The gold price crawled a bit lower until around 11 a.m. China Standard Time on their Friday morning, but was back at the unchanged mark shortly after 1 p.m. CST.  Once the afternoon gold fix in Shanghai was put to bed around 2:15 p.m. over there, it was mostly down hill into the COMEX open -- and the 8:30 a.m. jobs report in Washington.  It took off higher from there, but was capped and turned lower at 9:45 a.m. in New York....then didn't do much of anything until 12:45 p.m.  "Da boyz' showed up in force at that juncture -- and it was sold down hard into the 1:30 p.m. EDT COMEX close.  It drifted a bit lower in after-hours trading until a minute or so after 3:30 p.m. -- and the gold price didn't do much after that.
 

The low and high ticks were recorded as $1,504.50 and $1,529.60 in the October contract -- and $1,510.70 and $1,536.20 in December.
 

Gold was closed at $1,506.50 spot, down another $12.20 on the day.  Net volume was beyond Mars at around 515,000 contracts -- and there was a hair under 31,000 contract worth of roll-over/switch volume in this precious metal.
 

Silver's price path was directed in a similar fashion as gold's...with some inconsequential variations.  It was bounced off the $18 spot mark on at least four occasions that one can spot on the Kitco chart below, although Kitco recorded the low spot price as $17.92.

 

The high and low ticks in this precious metal were reported by the CME Group as $18.89 and $18.06 in the December contract...an intraday move of over 4 percent, the second outrageous intraday move in a row.
 

Silver was closed on Friday at $18.22 spot, down 41.5 cents on the day.  Net volume set another new record high...the second one in as many days -- and by a huge amount...just under 216,500 contracts.  Thursday's 'old' record high was a bit over 189,000 contracts.  There was only 6,300 contracts worth of roll-over/switch volume on top of that.
 

In most respects that really mattered, the price pattern in silver was guided through the Friday session in a similar manner as both silver and gold.  Its attempt to break above unchanged during morning trading  in New York was capped as well -- and its fate was also sealed at 12:45 p.m. EDT.  Platinum was closed at $948 spot, down 10 bucks on the day.

 

The major difference in palladium's price path was that it was beaten lower in price for an hour and change before trading began on the COMEX in New York.  Its sharp rally after that was capped at, or just before, the afternoon gold fix in London -- and the rest is just the same as the other three precious metals.
 

The dollar index closed very late on Thursday afternoon at 98.41 -- and opened unchanged once trading commenced around 7:45 p.m. EDT in New York on Thursday evening, which was 7:45 a.m. China Standard Time on their Friday morning.  It was up a tiny handful of basis points by 10 a.m. CST -- and then it began to quietly slide from that juncture until around 8:45 a.m. in London.  A 'rally' commenced at that point -- and the 98.52 high tick was set around 12:40 p.m. BST.  It was all down hill until 9:45 a.m. in New York and then it, like the precious metals, turned on a dime and headed higher.  That choppy 'rally' came to an abrupt end at 4:55 p.m. in after-hours trading -- and it crashed to its 98.01 low tick at the 5:30 p.m. close.  Although the DXY chart below showed it finishing the day at 98.11...it was marked up to 98.39 after the close so, officially, the dollar index finished down only 2 basis points on the day.  It will be interesting to see what it opens at on Sunday evening in New York.

 

It was the second day in a row where there was zero correlation between the currencies and what precious metal prices were doing.  In fact, the dollar index and the precious metals rallied together for a while shortly after the job numbers came out...at least until 'da boyz' appeared.
 

Here's the DXY chart, courtesy of Bloomberg, as always.  Click to enlarge.
 

And here's the 5-year U.S. dollar index chart, courtesy of the folks over at the stockcharts.com Internet site.  The delta between its close...98.36...and the close on the DXY chart above, was 3 basis points on Friday.  Click to enlarge as well.

 

The gold stocks opened unchanged at 9:30 a.m. in New York on Friday morning -- and were up over a percent about fifteen minutes later.  But when JPMorgan et al. showed up, the selling pressure was relentless for the remainder of the day -- and the gold shares closed right on their lows.  The HUI closed down 3.27 percent.

