Remember these are just one class of the former or traditional category known collectively as “commercial,” but the Producer/Merchant/Processor/Users are considered the biggest dogs in the COMEX gold and silver “pound” and we believe they operate under the largest of the exemptions to position size and accountability limits.  The exemptions to trading size limits are currently granted by the futures exchanges under rules promulgated by the U.S. regulators, including the CFTC.        

To put numbers with the graph above, in the May 4 COT report (one reporting week ago), the Producer/Merchant category showed a net short position of 187,619 contracts.  In this most recent May 11 report, they reported a net short position of 216,753 contracts, an increase of 29,134 contracts.

Contrast that with the positioning of the “other commercials,” the Swap Dealer category, which reported a net short position on May 4 of 83,670 contracts (net of spreads) and now of 65,891 contracts net short, a reduction of 17,779 contracts of their collective net short positioning. 

So as the biggest of the big paper-gold selling dogs were increasing their net short positioning on the COMEX gold futures market, as of this past Tuesday, the swap dealers, the somewhat less big dogs, opted to decrease their net short positioning (net of spreads) – and by a fair amount too, by 17,779 contracts.   

While the Producer/Merchant commercials are now at an all time high net short position for gold (as a distinct group) the Swap Dealers are now, believe it or not, 51,475 contracts LESS net short than they were on December 1, 2009 when they reported being net short 117,366 contracts with the open interest then 521,433 open, and gold trading then at $1,196.36.  Incidentally the Producer/Merchants (PMs) were 190,865 contracts net short on December 1.  The PMs previous record high net short position was on November 24, 2009 at 203,078 contracts.  

The December 1 report is a key period because it was just prior to the most recent gold correction.  December 1, 2009 was also when the swap dealers were at their highest net short positioning in our records.    During that period, (and just before that gold correction), both the Producer/Merchant and Swap Dealer categories of commercial traders held very high, near record net short positions.  Indeed from our observation point of view one could say they “agreed” in their expectations for lower gold prices if we can make such an assumption based on their respective positioning.    

Yesterday we posted our Got Gold Report - COT Flash for May 14, which uses the traditional COT reporting – the report which combines the producer/merchant and swap dealers into a single category.  With the producer/merchants adding roughly 29,000 new net short positions and the swap dealers actually covering or offsetting just under  18,000 contracts, the traditional COT report ends up showing a net commercial addition of about 11,000 contracts net short.

Below is the pertinent graph from that report showing the collective combined net short positioning of all the COMEX commercial traders for reference. 

Since gold had just printed a new all time high close ($1,232.66) with this May 11 report, many analysts expected the collective combined commercial net short positioning (the LCNS) to be at or near a record nominal high.  Indeed it was a bit of a shocker for some that it didn’t.  Now, perhaps, we understand why it didn’t.  This past week the swap dealer commercials seem to have broken ranks from the producer/merchants doing pretty much the opposite of them on a net basis.

Take another look at the first two graphs and one can easily see that contrary to the way these two distinct groups of commercial traders acted in November/December of 2009 (just before the gold correction then), as of Tuesday their expectations for lower gold prices seem to have diverged, at least somewhat.  

In Texas English:  The big, exemption-wielding bullion banks were still selling lots of paper gold futures this past COT reporting week, but the “other commercials” were doing the opposite on a net basis.  In short, they are NOT in agreement this time.  At least not yet.

The CFTC also reports spreading positions (basically offsetting long and short positions) for the swap dealers, but not for the producer/merchants.  Take  a look at the apparently large change in the swap dealer spreading positions in the most recent disaggregated COT report in the graph just below.

Just over the past reporting week, swap dealers increased their spreading positions by 3,708 contracts, reporting 25,368 offsetting contracts.  Notice, please, two things about that.  First the swap dealers now have the second largest spreading position since the disaggregated data begins in 2006.  (The largest was on January 15, 2008 at 26,903 spreads).   Over the past two weeks they have increased their spreading positions by 7,203 contracts.  We believe that swap dealers increase their spreading positioning in proportion to their own uncertainty in the very near term market direction.  The more confident they are, the more likely the spreading positioning will be lower and vice versa. 

To conclude this first section of this special Got Gold Report for gold futures, we think that it is now apparent that at least on the COMEX bourse in New York,  the very largest of the paper gold sellers – the exemption-using bullion banks among them -  have now become more isolated as “the sellers of last resort” for gold futures.  We are interested to learn that at this particular moment in time the big bank sellers are not joined by the “other commercials,” the swap dealers, when they were indeed joined by them just ahead of the last really good correction for gold. 

That doesn’t mean that gold can’t correct right here and right now, it certainly can, but if it does the swap dealers are now less well positioned for it.  And, it also means that at least as of Tuesday, there was apparently quite a bit less “horsepower” on the sell side for gold. 

The above is an excerpt of the full Got Gold Report.  To continue reading the entire report as it turns next to the silver market, click on this link.  Thank you for doing so!

Disclosure: The above contains opinion and commentary of the author.  Each person should study the issues carefully and, as always, make their own informed decisions. To contact Gene use LLCCMAN (at) AOL (dotcom).  

A land developer, professional numismatist, self-taught bullion trader and investor since 1980, Gene Arensberg analyzes technical and fundamental developments in the precious metals markets.  In 2000 Gene started sharing his own market research with fellow traders and fund managers.  Those email reports evolved into his popular Got Gold Report, a biweekly look at important indicators for gold and silver published on the web. Gene’s more in-depth market reports, insights and trading ideas are available at www.GotGoldReport.com.

-- Posted Monday, 17 May 2010 | Digg This Article