We’re still ‘locked and loaded’ for a big up-move

Yesterday In Gold & Silver

I wouldnt read too much into yesterdays gold price action if I were you. The only thing that was noteworthy was that golds thin toe-hold on the $1,200 spot price mark disappeared before the London trading day began—and even the feeblest attempt to get back above that price was turned away.

With Thursday being Thanksgiving in the U.S. we are now in the midst of the final three roll-over days out of the December contract and, not surprisingly, volumes are pretty heavy—with most of it being of the roll-over variety.

With gold trading within a ten dollar price range, the high and low ticks arent worth the effort of looking up.

Gold finished the Monday session at $1,198.30 spot, down $3.80 from Fridays close. Gross volume was close to a quarter of a million contracts, but once the roll-overs were subtracted out, the volume crashed to only 74,000 contracts—which is a familiar occurrence as we approach every first notice day which, for December, is Friday.

The silver price action had a bit more shape to it—initially down, of course, with the low tick coming shortly before 1 p.m. GMT in London—and about twenty-five minutes before the Comex open. The subsequent rally lasted until around 8:20 a.m. EST—and the was pretty much it for the remainder of the New York session.

The low and high ticks were reported by the CME Group as $16.245 and $16.47 in the December contract.

Silver closed in New York yesterday at $16.465 spot, up 1.5 cents on the day. Gross volume was well north of 90,000 contracts, but the lions share of that was roll-overs—and it all netted out to 18,500 contracts, which is very light.

The platinum price chopped around unchanged up until shortly before 11 a.m. EST in New York—and on the news that the metal was going to be in a 1.33 million ounce deficit for the 2015 calendar year, some kind soul peeled 20 bucks off the price by noon in New York. The low tick of $1,193 spot came moments before the 5:15 p.m. close of electronic trading, but it got bid back above the $1,200 spot price mark right at the close. It finished the Monday session at $1,202 spot, down twenty bucks from Friday.

The palladium price did nothing until shortly before 2 p.m. Zurich time—and then began to rally, but got stopped short of the $800 spot price mark in late morning trading in New York. It got sold down to a three dollar loss until around 3 p.m. EST in New York, but managed to rally a bit, closing up a buck. The structural deficit in palladium for 2015 is just as bad as platinum, if not worse.

The dollar index closed late on Friday afternoon in New York at 88.265—and didnt do much during the entire Monday trading session, closing at 89.154—which was down 11 basis points. Nothing to see here.

The gold stocks opened down a bit, but rallied back into positive territory, albeit briefly, with their highs of the day coming just before 10:30 a.m. EST. It was all down hill from there until shortly after 2 p.m.—and from there they chopped sideways, as the HUI closed down 1.33%.

Despite the fact that silver didnt do all that badly yesterday, the silver equities never got a sniff of positive territory—and were down over 3 percent at one point. By the end of the Monday trading session, Nick Lairds Intraday Silver Sentiment Index had shaved its loses to only 2.13%.

The CME Daily Delivery Report showed that 7 gold and 28 silver contracts were posted for delivery within the Comex-approved depositories on Wednesday. Scotiabank was the only long/stopper in both metals—and the only short/issuer in silver was Jefferies. The link to yesterdays Issuers and Stoppers Report is here .

The CME Preliminary Report for the Monday trading session showed that gold open interest in the November contract dropped from 20 to 9 contracts—and silvers o.i. for the same month dropped from 88 down to 30 contracts. Once you subtract out the deliveries in the previous paragraphs, only 2 gold and 2 silver contracts are left in the month.

There were no reported changes in GLD on Monday—and as of 7:53 p.m. EST yesterday evening, there were no reported changes in SLV . either. But when I checked the iShares.com Internet site at 3:06 a.m. EST this morning, I noted that an authorized participant withdrew 1,341,418 troy ounces.

There was a decent sales report from the U.S. Mint yesterday. They sold 3,500 troy ounces of gold eagles—500 one-ounce 24K gold buffaloes—an another 426,500 silver eagles.

There wasnt much activity in gold over at the COMEX-approved depositories on Friday. No gold was reported received—and only 6,028 troy ounces were shipped out.

In silver. there was 96,672 troy ounces reported received—and 387,118 troy ounces shipped out. The link to that activity is here .

I have a lot of stories today—and I hope you find some that you like.

Critical Reads

Global Business Confidence Collapses To Post-Lehman Lows

As we noted before, despite record high stock prices and talking-heads imploring investors to believe CEOs are confident, they are not (consider the clear indication of a lack of economic confidence from tumbling capex and soaring buybacks). That is further confirmed today as Markits survey of over 6000 firms showed optimism falling sharply in October, dropping to the lowest seen since the survey began five years ago. Hiring and investment plans were also at or near post-crisis lows. while price expectations deteriorated further. More worrying, perhaps, is the US is not decoupled whatsoever, with future expectations of US business activity at the lowest since the financial crisis .

This article appeared on the Zero Hedge website at 9:48 p.m. EST yesterday evening—and todays first news item is courtesy of Manitoba reader U.M.