The silver equities also opened unchanged -- and popped one percent right away. After that they chopped quietly and unevenly sideways...mostly above unchanged, until 'da boyz' torpedoed all the precious metals at 12:45 p.m. EDT.  The silver stocks headed lower from there -- and they also closed on their absolute low ticks of the day.  Nick Laird's Intraday Silver Sentiment/Silver 7 Index chart closed down 2.90 percent.  Click to enlarge if necessary.

 

And here's Nick's 1-year Silver Sentiment/Silver 7 Index chart, updated with Friday's doji.  Click to enlarge as well.

 

As I said in Friday's column -- and it's worth repeat again here now...for every seller, there is a buyer -- and it's a given that the buyers on Friday...like the ones on Thursday...were the strongest hands of all, as John Q. Public is nowhere in sight.

 

Here are the usual three charts from Nick that show what's been happening for the week, month -- and year-to-date. The first one shows the changes in gold, silver, platinum and palladium for the past trading week, in both percent and dollar and cents terms, as of their Friday closes in New York - along with the changes in the HUI and the Silver 7 Index.
 

I'm not including the weekly chart this time, because it's the same as the month-to-date chart.  The weekly chart will be back in its usual spot in next Saturday's column.
 

Here's the month-to-date chart, which is the same thing as the weekly chart as I just stated -- and the big sell-offs in both gold and silver on Thursday and Friday took their tolls on the performance of everything over this time period.  It's pretty ugly -- and the continuing suppression of the silver price, plus the ongoing underperformance of Buenaventura, Peñoles and Hecla Mining is certainly not helping the Silver 7 Index. Click to enlarge.
 

Here's the year-to-date chart -- and JPMorgan et al.'s near death grip on the silver price is readily apparent in its lack-lustre price gains relative to gold -- and in the underlying values of the associated stocks as well...notably the dismal year-to-date performance of the three silver stocks mentioned above.  That will certainly change at some point -- and when it does, it will happen in a hurry.  Click to enlarge.
 

It remains to be seen if JPMorgan et al. can pull off another round of engineered price declines in both silver and gold, especially considering the current financial and monetary environment that they're facing...along with a pending series of interest rate cuts from the Fed.  They have two days worth under their belts as of Friday's close -- and we'll have to see what transpires next week.  But the amount of physical gold that's disappearing into all the world's ETFs and mutual funds continues unabated, regardless.

 

The CME Daily Delivery Report for Day 6 of September deliveries showed that 14 gold and 203 silver contracts were posted for delivery within the COMEX-approved depositories on Tuesday.
 

In gold, the two short/issuers were ADM and Advantage, with 11 and 3 contracts out of their respective client accounts.  The three long stoppers were JPMorgan, Australia's Macquarie Futures -- and Advantage.  The first two stopped 9 and 2 contracts for their respective in-house/proprietary trading accounts -- and the third with 3 contracts for its client account.
 

In silver, of the four short/issuers in total, the three largest were International F.C. Stone, ABN Amro and Advantage, with 120, 44 and 38 contracts out of their respective client accounts.  Of the nine long/stoppers in total, JPMorgan was the biggest as always, picking 52 contracts in total...29 for its client account and 23 contracts for its own account.  The next three biggest were ABN Amro, Advantage and Macquarie Futures, with 52, 39 and 32 contracts respectively.  Macquarie Future stopped their contracts for their own account -- and the other two stopped them for their respective client accounts.

 

The link to yesterday's Issuers and Stoppers Report is here.

 

During the first six days of the September delivery month, there have been 1,640 gold contracts issued/reissued and stopped.  Ted says that is a record number of deliveries for an unscheduled delivery month in gold.  In silver, there have already been 6,989 contracts issued/reissued and stopped so far this month -- and August was also a record for deliveries for an unscheduled delivery month for silver.  This is unprecedented demand -- and I'm not sure what should be read into it...but something is cooking behind the scenes, there can be no doubt about that.
 

The CME Preliminary Report for the Friday trading session showed that gold open interest in September rose by 3 contracts, leaving 67 still around, minus the 14 mentioned a few paragraphs ago.  Thursday's Daily Delivery Report showed that 13 gold contracts were actually posted for delivery on Monday, so that means that 3+13=16 more gold contracts were added to September.  Silver o.i. in September declined by 209 contracts, leaving 885 still open, minus the 203 mentioned a few paragraphs ago.  Thursday's Daily Delivery Report showed that 276 silver contracts were actually posted for delivery on Monday, so that means that 276-209=67 more silver contracts were added to the September delivery month.

