“The monetary authorities running the paper-money schemes of the present are anxious to forestall significant rises in the paper price of gold, because such rises would diminish confidence in the lasting value of the paper money in use today.” – Hugo Salinas Price
The price of gold was victimized by yet another raid on the Comex paper gold market on Friday. The pattern has been repetitive over the last 15-20 years: hedge funds push the price of gold higher accumulating a massive net long position in gold futures while the Comex bullion banks feed their appetite, building up a mirror-image large net short position.
A raid is implemented typically on a Friday after the rest of the world has shut down for the weekend. The Comex banks begin bombing the Comex with paper, which in turn sets-off hedge fund stop-losses set while the market is moving higher. This triggers a “flush” of hedge fund long positions which the banks use to cover short positions, booking huge profits.
As evidence, the preliminary Comex open interest report based on Friday’s activity shows the gold contract o/i dropped 14,316 contracts. For the week, gold contract o/i is down over 26,000 contracts representing 2.9 million ozs of paper gold. This is 8x the amount of “registered” – available for delivery – gold in the Comex gold warehouse. I call this “a Comex open interest liquidation raid” by the bullion banks. When the CFTC finally releases a COT report to reflect Comex trading activity for this past week, it will likely show a large drop in the net short position of the banks and a concomitant large drop in the hedge fund net long position.
Trump was out flogging the Fed on Friday for holding the dollar up with interest rates – interest rates that the he has declared “too high.” This likely signals a political campaign to drive the dollar lower, which will be bullish for gold.
Trevor Hall and I discuss on our Mining Stock Daily podcast why we believe the current sell-off in the price of gold will lead to higher prices. I also present a couple junior mining stocks I believe will be acquired in the escalating wave of gold mining company M&A transactions (click HERE to listen to the podcast.)