Prepare For a Bull Market to Shock Even the Most Ardent Goldbugs
Jay Taylor

The gold price rallied about five bucks or so during early trading in the Far East on their Wednesday, but then began to sell off a bit starting around 2 p.m. Hong Kong time---an hour before the London open.

Then, at the noon London silver fix, the gold price got sold down another five bucks or so---and then didn't do much until the Fed minutes were released at 2 p.m. EDT. 

The subsequent price spike ran into a not-for-profit seller within 30 minutes---and that was pretty much it for the remainder of the day.

The CME recorded the high and low ticks at $1,301.10 and $1,315.50 in the June contract.

The gold price closed in New York on Wednesday at $1,312.30 spot, up $4.30 on the day.  Volume, net of April and May, was fairly decent at 137,000 contracts

The silver price got sold down back down below the $20 level the moment trading began at 6 p.m. EDT in New York on Tuesday evening---and traded within a dime of that price until noon Hong Kong time.  Then, like gold, the HFT boyz went to work, with the absolute low of the day coming minutes before 9 a.m. in New York.  The subsequent rally didn't get far---and the price spike at 2 p.m. ran into the usual sellers of last resort shortly after that.  From there, the price traded sideways into the close.

The high and low price ticks were reported as $20.095 and $19.60 in the May contract.

Silver closed yesterday in New York at $19.845 spot, down 21.5 cents from Tuesday's close.  Not surprisingly, gross volume was through the roof at almost 90,000 contracts, but netted out to 36,000 contracts---which was more than double the net volumes of both Monday and Tuesday.

The platinum price also rallied a bit in Far East trading yesterday---and also began to sell off about an hour before the London open.  The low tick, like silver, came at 9 a.m. in New York.  The metal rallied a bit after that---and manged to close up a couple of bucks on the day.

Palladium traded ruler flat once again, but popped five bucks or so on the Fed news---and finished up on the day as well.

The dollar index closed at 79.78 on Tuesday afternoon in New York---and then didn't do much until an hour before London opened.  At 10 a.m. BST, the index hit its 79.86 'high' of the day---and then began to fade until about 11:20 a.m. in New York. From there it rallied into the release of the Fed minutes, before getting hit for around 25 basis points when the news actually hit the tape.  After that, the index barely twitched.  The index closed at 79.53 down 25 basis points.

The gold stocks only opened down a percent---and then chopped sideways until 2 p.m.---before blasting skywards on the 'news'.   The rally ended when the seller of last resort showed up in the Comex futures market shortly after 2:30 p.m. EDT, but the stocks finished the day in the plus column, with the HUI up 0.65%.

The silver equities opened down a bit over a percent, but climbed back to unchanged within a couple of hours.  They, too, took off to the upside at 2 p.m.---but gave up a percent of those gains when JPMorgan et al put in an appearance in the Comex futures market around 2:30 p.m.  Considering the fact that silver closed down more than a percent yesterday, Nick Laird's Intraday Silver Sentiment Index closed up a remarkable 1.63%---and well off its high tick to boot!

The CME Daily Delivery Report showed that 16 gold and 14 silver contracts were posted for delivery within the Comex-approved depositories on Friday.  Once again, the Issuers and Stoppers Report isn't worth the effort of hyperlinking.

There were no reported changes in GLD yesterday---and as of 10:07 p.m. EDT yesterday evening, there were no reported changes in SLV, either.

Yesterday evening, the good folks over at the shortsqueeze.com Internet site updated the short positions of both GLD and SLV as of the end of March.  The short position in SLV declined by 4.77%---and is now down to 12,657,900 ounces/shares, or just under 394 tonnes.  The decline in the short position in GLD was far more substantial, as it dropped by 21.11%.  The short position in that ETF is now down to 1.09 million troy ounces of gold, or just under 34 tonnes.

Over at Switzerland's Zürcher Kantonalbank they reported that both their gold and silver ETFs had withdrawals for the week ending April 4.  Their gold ETF declined by 15,997 troy ounces---and their silver ETF dropped by 100,030 troy ounces.

There was a tiny sales report from the U.S. Mint yesterday, as they only sold 1,500 troy ounces of gold eagles.

Over at the Comex-approved depositories on Tuesday, there was pretty big activity in gold.  Precisely 1 metric tonne [32,150.000 troy ounces] was reported received over at Brink's, Inc.---and 148,344 troy ounces were shipped out for parts unknown.  The biggest chunk of it came out of JPMorgan's warehouse.  The link to that activity is here.

In silver, only one good delivery bar was reported received, but a very chunky 1,062,229 troy ounces were reported shipped out.  With the exception of one bar, all of it came out of HSBC USA and Canada's Scotiabank.  The link to that action is here.

I have the usual number of stories for a mid-week column but, once again, I'm a little short of precious metal related news items.

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