 

There were no reported changes in either GLD or SLV on Friday -- and Ted mentioned on the phone yesterday afternoon that volumes in both were extremely heavy on Friday.
 

In the other silver ETFs, there was 483,788 troy ounces deposited in SIVR -- and another 495,560 troy ounces found its way into Sprott's PSLV.  On the withdrawal side, there was 118,352 troy ounces removed from Deutsche Bank's XAD6 silver ETF.  In the gold ETFs, there was a net 84,410 troy ounces deposited on Friday.
 

There was no sales report from the U.S. Mint.
 

Month-to-date...four business days...the mint has sold 2,000 troy ounces of gold eagles -- 500 one ounce 24K gold buffaloes -- and 11,000 silver eagles.  How pathetic is that?
 

There was no in/out movement in gold over at the COMEX-approved depositories on the U.S. east coast on Thursday.
 

It was certainly busier in silver, as 1,440,733 troy ounces was reported received -- and zero ounces was shipped out.  In the 'in' category, there was one truckload...599,079 troy ounces...received at Canada's Scotiabank.  The other truckload...598,485 troy ounces...was dropped off at CNT.  The remaining 243,168 troy ounces found a home over at Brink's, Inc.  There was also a paper transfer over at Brink's, Inc...as 99,499 troy ounces was transferred from the Registered category -- and back into Eligible, which is rather a counterintuitive move during a big delivery month in silver.  Normally the transfer is in the other direction.  The link to all this is here.

 

There wasn't much movement over at the COMEX-approved gold kilobar depositories in Hong Kong on their Thursday.  Nothing was reported received -- and only 115 kilobars were shipped out.  This activity was at Brink's, Inc. -- and the link to that, in troy ounces, is here.

 

With India and Turkey's gold import figures now in hand, Nick was able to update the Silk Road Gold Demand chart with July's data.  During that month, the four major 'silk road' countries added 190.0 tonnes to their reserves, which wasn't a lot.  If you look at the lower insert chart, you'll see that gold imports/purchases by these four countries has been in slow decline going back to mid-2015.  Click to enlarge.
 

The Commitment of Traders Report, for positions held at the close of COMEX trading on Tuesday, September 3, showed smallish increases in the commercial net short positions in both gold and silver during the reporting week.
 

But as I pointed out in my Friday column, this report -- and the companion Bank Participation Report...are hopelessly out of date after Thursday's price action, plus what happened on Friday.  I'm just going to hit the highlights in both of these reports, as delving into them in depth is a total waste of my time writing it -- and yours, in reading it.
 

In silver, the Commercial net short position only increased by 3,935 contracts, which was a big positive surprise for both Ted and myself, as Ted was expecting far worse.

 

They arrived at that number by reducing their long position by 5,322 contracts, but they also reduced their short position by 2,325 contracts -- and it's the difference between those two numbers that represents their change for the reporting week.

 

Under the hood in the Disaggregated COT Report it was all Managed Money traders plus a bunch more, as they increased their long position by 1,897 contracts -- and they reduced their short position by 3,197 contracts as well.  It's the sum of those two numbers...5,094 contracts...that represents their change for the reporting week.

 

With the new Bank Participation Report in hand, Ted calculates JPMorgan's short position at round 25,000 contracts...up 5,000 from last week's COT Report.
 

The Commercial net short position in silver, as of Tuesday's cut-off, now sits at 84,678 COMEX contracts, or 423.3 million troy ounces of paper silver.
 

Here's Nick's 3-year COT chart for silver.  Click to enlarge.
 

As I've already pointed out, this silver data is now irrelevant.

In gold, the commercial net short position increased by only 3,935 contracts, or 393,500 troy ounces of paper gold, which is hardly anything.

 

They arrived at that number by reducing their long position by 1,149 contracts -- and they increased their short position by 2,786 contracts.  It's the sum of those two numbers that represents their change for the reporting week.

