Mid-Week Gold & Silver Charts

As we barrel toward another fun-filled BLSBS Friday, I thought it was time to contemplate where we've been, where we are and where we're going.

Perhaps you've noticed a clear pattern this week of price suppression.

The obvious manipulative event of Monday where JPM dumped 7500 contracts onto the Comex. This blatant and overt attempt to drive price lower was later written off as a trading error. "Oops. I fat-fingered and entered 7500 instead of 750. My bad." This trimmed $15 from gold just as it was threatening a move to 1680 and, more importantly, made a Comex close over $1672 extremely unlikely. Why was $1672 so important? It would have turned the month of April green on the chart and helped further set the stage for a rally in May.
The less obvious but equally painful hammering of yesterday. After gold had rallied back from Monday's BS and was threatening, once again, to make a run at 1680, gold was struck for another $15 after the first release of a semi-positive economic number in weeks. Gold then struggled all day while stocks and crude oil surged.
Today, gold rallied after the ADP employment survey came in weaker than expected. ADP is often considered somewhat of a precursor for the BLSBS and gold surged back over $1660. What happened next? To the surprise of no one, gold promptly fell another $15.

Does anyone see a pattern here?

But, of course, it is what it is. If you're going to trade/stack gold and silver, you're likely used to this by now. The primary question is: Why? Why three, successive manipulation days on the Monday-Wednesday ahead of BLSBS day? To engineer a lower price ahead of the number? I'll guess we'll know soon enough.

Another question of importance is: How? How is The Cartel still so successful at pulling off these raids? It's simple, actually. They're the only ones left in the pit. Well, them and some robots. Volume is so light and trading is so thin that the primary action in paper metal right now is Cartel manipulation surrounded by HFT WOPRs trolling for stops to game. When there's no depth or "muscle" on the bid side of the trade, it makes The Cartel's job that much easier. I'm not saying that we're going to be stuck here forever, mind you. However, I am saying that patience is going to continue to be required from those trading paper, hoping for another big, sustained move to the upside.

That said, there is some reason for hope. Over the past week, the total open interest in gold appears to have bottomed...at least for now. It banged around for a few days under 400,000 but has since turned and is now comfortably back above 410,000. This interest and willingness to play in the casino is vital for liquidity and liquidity must return for paper gold to surge higher again. Let's watch to see if OI continues to expand in the coming days. IF the BLSBS is metal bullish on Friday, let's look for an accompanying surge in OI as confirmation of trend change.

Lastly and along those lines, this week's CoT promises to be very interesting. For the reporting week, gold rose in price by nearly $20 and total OI rose by nearly 16,000 contracts or over 4%. How that rise in OI is dispersed among market participants will go a long way toward helping determine whether liquidity is returning. In silver, a different picture emerges. For the week, silver was essentially unchanged in price yet total OI fell by 11,500 contracts or 10%! Who was buying and who was selling? How did the net ratios of the specs and the EE change within this 10% drop? Again, the answers will be very interesting.

Here are your charts. Ahead of the BLSBS, I expect tomorrow to be a choppy, rangebound day with most traders unwilling to make a commitment either way. We'll be left with the same nonsense as today where WOPRs bang around, trolling for stops. $1645-50 should continue to provide support in paper gold as there continues to be buying support in physical metal at those levels.

Silver tried to rally and break out above $31.40 after bouncing off of $30 late last week. No such luck. It seems to have pretty solid buying support between $30 and $30.50. Let's hope for a continuance of support at that level as we head toward Friday.