The Sunday Evening Post

Since Monday is a U.S. market holiday, I'm hoping to sleep in. To put my mind at ease, I thought I should take the unusual step of typing up this Sunday evening post.

The challenging part of posts like this is figuring out where to start and how to put it together in some type of logical structure. Hmmmm. Well, I...Uhhhh... Aw, screw it.

Let's start with the two videos. First, here's a short one from CNBC where the "talent" discusses the German Gold Hijinx and actually questions whether or not "the gold is actually there". Holy cow! Talk like this must drive the paper bugs crazy. http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?play=1&video=3000142033 [1]

A more coherent and helpful video on the topic comes to us from the inimitable Max Keiser. (Gee, I wonder if he'd have me on if I ever make it over to London? That sounds like fun!) In this episode, Max and Stacy discuss The Hijinx as well as a number of other issues near and dear to the hearts of Turdville.

Our old pal, Trader Dan, has become a regular contributor over at KWN and, in this latest installment, he discusses the silver market and the short term likelihood of this rally extending UP toward $34 and beyond. You'll definitely want to read this: http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2013/1/20_Something_Substantial_Has_Just_Changed_In_The_Silver_Market.html [2]

And here's something that I've been bitching about forever...The Globex. Simply put, it has become nearly criminal that "electronic trading" is permitted during times of non-existent, global liquidity. If I had my way, I'd eliminate this 24-our trading nonsense as it clearly gives an unfair advantage to the manipulators, who care very little about price and execution.

For fun(?), here's a sample of something I wrote over two years ago, on the afternoon of a particularly nasty and unfair Globex raid. http://tfmetalsreport.blogspot.com/2010/12/ok-now-im-pissed.html [3]

I bring this up now because of what I saw last week. On Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, it was quite clear that some variation of the same HFT algo was running down the price of gold on the Globex. Without this intervention, gold might have been as much as $20 higher at week's end. Little-by-little, drip-by-drip, the "managed ascent" continues. All the while, the little guy who is simply interested in financial protection, gets screwed and robbed.

You may recall that last month Paul Coghlan hosted a free webinar to tout his charting services and the entire Coghlan Capital site. It was so well-attended and well-received hat he has decided to do another. It is scheduled for this coming Wednesday and you can register by clicking this link: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/499274952 [4]

And then there's this article that I found at ZH. The author claims that high margins are killing silver. That's interesting, I suppose, though open interest totals don't necessarily bear that out. I mean, they sort of do. If you go back to the heady days of spring 2011, the total open interest was about what it is now. What's slightly different is the Large Spec category. On 2/22/11 for instance, the Large Specs were long 51,000, short 11,700 and spreading 26,430. As of last week, they were long 38,000, short 9,000 and spreading 29,000. So, I don't know if this article is overly helpful but here it is anyway: http://www.econmatters.com/2013/01/high-margin-requirements-are-killing.html [5]

The topic of open interest leads me to last week's CoT. I'll spare you all the usual gory details and simply highlight this: The Silver Commercial gross long position continues to grow, up another 1,360 just last week. As has been the trend, this commercial buying interest is prohibiting JPM from covering at their usual pace and is a clear "civil war" within The Cartel. Looking for a bullish signal? Chew on this: The current Commercial gross long position is 46,337. This is the highest it has been since the 47,797 we saw on....8/14/12...right before price exploded from $28 to $36 over the next 6 weeks.

Lastly, here are some charts for you to consider as we get ready for another week.

OK, I'll think I'll stop there because, if I do, I'll be able to catch the end of the NE-Baltimore game. If you're wondering why I've been typing instead of watching...let's just say that having San Francisco win by 4 instead of 5 sort put my fire out, if you get my drift.

Anyway, have a great Monday and get ready for the rest of the week. It should be pretty wild and crazy.