 

In the Disaggregated COT Report, it was all Managed Money traders, plus a bit more, as they increased their long position by 6,906 contracts -- and they also increased their short position by 1,996 contracts.  It's the difference between those two numbers...4,910 contracts...that represents their change for the reporting week.
 

The commercial net short position in gold is back up to 33.77 million troy ounces...wildly bearish on its face.

 

Here's Nick's 3-year COT chart for gold -- and it hasn't changed much over the last two weeks, even though the price has risen a lot during that period.  Click to enlarge.
 

Like with the COT Report for silver, this report for gold is ancient history as well.

 

In the other metals, the Manged Money traders in palladium increased their net long by a further 1,059 contracts -- and as I mentioned last week, there are never big position changes in palladium.  The Managed Money traders are now net long the palladium market by 11,825 contracts...about 58 percent of the total open interest, which is grotesque.  Total open interest in palladium is 20,518 COMEX contracts.  In platinum, the Managed Money traders increased their net long position by by an as expected very chunky 13,134 contracts during the reporting week.  The Managed Money traders are now net long the platinum market by 20,607 COMEX contracts...23 percent of the total open interest, a huge increase from last week.  The traders in the other two categories are net long platinum big time as well.  In copper, the Managed Money traders increased their net short position in that metal by a tiny 393 COMEX contracts during the reporting week -- and are now net short the COMEX futures market by a eye-watering 70,914 contracts, or 1.77 billion pounds of the stuff...a hair under their record short position from a month ago. That's 27 percent of total open interest...a huge percentage.
 

Here's Nick Laird's "Days to Cover" chart updated with the COT data for positions held at the close of COMEX trading on Tuesday. It shows the days of world production that it would take to cover the short positions of the Big 4 - and Big '5 through 8' traders in each physically traded commodity on the COMEX. Click to enlarge.
 

For the current reporting week, the Big 4 traders are short 145 days of world silver production, which is down 3 days from last week's report - and the '5 through 8' large traders are short an additional 73 days of world silver production, up 3 days from last week's report - for a total of 218 days that the Big 8 are short, which is a bit over seven months of world silver production, or about 508 million troy ounces of paper silver held short by the Big 8. [In the prior week's COT Report, the Big 8 were also short 218 days of world silver production.]
 

In the COT Report above, the Commercial net short position in silver was reported as 423 million troy ounces.  As mentioned in the previous paragraph, the short position of the Big 8 traders is 508 million troy ounces.  The short position of the Big 8 traders is larger than the total Commercial net short position by 508 minus 423 equals 85 million troy ounces.
 

The reason for the difference in those numbers...as it always is...is that Ted's raptors, the 30-odd small commercial traders other than the Big 8, are net long that amount.
 

As I mentioned in my COT commentary in silver above, Ted figures that JPMorgan is short around 25,000 COMEX silver contracts...up 5,000 from the prior week's COT Report.
 

25,000 COMEX contracts is 125 million troy ounces of paper silver, which works out to around 53 days of world silver production, up from the 45 days they were short in last week's COT Report.  As of Tuesday's cut-off, JPMorgan was by far the biggest silver short on the COMEX futures market.  Citigroup is in second place -- and not that far behind.
 

The Big 4 traders in silver are short, on average, about...146 divided by 4 equals...36.5 days of world silver production each.  The four traders in the '5 through 8' category are short 72 days of world silver production in total, which is 18 days of world silver production each, on average.

 

The Big 8 commercial traders are short 45.2 percent of the entire open interest in silver in the COMEX futures market, which is a bit of an increase from the 42.4 percent they were short in last week's report.  And once whatever market-neutral spread trades are subtracted out, that percentage would be a bit over the 50 percent mark.  In gold, it's now 42.9 percent of the total COMEX open interest that the Big 8 are short, up a hair from the 42.0 percent they were short in last week's report -- and something approaching 50 percent, once the market-neutral spread trades are subtracted out.
 

In gold, the Big 4 are short 63 days of world gold production, up 2 days from what they were short in last week's COT Report.  The '5 through 8' are short another 32 days of world production, unchanged from what they were short last week...for a total of 95 days of world gold production held short by the Big 8...up 2 days from last week's report.  Based on these numbers, the Big 4 in gold hold about 66 percent of the total short position held by the Big 8...up 1 percentage point from last week's COT Report.
 

