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| Silver COT Report - Futures | ||||||
| Large Speculators | Commercial | Total | ||||
| Long | Short | Spreading | Long | Short | Long | Short |
| 42,255 | 7,448 | 23,449 | 31,306 | 82,158 | 97,010 | 113,055 |
| -996 | -231 | -974 | -2,643 | -5,535 | -4,613 | -6,740 |
| Traders | ||||||
| 93 | 24 | 38 | 37 | 36 | 146 | 85 |
| | Small Speculators | | | | ||
| | Long | Short | Open Interest | | | |
| | 27,175 | 11,130 | 124,185 | | | |
| | -50 | 2,077 | -4,663 | | | |
| | non reportable positions | Change from the previous reporting period | | |||
| COT Silver Report - Positions as of | Tuesday, August 24, 2010 | |||||
| Silver | |
| Withdrawals from Dealers Inventory | zero oz |
| Withdrawals from customer Inventory | n/a |
| Deposits to the dealer Inventory | n/a |
| Deposits to the customer Inventory | 237,199 oz |
| No of oz served (contracts=1 ) | zero |
| No of oz to be served zero contracts) | xxxxx |
| Gold | |
| Withdrawals from Dealers Inventory | zero |
| Withdrawals from customer Inventory | 1,091 oz |
| Deposits to the dealer Inventory | n/a |
| Deposits to the customer Inventory | n/a oz |
| No of oz served (contracts = 72 | 7200 oz |
| No of oz to be served (contracts=174 | 17400 0z |
Probably this exodus was by a nervous nelly.
FRIDAY, AUGUST 27, 2010
GLD Managing Director Jason Toussaint Does Not Own ANY GLD Shares...
But there's so much more if you listen to both parts of the interview. Let's get the basics out of the way. Jason Touissant is the Managing Director the GLD Trust and a principle executive officer of the World Gold Trust Services, the sponsor of the GLD Trust. All of this information can be gleaned from the GLD 10-K, which I've linked here: GLD 10-K
Note that on page 76, as Jeff Nielson picked up on from the BNN interview, that NO officers and directors of the World Gold Council or of the GLD Trust own ANY shares. No insiders own shares. Why would that be the case? If GLD is as good as owing physical gold, and is fully backed by physical gold, why would Toussaint admit to owning his own physical gold, but not express confidence in the fund that he oversees by owning some the stock in GLD? We would NEVER own any mining stocks in our fund in which insiders did not own a meaningful amount of shares. In fact, with our junior mining stock holdings, insiders typically own 10-20% of the company.
Now let's get to other interesting aspects of the interview that Nielson did not cover. At the 4:25 mark in Part 2, Toussaint makes the statement that the bar auditor of GLD audits the bars twice a year and physically handles each of the bars once per year. HOWEVER, the auditor, Inspectorate, only looks at the bars in the HSBC vault. As per the prospectus, HSBC has subcustodians with which there is no formal contractual agreement and the prospectus specifically states that no one can have access legally to the subcustodian vaults. Here is the latest inspection report from Inspectorate, the inspection firm: LINK This particular report describes the semi-annual random sample audit.
This is great that an inspection firm goes into the HSBC vault and samples the bars for authenticity and serial numbers, but what about the bars that are at the subcustodians? And you are asking me to believe that Inspectorate counts all 104,325 bars (the number of bars that would be in the vault as of 8/26) and verifies serial numbers and stamps and reconciles them with the Custodian's records? I refuse to believe that. I would bet that the annual audit is another statistical sample BECAUSE no one is allowed to have access to the subcustodian vaults. In fact, now that I think about it, there have been articles in the recent past which have demonstrated dozens of inconsistencies at GLD and SLV between the actual serial numbers on many of the bars and records kept by the Custodian of each Trust.
Finally, Toussaint makes the statement that the bars are held in allocated form, meaning that within HSBC's vault, all of the GLD bars are placed in a separate holding area and the shareholders of GLD have direct claim to those bars. If HSBC blows up, something that is within the realm of possibilities, the GLD Trust gold is not part of HSBC's asset/liability list. HOWEVER, the prospectus specifically states that gold which is being transported in and out of the vault and the gold which is being held for redemption by an authorized participant exchaning a minumum of 10,000 shares for bars in the Trust, sit in unallocated form. And the bars at the subcustodian are in unallocated form.
