Backwardation

"A backwardated (downward sloping) gold forward curve is very unusual. This is an indicator of how strong physical demand is, i.e. spot is bid up relative to forward prices due to strong demand for immediate delivery of gold." - JP Morgan

Gold analysts are the most bullish in five months according to Bloomberg. Thirteen analysts surveyed by Bloomberg expect prices to rise next week, four were bearish and five neutral, the highest proportion of bulls since March 8. 

If the physical gold market is anywhere near as tight as these two market observers indicate, get ready for some serious fireworks in the precious metals markets... "After this drop [in price] we have 90 days order logbook. So we cannot fill the demand we have at this stage."

Sales of silver coins by the U.S. Mint have set a record high in the first half of 2013 seeing the best start to a year ever. 

Year to date Silver Eagle sales are at 30.3 million, a record pace that was supported by soaring July sales. Silver Eagle sales had a record year in 2011. That year, it took until September 21, 2011, to reach above 30 million in sales for the year.

Therefore, 2013 looks set to be a record year for Silver Eagle sales.

Greed; corporate arrogance; lobbying influence; excessive leverage; accounting tricks to hide debt; lack of transparency; off balance sheet obligations; mark to market accounting; short-term focus on profit to drive compensation; failure of corporate governance; as well as auditors, analysts, rating agencies and regulators who were either lax, ignorant or complicit. This laundry list of causes has often been used to describe what went wrong in the credit crunch crisis of 2008-2010. Actually these terms were equally used to describe what went wrong with Enron more than twenty years ago. Both crises resulted in what at the time was the biggest bankruptcy in U.S. history — Enron in December 2001 and Lehman Brothers in September 2008. Naturally, this leads to the question that despite all the righteous indignation in the wake of Enron's failure did we really learn or change anything?

Excessive monetary stimulus and low interest rates create financial bubbles. This is the biggest debt bubble in history. It is a potent deflationary force and central banks are forced into deploying increasingly aggressive (offsetting) inflationary forces. The avoidance of a typical deflationary resolution to this economic long (Kondratieff) wave is pushing the existing monetary system beyond the point of no return. The purchasing power of the developed world’s currencies will have to bear the brunt of the “adjustment”. Preparations for this by the BRICS nations, led by China, are advancing rapidly. The end game is an inflationary/currency crisis, dislocation across credit and derivative markets, and the transition to a new monetary system. A new “basket” currency is likely to replace the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. The “Inflationary Deflation” paradox refers to the coming rise in the price of almost everything in conventional money and simultaneous fall in terms of gold.

Any backwardation in gold at all is serious. Recently, a related phenomenon has occurred: the GOFO rate has gone negative.

Gold surged over 3% yesterday due to what appears to be have been significant short covering due to concerns about gold backwardation and the continual haemorrhaging of gold inventories from the COMEX.

Concerns about a default on the COMEX, once the preserve of a few observant market watchers, are becoming more widespread  as we appear to be witnessing a run on the highly leveraged bullion banking system.

Very robust physical demand from the Middle East, Asia and particularly China and a decline in the dollar also helped prices log their biggest one-day gain in over a year and their first close above $1,300 an ounce in nearly five weeks.

Gains in silver futures, meanwhile, outpaced gold’s rise, with silver surging 5%.

The world can only build so much storage to store extra supply; at some point demand has to eat up this extra supply.

Recent dramatic declines in gold prices and strong redemptions from physical ETFs (such as the GLD) have been interpreted by the financial press as indicating the end of the gold bull market. Conversely, our analysis of the supply and demand dynamics underlying the gold market does not support this interpretation. As we have shown in previous articles, the past decade has seen a large discrepancy between the available gold supply and sales. Many recent events suggest that the Central Banks are getting close to the end of their supplies and that the physical market for gold is becoming increasingly tight. The recent sell-off was all orchestrated to increase supply and tame demand. We believe that central planners are now running out of options to suppress the gold price. After taking a pause, the secular gold bull market is set to continue.

One of the better exchanges today, discussing a topic near and dear to Bernanke's heart - gold:

• BERNANKE SAYS GOLD `IS AN UNUSUAL ASSET'
• BERNANKE SAYS SOME SEE GOLD AS DISASTER INSURANCE
• BERNANKE SAYS `NOBODY REALLY UNDERSTANDS GOLD PRICES'
• BERNANKE: GOLD MAY BE LOWER ON LESS CONCERN OF EXTREME OUTCOMES

Or, even simpler, gold may be lower on more paper gold sellers than paper buyers. In the meantime, gold continues to be in backwardation, but that too "nobody really understands" Bernanke would likely attest.

The last two weeks oil inventories fell by a record 20 million barrels, this event has never happened in 30 years of historical data.  Something just doesn`t add up here...

Gold is little changed near a one-week high, and is marginally higher in dollars as the dollar has retreated from a three-year high, and higher in most currencies. The gold market continues to digest the ramifications of gold borrowing costs surging to the highest since the post-Lehman Brothers scramble for gold bullion. Gold Forward Offered Rates (GOFO) or the cost to borrow gold remains negative and overnight the 1 month GOFO has gone from -0.106% to -0.11167%. Other durations eased marginally. The lack of liquidity in the the interbank London Good Delivery gold market (400 ounce gold bars) has pushed gold forward rates, known as “gofo”, into negative territory, meaning that gold for future delivery is trading at a discount to physical market prices – a rare situation that has occurred only after the Lehman Brothers collapse and near the bottom of the gold market in 1999. The last time forwards were negative was in November 2008, when a scramble for physical gold led a sharp price rally of 46% from $682/oz to over $1,000/oz between October 2008 and February 2009.

Yesterday we described the historic inversion in the Gold Forward Offered Rate, where the 1 and 3 Month GOFO rates sliding into negative territory for the first time since 2008 and 1999 respectively. Today, using the latest LBMA rate update, we observe that the gold backwardation is accelerating, and now the 6 Month GOFO has also joined the complex into sub-zero territory.