The "concentrated short position within a concentrated short position" in silver, platinum and palladium held by the Big 4 commercial traders are about 67, 73 and 76 percent respectively of the short positions held by the Big 8.  Silver is down 1 percentage point from a week ago, platinum is up 4 percentage points from last week -- and palladium is up 1 percentage points from a week ago.
 

All the data above is also ancient history because of the price action on Thursday and Friday, but it does put a stake in the ground for the highs before the engineered price decline began.
 

The September Bank Participation Report [BPR] data is extracted directly from the data in yesterday's Commitment of Traders Report.  It shows the number of futures contracts, both long and short, that are held by all the U.S. and non-U.S. banks as of Tuesday's cut-off in all COMEX-traded products.  For this one day a month we get to see what the world's banks are up to in the precious metals -and they're usually up to quite a bit.
 

[The September Bank Participation Report covers the time period from August 7 to September 3 inclusive.]
 

In gold, 5 U.S. banks are net short 105,713 COMEX contracts in the September's BPR.  In August's Bank Participation Report [BPR] these same 5 U.S. banks were net short 82,387 contracts, so there was a sharp increase of 23,326 COMEX contracts from a month ago.

JPMorgan, Citigroup and HSBC USA would hold the lion's share of this short position.  But as to who other two U.S. banks might be that are short in this BPR, I haven't a clue, but it's a given that their short positions would not be material.

 

Also in gold, 30 non-U.S. banks are net short 114,958 COMEX gold contracts.  In the August's BPR, 29 non-U.S. banks were net short 132,469 COMEX contracts...so the month-over-month change shows a reduction of 17,511 contracts.
 

However, as I always say at this point, I suspect that there's at least two large non-U.S. bank in this group, one of which would include Scotiabank.  It's certainly possible that it could be the BIS in the No. 1 spot.  But regardless of who this second non-U.S. bank is, the short positions in gold held by the remaining 28 non-U.S. banks are immaterial.
 

At the low back in the August 2018 BPR [for July]...these same non-U.S. banks held a net short position in gold of only 1,960 contacts!
 

As of this Bank Participation Report, 35 banks [both U.S. and foreign] are net short 34.8 percent of the entire open interest in gold in the COMEX futures market, which is down a bit from the 35.8 percent they were short in the August BPR. This is rather amazing considering how much the gold price rose during this BPR reporting period...August.  But it does point out clearly that this price management scheme is centered around the U.S. bullion banks...and quite likely the BIS.

 

Here's Nick's BPR chart for gold going back to 2000.  Charts #4 and #5 are the key ones here.  Note the blow-out in the short positions of the non-U.S. banks [the blue bars in chart #4] when Scotiabank's COMEX short position was outed by the CFTC in October of 2012.  Click to enlarge.
 

In silver, 5 U.S. banks are net short 37,706 COMEX contracts in September's BPR.  In August's BPR, the net short position of 4 U.S. banks was 32,314 contracts, so the short position of the U.S. banks is up another 5,392 contracts month-over-month -- and most assuredly that increase comes courtesy of JPMorgan.  Ted says that of that September number, JPMorgan is short about 25,000 contracts of that amount.
 

As in gold, the three biggest short holders in silver of the five U.S. banks in total, would be JPMorgan, Citigroup and HSBC USA.  Whoever the remaining two U.S. bank may be, their short positions, like the short positions of the two smallest U.S. banks in gold, would be immaterial in the grand scheme of things.

 

Also in silver, 23 non-U.S. banks are net short 41,450 COMEX contracts in the September BPR...which is down from the 43,142 contracts that 23 non-U.S. banks were short in the August BPR.  I would suspect that Canada's Scotiabank [and maybe one other, the BIS perhaps] holds a goodly chunk of the short position of these non-U.S. banks.  I believe that a number of the remaining 21 non-U.S. banks may actually net long the COMEX futures market in silver.  But even if they aren't, the remaining short positions divided up between these other 21 non-U.S. banks are immaterial - and have always been so.  This is a JPMorgan-run operation...end of story.
 

