GATA To Sell 191 Tonnes of IMF Gold

Gold's low of the day [around $1,102 spot] on Wednesday was moments after Globex trading began at 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday night... about an hour before the Sydney open on their Thursday morning. And, despite a rising dollar, gold managed to tack on about five bucks by 1:00 p.m. in Hong Kong... which was midnight in New York. Gold kept rising, albeit slowly, right up until the Comex open at 8:15 a.m. in New York. Gold rallied immediately and strongly... only to run into resistance almost at once... and every rally attempt in New York trading from that point on, was obviously squashed... with the absolute high tick [$1,119.40 spot] coming at 9:30 a.m. Eastern time. And, as they say, it was all down hill from there.

Silver's low price tick [around $17.24 spot] was the same as gold's... at the beginning of Globex trading in the Far East... where only the New York bullion banks are allowed to play. From that point, the price added a dime up until 3:00 p.m. in Hong Kong... before accelerating upwards in price right through the London open. But that was basically it for silver for the rest of Wednesday. Silver made it to about $17.53 spot at the London open... and, except for its high price spike of the day [$17.65 spot] at 10:45 a.m. in New York... silver wasn't allowed to get close to the $17.60 mark for the rest of the day. The graph tells all.

As I mentioned in my column yesterday, the dollar hit its zenith at precisely midnight Tuesday night, with the absolute low tick around 12:30 p.m. in New York, twelve and a half hours later. From top to bottom, the U.S. dollar slid about 78 basis points... over three quarters of a cent. The precious metals price action in response to that was pretty tepid... but the bullion banks capped silver at the London open, and gold shortly after the New York open... so it's hard to tell what gold and silver would have really done if 'da boyz' hadn't been there. Since that dollar bottom at 12:30 p.m. Eastern time yesterday afternoon, the dollar has mostly traded within 10 basis points of 81 cents.

The stocks didn't do a lot... as most of the metals price action that mattered occurred before the equity markets opened in New York. I was happy that they didn't sell off more than they did as the day wore on. The HUI finished up 1.20%.

Final CME volume for Tuesday showed 175,652 gold contracts traded... with over 120,000 switches... so real volume was tiny. Gold's total open interest fell 3,163 contracts to 466,678 contracts. April's open interest fell 24,515 contracts to 15,354 contracts... and will have fallen further by the time the preliminary numbers for Wednesday are out... minus all deliveries as well. Silver's volume was 36,274 contracts... and open interest rose 765 contracts. All this will be in Friday's Commitment of Traders report.

Wednesday's Delivery Report from the CME showed that 2,756 gold and 19 silver contracts are posted for delivery on Monday, April 5th. The list of the big issuers and stoppers in gold [like yesterday] reads like a 'who's who' of the gold manipulation world. Only HSBC USA didn't put in an appearance. This report is also very much worth running through... and the link to the pdf file is here.

The U.S. Mint, which had obviously been withholding sales data for most of March, showed monstrous increases in sales of both gold and silver eagles. One ounce gold eagle sales jumped by 37,500 to end the month at 102,000. In silver eagles, the mint reported selling a gargantuan 1,481,000 to end March with total sales of 3,381,000. Year-to-date/end of quarter figures for both are as follows: One-ounce gold eagle sales... 271,000. Silver eagle sales... 9,023,500. The silver eagles sales for the first quarter of 2010 was the best single quarter ever in the history of silver eagles program... which started back in November of 1986... almost 25 years ago.

There were no changes reported in either GLD or SLV yesterday... but over at the Comex-approved depositories, they reported taking 598,332 ounces of silver into their inventories... most of which went into Brinks, Inc.

I have a lot of high quality stories today... and, without question, everything here is a must read. If you can't read them all this instant, I urge you to return to this commentary during the long weekend [you may have to fish it out of the archives by then] and give these stories the time they deserve.

Firstly is a GATA release from late last night. The headline reads "Sophisticated Attack Disables King World News site for 2 hours"... On Monday, their servers were hacked, and part of CFTC whistle-blower Andrew Maguire's interview was erased. Then yesterday evening [Eastern time] there was this cyber-attack on the entire server "grid" system that King World News is part of. Like I've said several times in the last week... you can't make this stuff up. The link is here.

Even Dennis Gartman had comments about Andrew Maguire's statement that GATA chairman Bill Murphy read at the CFTC's hearings about precious metals position limits last Thursday. Here's a quote from The Gartman Letter yesterday morning... "Turning firstly to the precious metals, the markets are taking into consideration the reports of “confirmed” manipulation in the gold and silver market. These reports circulate in the precious metals markets from time to time, and we have, over the years, always taken exception to what the conspiratorialists and the GATA people have to say in this regard. However, this time the reports… in a series of e-mails from one gentleman to the CFTC… have a sense of responsibility to them, allowing us to be more concerned about such activities than we have been in the past. If nothing else, the CFTC’s commissioners should investigate the allegations being made and do what they can to squelch them."

