The report below comes courtesy of the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee (GATA).

“Market analyst Paul Mylchreest, who wrote the 2006 report for Credit Agricole’s Cheuvreux brokerage house concluding that the gold market was being manipulated surreptitiously by central banks and, the following year, a similar report for Redburn Partners, has revisited the gold market in a study for his own analysis service, the Thunder Road Report.

“Mylchreest examines the gold traded in the world’s biggest gold market, London, and concludes that either a tiny amount of real metal is supporting a spectacular volume of paper trades, “an accident waiting to happen”, or else that the world’s gold supply is spectacularly larger than officially acknowledged and the London gold market has been used in recent years to launder questionably obtained gold, perhaps the fabled “Yamashita’s gold” plundered from Asia by the Japanese military during

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Once again, gold and silver mirrored each other’s price moves all through Thursday trading around the world. The high in the Far East in both metals was about 3:30 p.m. in Hong Kong…and from there, the trend was down. This trend picked up some steam about 10:00 a.m. in London and continued to accelerate to the down-side right through the Comex open. But around 8:45 a.m. in New York, gold and silver found a savior, as both metals turned on a dime…with gold picking up a hair over $20…and silver up 66 cents…from bottom-to-top during Comex trading.

It was all too good to last of course, as once the Comex floor traders went their merry ways, electronic trading took some of those gains back. However, both metals finished in the plus column yesterday…but gold just barely made it…up a whopping 40 cents!

I’ve commented before [several times over the last couple of

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The tiny double bottom that occurred shortly after the close of Comex trading on Wednesday afternoon may have been the low in gold for this move. Both were ever so slightly below $900. From there, gold rose gradually until about an hour after the London a.m. gold fix on Thursday morning. Then it declined gently until shortly after the London p.m. fix was in. From there, away it went…until a not-for-profit seller showed up in after-hours Globex trading in New York and capped the little price spike that occurred at 3:30 p.m. New York time.

click to enlarge

Silver’s antics were the same as gold’s, although the price action was more exaggerated. Silver began to rise once the London a.m. gold fix was in…then declined until shortly after the London p.m. fix…and then, it too, was off to the

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It’s a recession but Byron King tells us that it is not too late for gold investing.  He has been encouraging gold bugs for over ten years now. Here he explains why owning gold and silver is the safest way to weather out this economic storm.

This from Byron:

Asset classes go up and down. Precious metals are, of course, another asset class. They move with the economic tides. In the past 30 years, gold has rocketed up and plummeted down.

At several points in the past 30 years, things were so bad that gold sellers were like the proverbial Maytag repairman. They led lives of quiet desperation about which no one cared. Because like the late Rodney Dangerfield, gold got no respect.

Heck, between 1999-2002, the British government sold a large amount of its national gold, nearly 395 tonnes (metric tons), for about $275 per ounce. The Bank of England used the

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Silver; Past, Present, Future Ted Butler

(Editor’s Note: The following is a speech delivered to the attendants of the Phoenix Silver Summit 2009, which took place over the weekend. - JSB)

Good afternoon and thank you for being here. It’s an honor to get to speak with so many interested in silver, especially at such an interesting time in history. I’m going to ramble a bit, and try not to get too detailed and save some time for questions where you can get specific.

I’d like to acknowledge a few people who are not here that had an awful lot to do with me being here today. First, I’d like to thank Jim Cook, from Investment Rarities in Minneapolis, for his

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Interesting read. Ted Butler is saying that all of the big long contract holders of silver have been intentionally squeezed out.

COT Extremes

By: Theodore Butler

– Posted 2 December, 2008

It’s been a while since I have commented in detail about the Commitment of Traders Report (COT), since there have been other issues to be discussed. Plus, I know many find the topic confusing. However, there have been some recent developments that should be reviewed.

Long-time readers know that I have studied and written about the COTs for years. I find the report invaluable. This weekly report from the CFTC tells us who has been buying or selling in all U.S. futures and options on futures. The reports don’t tell us the “who” by name, but offer three broad trader categories - large commercial, large non-commercial, and non-reportable. The two large categories must report their positions to the CFTC on essentially a daily basis,

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Like many people, I have been looking at the price disparity between the market prices of gold and silver bullion (averaging about $1,000 an ounce for gold and $16.50 an ounce for silver) versus the prices of gold and silver futures (about $730 and $8.90 respectively).

I am thinking to myself that I would love to get a piece of that luscious arbitrage action where I buy the gold and/or silver futures at a low price while simultaneously selling the same gold and/or silver bullion at a higher price, telling the buyers that they must pay in advance and then wait up to a few months for me deliver their gold and silver, pocketing a hell of a lot of money on the buy-sell spread and the interest the money earns until the futures contract matures so that I can take delivery and settle up, and then spend the rest of

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The top for the gold price, in early morning Far East trading on Tuesday, was shortly after midnight last night…Eastern time…which is lunch time in Hong Kong. From there, it followed its usual path from upper left to lower right…with the low being at the close of regular business on the Comex in New York yesterday.

Silver was an entirely different animal, with a mind all its own. It took off right from the Globex open in the Far East on Tuesday. Its top was in at the Hong Kong open…which is 8:30 a.m. over there. Then, it too, was taken down…particularly at the Comex open. But then it rallied smartly, and the price had to be restrained a couple of times, as it went either parabolic…or vertical…on more than one occasion. However, it was not allowed to close on its highs. Volume was mediocre in both metals yesterday…but a little

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You are an investor in physical metal and like Marty of “Back to the Future II” you have stumbled into a nightmare world of $10.00 and whatever cents silver (you may have bought back when it was $15-$20 and thought you were doing well) wondering how can you change this distorted world to a peaceful “Hill valley” of the movie and a reality of honest pricing.

Biff / Griff Tannen aka the SEC/CFTC (Securities exchange commission and Commodity Futures Trade Commission) should look like this picture of a nice old chap that cleans your car and keeps the house in order. Not unreasonable given its position of watchdog to the markets.

Instead its accusers of late charge it with sitting in a Jacuzzi laughing at all of us who have invested in

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Before sending me an e-mail telling me I am wrong, let me admit it!! I am WRONG -- silver is not the only asset that is not someone else's liability. But some of the staunchest "Gold Bugs" have it wrong and insist that gold is the only asset. In fact, fully-owned lumber or land or even an apple orchard are assets, and again, if owned outright would be an asset without a liability. Before moving on, I must digress and point out that silver is the ONLY asset that reflects light better than any other element the ONLY asset that conducts heat better than any other element the ONE asset, more than even gold, used as money -- for longer periods of time and by more people throughout world history The real rub is how silver will do in times of financial stress. Certainly we can look to history ...