As of September's Bank Participation Report, 28 banks [both U.S. and foreign] are net short 35.1 percent of the entire open interest in the COMEX futures market in silver-which is up a bit from the 31.6 percent that they were net short in the August BPR - with much, much more than the lion's share of that held by JPMorgan, Citigroup, HSBC USA, Scotiabank -- and maybe one other non-U.S. bank, which I suspect may be the BIS.

 

Here's the BPR chart for silver.  Note in Chart #4 the blow-out in the non-U.S. bank short position [blue bars] in October of 2012 when Scotiabank was brought in from the cold.  Also note August 2008 when JPMorgan took over the silver short position of Bear Stearns-the red bars.  It's very noticeable in Chart #4-and really stands out like the proverbial sore thumb it is in chart #5.  Click to enlarge.

 

In platinum, 5 U.S. banks are net short 20,670 COMEX contracts in the September Bank Participation Report.  In the August BPR, these same banks were net short 15,202 COMEX contracts...so there's been another increase month-over-month...5,468 contracts worth.

 

At the 'low' back in July of 2018, these same five U.S. banks were actually net long the platinum market by 2,573 contracts. That's quite a change for the worse since then.

 

Also in platinum, 19 non-U.S. banks are net short 16,647 COMEX contracts in the September BPR, which is up another 19 percent from the 14,013 COMEX contracts that these same 19 non-U.S. banks were net short in the August BPR.  [Note: Back at the July 2018 low, these same non-U.S. banks were net short only 1,192 COMEX contracts.]

 

It's obvious that these banks, both U.S. and foreign, have been going short against the Managed Money trader during this big rally in platinum...which may have ended on Wednesday.
 

And as of September's Bank Participation Report, 24 banks [both U.S. and foreign] are net short 42.1 percent of platinum's total open interest in the COMEX futures market, which is up a very decent amount from the 38.7 percent they were net short in August's BPR.

 

Here's the Bank Participation Report chart for platinum.  Click to enlarge.

 

In palladium, 4 U.S. banks are net short 6,682 COMEX contracts in the September BPR, which is up a tiny amount from the 6,539 contracts that these same 4 U.S. banks held net short in the August BPR.

 

Also in palladium, 13 non-U.S. banks are net short 1,965 COMEX contracts-which is up a bit from the 1,576 COMEX contracts that 15 non-U.S. banks were short in the August BPR.
 

But when you divide up the short positions of these non-U.S. banks more or less equally, they're completely immaterial...especially when compared to the positions held by the 4 U.S. banks.

 

As of this Bank Participation Report, 17 banks [both U.S. and foreign] are net short 42.1 percent of the entire COMEX open interest in palladium.  In August's BPR, the world's banks were net short 33.8 percent of total open interest...a big increase from a month ago.

 

Here's the palladium BPR chart.  And as I point out every month, you should note that the U.S. banks were almost nowhere to be seen in the COMEX futures market in this precious metal until the middle of 2007-and they became the predominant and controlling factor by the end of Q1 of 2013 -- and are even more so today.  Click to enlarge.

 

Of course all the above data belongs in the scrap heap along with the COT data from this week as well.  But as I said in Friday's commentary, I was going to report on it regardless.

 

It remains to be seen if the price action on both Thursday and Friday is the beginning of another 'wash, rinse, spin...repeat' cycle this time around...as JPMorgan et al. are facing some rather serious and long-term headwinds...not only in the currencies, but in foreign bank and ETF gold purchases.  These headwinds are becoming ever more pronounced with each passing week.
 

However, it's obvious that JPMorgan is still the short seller of last resort -- and sometimes first resort as well, in order to keep a lid on precious metal prices.
 

But, as always, they are in a position to stick it to the rest of the short holders in both silver and gold if they so choose -- and whether they will they or they won't, remains to be seen.  I also get the impression that the engineered price decline that began on Thursday did not involve JPMorgan.  It was one or all of the other Big 7 commercial shorts.  But as Ted pointed out on the phone yesterday, JPMorgan was certainly in the thick of it covering every short contract they could -- and going long hand over fist at the same time.
 

I have a decent number of stories/articles for you today, including a few that I've been saving for my Saturday column for length and/or content reasons.