Precious Metals

As the price of precious metals that is eschewed daily by status-quo-hugging talking-heads on business media as indicative of the days of hard money being over continues to come under 'pressure', demand for physical gold remains extremely high. With India's festive season about to begin, The Hindustan Times reports a massive surge in gold smuggling in the last 10 days as heavy demand for gold during Dussehra (for which booking and supply starts today when Navratri begins) has dragged 50 tonnes of gold across the borders to avoid the government's capital controls.

* Where is Venezuela's 366 tonnes of gold?
* Does Venezuela still control and own unencumbered it’s own gold reserves?
* Is any of the country's gold encumbered, loaned or leased to Goldman Sachs or other banks?
 

Day after day, the status-quo hugging, momentum-chasing talking heads that infest the world of investing will pile their clients' money into 'what is working' with little regard for 'value', risk (as defined by Howard Marks), or business uncertainty. Precious metals are sliding so 'sell' anything related to the precious metals industry. Biotech and software are surging so buy it all with both hands and feet... However, as the following two charts from Harvard Business Review suggest that strategy is in fact the absolute 'riskiest' approach to managing money as they break down the most (and least) uncertain industries in America.

When the blood is flowing in the streets...

EURUSD is back under 1.28 (for the first time since July 2013) as sustained USD demand since around 845ET has driven the USD Index up to fresh 4-year highs. Bonds are not reacting much to this significant move (for now) but stocks are pushing to the lows of the day as carry-induced euphoria is failing fast. Precious metals are sliding led by Silver.

Despite or maybe because of the recent bout of price weakness, gold and silver American eagle coin sales from the U.S. Mint have picked up significantly from last month. Smart money continues to accumulate bullion when prices are pushed lower.

China is slowly moving to dominate the global gold market and it is important to join the dots regarding a few key recent developments in China relating to gold. When the International Board of the Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE) was launched last Thursday September 18 during an evening trading session, it was notable that the first transactions were put through by a diverse group comprising HSBC, MKS (Switzerland), and the Chinese banks,  ICBC, Bank of China and Bank of Communications.  One encouraging factor about the SGE and the SGE international platform is that there is a lot of physical gold flowing through the Exchange. Therefore, price discovery is not just based on an inverted pyramid of mostly unallocated gold as in London or mostly cash-traded futures paper gold as in New York.

Gold prices are up around 1.5% from last night's close. Here's why...

European stocks, U.S. equity index futures fall after Euro area PMI for Aug. missed ests., while bond yields for German, Spanish, U.K. debt fall. Copper rises with positive Chinese PMI data, while oil gains as OPEC discusses output cut. European health care stocks among largest underperformers as U.S. plans tighter rules on tax inversion M&A.

Markets are very active in the early Asian trading session (following the G-20-'s warnings over excess risk-taking). Precious metal liquidations continue with silver bearing the brunt (back below pre-Lehman levels) and gold down modestly. Stocks from China to US are all down notably too. The USD is weakening as EUR strengthens on the back of ECB comments about the possibility of no more stimulus and chatter that the PBOC may be selling USDs. Treasury yields are down (having retraced all FOMC losses). Iron Ore futures in Singapore just hit a record low below $80.

The London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) is quietly planning its new gold fix in a desperate attempt to maintain the status quo ... Queen Elizabeth Surveys Gold Bars in Bank of England Vaults

With precious metals back at 4-year lows against a backdrop of gold migration from west to east, paper vs physical divergences, 'disappearing' Comex positions, dark pools in London, collateral grabs, and massive monetary policy extremist actions; we thought the following two presentations worth considering. Tocqueville's John Hathaway delves into the darker corners of today's gold markets while Mike Maloney reminds us of the big picture behind gold and silver as wealth insurance. The failure of a monetary system is never a smooth road - it is rocky and undulating, with twists and turns that don't appear on any map. But the destination is always without question, despite suppression efforts: Gold will inevitably respond to an expanding fiat currency supply. That simple.

If you said shares of BABA, you'd be wrong. According to the Telegraph, the exodus out of paper wealth and into hard assets is reaching a fever pitch as the "super-rich are looking to protect their wealth through buying record numbers of "Italian job" style gold bars, according to bullion experts." The numbers cited by the paper are impressive: the number of 12.5kg gold bars being bought by wealthy customers has increased 243% so far this year, when compared to the same period last year, said Rob Halliday-Stein founder of BullionByPost. "These gold bars are usually stored in the vaults of central banks and are the same ones you see in the film 'The Italian Job'," added David Cousins, bullion executive from London based ATS Bullion.

As gold and silver prices tumble to multi-year lows, an odd thing is happening in the 'paper' precious metals ETF markets. Demand remains high for silver ETF exposure as 'someone' is aggressively unwinding gold ETF positions.. and yet the prices for both are falling rapidly. It appears the retail investor is taking advantage of the lower prices in silver to accumulate additional exposure as Credit Suisse notes, "the perception is that silver will do well, and should outperform gold as the economic recovery strengthens," adding that "belief in silver’s dual properties, as a financial asset and also as an industrial metal, appears to remain strong."

Precious metals are under pressure once again this morning led by Silver which just hit its lowest since August 2010. It appears investors are liquidating precious metals to make room in their 'safe haven' portfolio for precious Ma's Alibaba IPO... because what could go wrong there... (Russell 2000 is also seeing notable liquidation)