HKMex update:
And the plunge in open interest of over 50% in both gold and silver... this pattern has repeated a few times so far. Delivery is on the 15th, but I'm not as well versed in the delivery process with HKMex as at COMEX. Such a spike and immediate decline in open interest is very odd, though. The impression is that physical delivery is needed
immediately, for what purpose we can only speculate.
Because this pattern has occurred yet again, I'm going to fall back to the stronger possibility that large interests which have contractual obligations elsewhere (bullion banks) need metal from a source that has it readily available (China). This OI behavior is not indicative of explosive demand at the HKMex from wider investor awareness. However, if accurate, it would mean that physical gold demand is overwhelming paper and prices are extremely likely to escalate.
Continuing from the mechanism above, the second spike in silver OI might have been a rush to supply physical demand in order to allow the paper charade to "work its magic" - at this point it is glaringly clear that it ran out of "juice" and is unlikely to work again. Lower prices are the solution to lower prices, and as seen in the charts - if demand is indeed so much greater than it was during late 2011, efforts at managing perception have utterly failed.
Here's a suspicious bit of information:
COMEX delivery notices one day prior to the OI spike - Friday, June 8th - stood at 1,710 contracts or 171,000 toz of gold that must be delivered by month-end. As noted earlier, the COMEX equivalent of HKMex contracts was a little over 220,000 toz. Subtracting the "normal" OI of 871 contracts from the peak at 6,881 leaves 6,010 at 32 toz each, for a total of 192,320 toz. If we take the high of 6,881 contracts and pull the latest OI of 3,060 (which includes the 871 "normal" contracts), the remainder is 97,920 while the latest remaining COMEX delivery notices stand at 969 or 96,900 toz.
To drive the point of this rounding error across: HKMex
97,920 vs COMEX
96,900In silver COMEX delivery notices, 59 remained the day before the spike began, for 295,000 toz. The spike high of 1,704 less 134 "normal" contracts is 1,570 or 1,570,000 toz. That would cover the 295,000 toz notices remaining, as well as provide supply for July - a major delivery month for silver, unlike gold which has a major month come August. Following the calculations above, subtracting the latest OI from of 650 from the spike high leaves 1,054 contracts or 1,054,000 toz as delivery potential.
Coincidence? Almost exactly the right amount of gold ordered from one exchange to cover for another, while overshooting to prepare for a big delivery month in silver? Very possible, but the actual details may never come to light.
Explanations have been presented by others regarding similar shuffling and draining of various ETFs, including GLD, as well as what are supposed to be segregated holdings of physical precious metals at, up until now, reputable brick-and-mortar institutions. The phyzzz is being grabbed from every direction, and almost nobody will realize it's gone until there's virtually nothing left.