COMEX Warehouse Stocks Mar 18, 2010

SILVER

ZERO ozs withdrawn from the dealer’s (registered) inventory
293,123 ozs deposited in the customer (eligible) inventory
Total dealer inventory 56.01 Mozs
Total customer inventory 61.44 Mozs
Combined Total 117.45 Mozs

GOLD

ZERO ozs withdrawn from the dealers (registered) category
712 ozs withdrawn from the customer (eligible) category
Total dealer inventory 1.67 Mozs
Total customer inventory 8.35 Mozs
Combined Total 10.02 Mozs

There was hardly any movement of gold. 0.29 Mozs of silver were deposited in the customer inventory. So far very little of the 19.1 Mozs of silver that is standing for delivery in March has left the dealers’ inventory.

There were no delivery notices issued in the MAR gold contract. The MAR gold contract total for the month is 508 notices or 50,800 ozs.

There were 46 delivery notices issued in the MAR silver contract. The total delivery notices for the month in silver stand at 3,814 or 19.1 Mozs.

Contango in gold and silver both fell sharply. There is $0.1 of contango in gold MAR/APR and $1.2 of contango for MAR/JUN. The contango MAR/APR in silver is 0.8 cents while for MAR/MAY contracts it is 1.5 cents. The open interest in the MAR gold contract INCREASED to 86 contracts, in silver it declined to stand at 331 contracts.

The Cartel is trying desperately to stop gold at $1125 and silver at $17.50. They appear so desperate that they are putting blood in the water and attracting sharks. Today was very constructive. Some deep pocketed longs may just want to see what happens above those heavily defended prices just for the hell of it! I suspect the issue they are grappling with is they don’t have enough silver; that is shortly to be compounded by not having enough gold because there are 218,000 contracts open for April…a mere 21 million ozs. Even if 90% of the contracts are rolled or sold the Cartel can not deliver 2.18 Million ozs of gold out of the dealer inventory! Looks like we have some fun approaching.
Cheers
Adrian