the banks are aggressively implementing price management operations.

The banks use these transactions, along with feeding tens of thousands of newly printed gold contracts to the hedge funds. This drives up the open interest.  On Friday, May 31st, the open interest in Comex gold was 465k contracts.  The current open interest of 572k is approaching the level at which the price of gold was attacked on the Comex in each of the last three years.

The process is set up by letting the hedge fund algos chase the price higher and accumulate an excessively large net long position in gold contracts,  At the same time, the banks feed contracts into the buying frenzy and accumulate an offsetting net short position.  As the operation cycles through, the banks force the price lower by attacking the stop-loss levels set by the hedge funds as they chase the price higher.  The banks use the concomitant hedge fund selling to cover their shorts, thereby reaping enormous profits.

In September 2016, gold ran higher during the summer and the open interest had reached close to 600k. The price gold was dropped from $1200 to $1070.  In September 2017, the gold contract o/i reached over 580k and gold subsequently was taken down from the high $1300’s to $1125.  Then, in January 2018, the open interest once again was over 580k contract and the gold price was taken down from $1350 to $1200.

In all three price control cycles, the open interest fell below 500k as the banks unloaded long positions and the banks covered their shorts.

This is a long-winded way of explaining why I believe that sometime in the next 10 trading days  the market should expect an aggressive attempt by the banks to attack the gold price on the Comex – and to some degree on the LBMA.  We’ll know I’m right if we get a series of “fishing line” price drops sometime between now and the July 4th holiday. Fridays and pre-holiday trading days, when volume is light, is a favorite time for the banks to begin taking down the gold price.

The good news is, if you follow the sequence I described above from 2016 to now, the price of gold is establishing a series of higher highs and higher lows.  This tells us that the western Central Bank/bullion bank effort to control the price of gold is limited in its success.  This is likely because of immense demand from eastern hemisphere buyers (Central Banks, investors, citizens) who require actual physical delivery.

Furthermore, if I’m wrong about an imminent price attack to take the price of gold lower, it means that the Central Banks/bullion banks have lost control of the market – at least for the time being – and the market is experiencing Bill “Midas” Murphy’s “commercial signal failure.”  If this turns out to be the case, and it is ultimately an inevitability, strap in for some fun if you own physical gold, silver and mining stocks.

Dave Kranzler

http://investmentresearchdynamics.com

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