Dennis Gartman appeared on Canada's Broadcast News Network yesterday as well... and his commentary quoted above was front and center of the interview. The headline of the GATA release reads "Yikes! On BNN, Gartman acknowledges evidence of precious metals manipulation". Chris Powell's preamble to the story is worth the read as well... and the link is here.

In another GATA release yesterday is a story from the Daily Mail in London. The headline reads "Deceit, secrecy surround British gold sales as records are pried loose". The story is a must read... as is the preamble by Chris Powell. The GATA release is linked here.

Over at zerohedge.com... Tyler Durdan, aka Dan Ivandjiiski, the hero of Zero [Hedge], mused last night about the lying and obfuscation about gold reserves on both sides of the Atlantic. The most relevant question in the gold world now, Durdan writes, may be "just how much of the alleged U.S. gold holdings of 8,133.5 tonnes is actually real." The Zero Hedge commentary is headlined "UK Treasury Releases FOIA On Gordon Brown's 1998 Gold Sale, Catches Tony Blair Lying, Questions US Treasury's Good Delivery Standards" and the link to this story is here.

I have three non-gold stories for you now... and they're all worth your time. The first one is about Commercial Mortgage Backed Securities. It's another posting over at zerohedge.com... and bears the headline "March Records Fastest Ever CMBS Delinquency Deterioration In History According To TREPP". The figures for March CMBS delinquencies are now available... and they're ugly... and going to get much uglier. I thank Russian reader Alex Lvov for bringing it to my attention in the wee hours of this morning... and the link is here.

Here's a story from Monday's edition of The New York Times. It's another piece on how desperate things have become at the state level. Even I was surprised at the tactics that some states are using. The headline reads "Payback Time: State Debt Woes Grow Too Big to Camouflage". I thank California reader Joseph Weiler for sending it along... and the link is here.

Well, dear reader, you've heard the story about the PIIGS... Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain... plus a whole raft of other European countries, Britain included. In a Bloomberg piece from yesterday comes this ugly story about Ireland's banks. “Our worst fears have been surpassed,” Finance Minister Brian Lenihan said in the parliament in Dublin yesterday. “Irish banking made appalling lending decisions that will cost the taxpayer dearly for years to come.” The headline reads "Irish Banks Need $43 Billion on ‘Appalling’ Lending". I thank reader Scott Pluschau for sharing this with us... and the link is here.

Today's last offering is the headline to today's commentary. In a press release filed in the early hours of this morning comes the surprise announcement that the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee [GATA] will be selling 191 tonnes of gold. This has been in the planning stages for a while. The headline of the GATA press release reads "GATA will sell 191 tonnes of gold on IMF's terms but $100/oz cheaper". The story is linked here.

Everyone wants to live at the expense of the state. They forget that the state wants to live at the expense of everyone. - Frédéric Bastiat

I wasn't impressed with yesterday's action in the precious metals, as it was obvious that the New York bullion banks weren't going to allow either gold and silver to go anywhere during the Comex trading session. It appeared, at least to me, that the bullion banks were going short against all longs once again... so I'm expecting open interest to increase in both metals when the final figures are posted later this morning.

The preliminary volume in gold trading yesterday was reported as 118,775 contracts, which isn't a lot. Silver's volume was 34,835 contracts.

The dollar hasn't changed much since its low at 12:30 p.m. Wednesday afternoon in New York... and it's now 5:03 a.m. Eastern time on Thursday morning. I'm not expecting a lot of dollar volatility now that the Easter long weekend is upon us.

But, having said all that, I see that both gold and silver spiked up at the usual 3:00 a.m. Eastern time slot... which is 4:00 p.m. Thursday afternoon in Hong Kong. London opened shortly after that... and within a few minutes, one of the not-for-profit sellers was there to put out those fires. Silver's price action looked particularly impressive, as the price went vertical before it was capped. Now all is calm... for the moment.

Volume in gold is sitting around 15,000 contracts traded in June... with silver's volume at 4,500 contracts for May. Those numbers were a lot lower than that an hour prior... and only jumped when the not-for-profit seller showed up to snuff out the 3:00 a.m. price spikes.

I'm not sure at this moment if I'll even have a commentary on Friday... or Saturday... as the Casey Research offices may be closed. I'll try to talk their resident computer expert into posting another commentary this weekend... if she's not going to be out of town. I'll plead my case with her after I get some sleep.

But, in case my pleas fall on deaf ears... I wish you, dear reader, a safe and happy Easter long weekend.