The Swiss referendum turned down the diversification of Swiss reserves into Gold. But in the background, there was something happening at the same time which was typically ignored. Ejaculating press did not miss the opportunity to remind everyone how rosy economic indicators were:

http://www.vcpost.com/articles/34286/20141206/gold-lending-rates-roar-back-jobs-data.htm

True, lease rates have declined:

http://www.kitco.com/charts/popup/au0030lr.html

But have a good look at lease rates over the long term, and you'll see that when lease rates are very low, or mildly negative, gold prices are in a bull market. If anything, lease rates are indicating a bottom in gold prices, as you would during a financial crisis

http://www.kitco.com/lease.chart.html

Looking just at lease rates, should they reverse and now resume their normal posture, then downward pressure in the gold market just saw the low. Although markets are in a very abnormal posture. For example, I mentioned that something was going on in the background behind the Swiss referendum, which was typically being ignored:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-11-24/snb-pressure-builds-as-libor-approaches-zero-chart-of-the-day.html

The Swiss turned down the referendum because they want to enter the global race to the bottom for currencies and seriously entertain negative LIBOR rates.

The Japanese banking sector is amongst the biggest player in gold derivatives, and are probably behind the volatility skew. They are also attempting to price in negative rates. So far, you have the RBI, the JCB, and the Swiss central bank putting their shoulders to the wheel against the gold price, although import restrictions have been lifted in India, probably because the jewellery market has very little net effect, and the Rupee crisis no longer blamed on gold. The ECB is also pricing in negative rates, but he dropped the idea of buying gold. The world's central banks along with the dumping of ETF holdings and central planning in the form of gold derivatives have not sufficed to engineer the demonetization of gold.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-12-04/inside-look-shocking-role-gold-new-normal

Jay Taylor had a good discussion about the LBMA and the meaning of backwardation. Notable to the discussion was marketable securities, how you can use them as a way of short selling gold. GBN.V is involved in selling marketable securities.

http://www.safehaven.com/article/36031/lbma-implosion-by-reversal-of-its-own-gold-leverage

So let's get real. Backwardation happens when the spot price is above the longest dated futures price. There's still a lot of headroom in the spread:

http://quotes.ino.com/charting/index.html?s=NYMEX_GC.G15_M20.E&v=dmax&t=l&a=0&w=1

Gold/Silver Weekly

GBN.V share prices advance when silver prices advance against gold, At the very least we are at another technical buy point. Though the trend is still up for gold prices against silver.:

http://scharts.co/1bZ1HW5

-F6