Commodity Futures Trading Commission

Let’s parlay the publicity given to the recent University of Texas endowment fund’s decision to convert all of their paper gold to physical gold into a campaign to convince large endowments/foundations all over the country to follow in their very wise footsteps. Here's how everyone can do their small part to break the banker shackles that have been imposed upon our financial freedom.

Gold is tentatively higher against the euro but mixed against other currencies while silver is again higher against most currencies. Both probed higher this morning and are exhibiting signs that they may push higher prior to a much anticipated correction. The Greek 10 year yield has just surged over 13.2% and this is leading to falls in the euro and risk aversion with equities, commodities and oil falling. Both gold and silver are less than 2% from their record nominal highs seen Monday (gold all time and silver 31 year) and are remaining firm due to concerns about the U.S. dollar, the euro and sovereign debt issues in Europe. While markets are not focusing on geopolitical risk in Africa and the Middle East and the Japanese natural and nuclear disasters, these problems remain and will lead to continuing safe haven demand. Silver’s resistance is at Monday’s multiyear nominal high at $41.95/oz. In normal circumstances profit taking would be expected near $42/oz but this is anything but a normal market due to the existence of massive concentrated short positions being investigated by the CFTC. The dollar’s fall suggests that markets are skeptical of Obama’s latest budget proposal to cut $4 trillion off the massive US budget deficit. The US fiscal situation continues to deteriorate week on week and month on month which could potentially lead to sharp falls in the dollar in the coming weeks.

Dr.Andrew Bogan is a managing member of Bogan Associates, LLC in Boston, Massachusetts. In an attempt to understand the relatively new but wildly popular Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs), Dr. Bogan did extensive research into the structures used by ETF operators, with a special focus on the potential risks that might arise should they be faced with large and sudden liquidations. Given that there are about 2,000 ETFs in existence, with assets totaling over $1 trillion, we thought it appropriate to find out what Dr. Bogan has learned in his research.

With politics suddenly taking a key role in daily market gyrations, and robots most certainly not accustomed to trading off D.C. headlines, here is the upcoming week's key events out of the Beltway.

Silver's nearly 3% surge in trading in Asia may indicate that the long expected short squeeze may be underway. Bullion banks with very large concentrated short positions may be being forced to buy back their short positions – propelling silver higher. This could see silver surge over the record nominal high of $50.35/oz in short order. At the same time caution is merited as silver has risen nearly 10% in April so far and over 33% year to date. Speculators need to be very cautious as margin requirements may be increased again and profit taking could lead to sharp falls in price. Leveraged speculation is extremely high risk and should be avoided by investors and savers. Proof of the lack of animal spirits in the silver marker is seen in the data which shows that speculative sentiment on the COMEX (as seen in the Commitment of Traders/ COT data – see chart below) is subdued. While the total silver ETF holdings increased to a record, they are not far above the levels seen in December 2010 (see chart above). Importantly, even at $41.30/oz the dollar value of the total silver ETF holdings remains very small at just over $20.5 billion. To put that number in perspective, today bankers put a prospective value of around $60 billion on Glencore, one of the world’s largest commodity trading companies. BP has set up a fund worth $20 billion to cover legal claims from the oil spill disaster.

Adrian Douglas submits: The latest LBMA clearing statistics (Feb 2011) reveal that the LBMA bullion bank members traded a total average net daily gold volume of 18.1 million ounces with a value of $24.8 billion. Some analysts have in the past estimated that the gross volume is likely to be 3-4 times the net volume giving potentially over 70 million ounces of gross gold trading worth 100 billion dollars. This would be equivalent to trading all the gold that is mined in world each year each and every day! Clearly the majority of this trading is unbacked by physical gold. The bullion banks only make a ledger entry for gold sold or bought and as long as the client never asks for delivery the bank never has to have the gold. I have through my studies indicated that probably 45 ounces of gold have been sold for each one that exists. The bullion banking business is very opaque but it struck me that if the members of the LBMA are collectively trading a net value of $6.2 trillion annually this should be laid out and explained in the bullion banks annual reports. In analyzing the Annual reports of the major bullion banks I made some astonishing discoveries. For most of these banks their bullion banking business is entirely hidden from the accounting. In the text there is almost no mention of gold, silver, bullion, or precious metals. In fact it is impossible to know that these banks are even in the bullion banking business let alone know anything about their trades, assets and liabilities. The only exception is Scotia Mocatta (see below). The bullion banking business is completely obscured from view in the annual reports. We know from our discussion that there should be revenues of $1.2 trillion annually be reported which would make the activity the largest activity in any of the banks, yet instead it is entirely missing! How could such trading and references to it be almost entirely absent from these reports?

Silver for immediate delivery has gained another 1.7% to $38.50 an ounce, the highest level since February 1980, the year silver reached a record of $50.35/oz. An ounce of gold bought as little as 37.32 ounces of silver in London today, the lowest level since September 1983. Silver has come out of backwardation and returned to contango with longer dated future prices again higher than nearer month contracts and spot for delivery (see table below). This suggests that default on the COMEX, as warned of by some analysts, is not imminent and the tightness seen in the physical silver market may have abated somewhat. However, the Dec12 contract trading at only cents over spot for delivery (less than 10 cents) suggests that tightness remains. Given the degree of tightness in the physical silver market, silver may return to backwardation sooner rather than later. The latest COT report shows speculative long positions, or bets prices will rise, outnumbered short positions by 37,139 contracts (see news and chart below). This is a level of net longs by hedge fund managers and other large speculators that was seen as long ago as 2002.

