I don’t typically emphasize price charts in analyzing the market, however something unusual has been happening in the spot (physical) silver market. It did not happen in the silver futures market, nor in the gold market. I have been bearish on silver because of its supply and demand fundamentals, and the price action shown below […]
It was all over the news last week, both mainstream and gold sites. Barclays was caught manipulating the gold price. They were fined £26M, and forced to pay a client who was damaged by their action. The trader who worked for Barclays, Daniel Plunkett, was also fined and banned from working in the financial sector. […]
For a long time, many in the gold and silver communities have been say that the prices of the monetary metals are manipulated. Recently, one particular allegation came to prominence because it was asserted by the German regulator BaFin. This allegation is that the members of the London Fixes for gold and silver are using […]
There is a stark difference between the states of the markets for the monetary metals. The number of open futures contracts in gold is low, while in silver it’s high. First, let’s look at the data and then we’ll discuss what it means. Here is the graph showing the open interest. The picture is clear […]
Zero Hedge has run an excellent article explaining the use of commodities, beginning with copper, to work around the Chinese government’s imposed capital controls[1]. Capital controls are intended to prevent arbitrage between the dollar interest rate and the yuan interest rate, which is much higher. To keep this gap open, and prevent the arbitrage—aka hot […]
Government spending is out of control and, while most say they want spending cuts, people oppose cuts that impact them. Among those who get government money, there’s practically an unspoken, unbreakable pact to keep the money coming. But when I say that the national debt cannot be paid off, it’s not a political forecast; it’s […]
Author Pater Tenebrarum, Acting Man We recently cited the work of Sean Darby, equity strategist at Jefferies, regarding the exposure of Hong Kong banks to the Mainland (see: “How Dangerous is China’s Credit Bubble for the World” for details). Although Hong Kong is technically part of China, it is a foreign country in terms of its […]
Last week, I wrote about a curious development in silver. The bid-ask spread widened in November and December. My article concluded: One should regard this as another type of rot in the core of the system. The point of my dissertation is that narrowing spreads is a sign of increasing economic coordination, and widening spreads […]
I write frequently about supply and demand in the monetary metals, gold and silver. I’ve argued that one cannot just look at numbers pertaining to “famous” buyers or sellers like India or the People’s Bank of China, while ignoring thousands or millions of anonymous people who are on the other side of the trade. Who […]