The very same banks that taxpayers bailed out, and saved from going completely belly up, are actually making consumers pay once again in the form of higher Oil prices, and the resultant higher gasoline prices at the pump

‘Poor man’s gold’ is set for a record nominal quarterly close which will be bullish technically and set silver up to target psychological resistance at $40/oz and then the nominal high of $50.35/oz . Silver’s record quarterly close was $32.20/oz on December 31st, 1979. While silver is up 22 percent this year and is heading for a ninth straight quarterly advance, its fundamentals remain very sound. With gold above its nominal record of 1980, poor man’s gold continues to be seen as offering better value. To the masses in India, China and Asia, silver is the cheap alternative to gold and an attractive store of value and hedge against inflation and debasement of paper currencies. Increasing global investment and industrial demand in the very small and finite silver bullion market is a recipe for higher prices. Thus, as we have long asserted the gold silver ratio is likely to revert to its long term average of 16 to 1. A return to a ratio of 16 to 1 is likely due to basic supply and demand and the geological fact that there are 16 parts of silver for every one part of gold in the earth’s crust.

Thus, to say that the US Dollar and debt system are broken would be the understatement of the century… However, the US Dollar has become a massively lopsided trade with investors betting heavily on its demise. When you consider its position relative to the Euro (another doomed currency), it is clear that the US Dollar could bounce just based on the lopsidedness of this situation.

The public comment period for the CFTC's proposed position limit rule has come and gone. It should come as no surprise to anyone (and particularly those transfixed by the massive surges in various commodities, among them most certainly gold and silver) that what is at stake here is not some actual position limit definition and subsequent regulation and enforcement (although that most certainly is), but yet another challenge to the klepocratic status quo which naturally prefers the status quo to remain as is, and public interests, which seeing 100% moves in the price of grain, cotton, corn, and other commodities, would obviously prefer to reign in speculative fervor. At the end of the day, Wall Street will find loopholes in whatever the end rule is as it always does, but the polemic on the way there is quite interesting. Which is why having combed through some of the last minute public comment submissions (of which there were 5,561 in total at last check), we present some of the most indicative ones: one the one hand that of Carl "Shitty Deal" Levin, Chair of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, who obviously is for the most prompt implementation of position limits as envisioned in Dodd Frank, and on the other hand institutional money managers and traders such as PIMCO, Morgan Stanley, the World Gold Council, and, naturally, Goldman Sachs (oddly, we have yet to track down the response by one JP Morgan). We present these for our readers' perusal below.

Well, we know at least one bank has some sizable, non-grandfatherable commodity block positions. Per Reuters:

• BARCLAYS SAYS CFTC SHOULD DEFER DECISIONS ABOUT NATURE AND EXTENT OF POTENTIAL LIMITS UNTIL AFTER IT COLLECTS NEW DATA ABOUT OTC MARKETS

Why Barclays thinks CFTC does not have data on OTC markets is beyond us. So while we await the CFTC to issue its decision on position limits, any minute now, we wonder just how many other banks (wink wink Blythe) will follow up with comparable objections demanding an "indefinite" delay to what may soon unleash true price discovery, particularly in the PM market. And incidentally, whatever happened to the Fed's mandated disclosure of the confidential bank rescue information. At what point will Ben Bernanke be held in contempt to court for not following the decision of the Superior Court?

There is always someone on the other side of a trade, of course: someone originated the option or futures, and someone sold the shares that someone else bought. The problem arises when a "can't lose" trade rolls over, then there are no longer enough buyers to offset the panicky, underwater sellers who are overleveraged via margin or other forms of debt. This is in effect what still plagues the U.S. housing market: there are still plenty of sellers in the wings, hoping to unload properties, and a dearth of buyers willing to gamble that "the bottom is in." Even worse, there is a dearth of buyers qualified to buy properties at today's prices. That will become even more of an issue as interest rates rise. As a reminder of how things can play out at real bottoms: in the depths of the 1930s Depression, a Manhattan skyscraper was sold for the original cost of its elevators. In other words, the rest of the building was "free." People talk about replacement cost as a metric of value in homes and buildings. In other words, this house can't drop much below $200,000 because it would cost that much to buy the lot and construct a replacement house. That is another thing "everyone knows to be true" that is actually not true at real bottoms. Stocks can end up trading for less than the cash the company is holding.

All those who are looking for a handy free, web-based resource providing the weekly CFTC Commitment of Trader update, one focusing on disaggregated Managed Money positions (not the Non-Commercial Speculative positions which Zero Hedge has traditionally followed), can now do so at the following Reuters site. Since commodities will certainly be an ever more important part of daily investing life, we urge everyone to get familiar with the weekly data release for speculative (the guys who will be blamed for price hikes) and commercial (the banks who will be doing the blaming and urging exchange margin hikes) accounts from the CFTC.

Here are some excerpts from an interview forwarded to me by Mr. Lars Schall of chaostheoren.de with oil expert F. William Engdahl. Whether you agree or disagree with Mr. Engdahl’s theories, his insight always presents perspectives given almost zero coverage by the mainstream media. Much of the fraudulent and deceptive practices of big global banks that Mr. Engdahl discusses regarding the oil markets can be extended to other commodity markets such as gold and silver.