The significance of this is that if HSBC blows up, any unallocated bars become part of the claim of the general creditors to the HSBC bankruptcy proceedings, and the GLD Trust has to stand in line with all of the other unsecured creditors to receive payment, if any, on its claims. The Prospectus specifically states that, in the event of an HSBC bankruptcy, unallocated bullion bars could result in material loss to the Trust.
Perhaps this is why no World Gold Council officers and directors, and specifically Jason Toussaint, the Managing Director of the GLD Trust for the WGC, do not own any personal shares of GLD. They know the Golden Truth.
end.
Gold Demand to Soar in Vietnam as `Shelter' From Devaluations, Stock Slump
Gold demand in Vietnam, which consumes more of the precious metal per head than India and China, is set to surge as the third devaluation in the past year and a stock-market slump combine to spur sales.
"People will switch to gold as a shelter," said Le Xuan Nghia, vice chairman of the National Financial Supervision Commission, which advises Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung. "The current situation with the dong will spur people to increase their gold holdings."
The government devalued last week to boost exports and shore up the nation's trade deficit, driving the dong to a record low. Vietnam's benchmark stock index has slumped into a so-called bear market, plunging by more than 20 percent from a May high. Gold priced in dollars reached a record in June on concern that the global recovery may falter.
"Gold and strong foreign currencies, like U.S. dollars, will draw investment from Vietnamese people, especially with the recent declines in the stock market and the devaluation of the dong," said Nguyen Hoang, a Hanoi-based analyst at Vietnam Gold Business, which trades the metal for banks and companies.
Immediate-delivery gold surged to an all-time high of $1,265.30 an ounce on June 21 on concern that the economic recoveries in the U.S. and Europe were losing momentum. The metal was at $1,235.90 at 3:17 p.m. in Singapore today and is set for a 10th annual gain, buoyed by central-bank buying and increased investor holdings in exchange-traded funds.
'Money in Gold'
"The dong's depreciation, which has been about 5 percent already this year, plus declines in stocks and uncertainty in the property market, will prompt investors to put their money in gold," said Dinh Nho Bang, Hanoi-based chairman of Vietnam Gold Traders' Association, which has more than 100 members. "We've seen some economic growth, but it's still not certain enough."
Vietnam's central bank set the daily reference rate for the dong 2 percent lower at 18,932 per dollar on Aug. 18. The currency traded at a low of 19,500 per dollar today, according to Bloomberg data, while the so-called black market rate at money changers was as low as 19,520 per dollar, according to a telephone-information service known as 1080 run by state-owned Vietnam Posts & Telecommunications.
Local gold prices jumped to a record 29.95 million dong per tael on Aug. 25, Thanh Nien reported yesterday, referring to the unit that is about 1.2 ounces. Today's prices ranged from 28.86 million to 28.96 million dong per tael at gold shops in Ho Chi Minh City, according to the 1080 service.
"The Vietnamese public will continue to conserve and protect their assets by hoarding gold tael bars," Albert Cheng, managing director for the Far East at the World Gold Council, wrote in an e-mail.
Three Devaluations
"They've been hit by three devaluations in the last year and no one can be certain there won't be more," Tim Condon, Singapore-based chief Asian economist at ING Groep NV, said by phone. "Gold buying is an alternative to U.S. dollar buying."
Vietnam's gold offtake last year was 73.3 metric tons, with per capita consumption of 0.8544 gram and average income of $2,900, according to the Gold Council's Cheng, citing data from GFMS Ltd., the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
India, the world's biggest gold user, took 578.5 tons, or 0.4874 gram per head, and had average income of $3,100. China's figures were 457.8 tons, 0.3418 gram, and $6,600, Cheng wrote.
For almost the same level of income per capita, Vietnam consumed almost twice as much gold as India, Cheng wrote in the e-mail. Compared with China, Vietnam's demand relative to income was about five times higher, he wrote.
Increased Holdings
"People will increase their gold holdings, definitely," said Lam Minh Chanh, chief executive officer of Ho Chi Minh City-based Vang The Gioi (World Gold) Co. Ltd. "Gold prices will continue to rise in Vietnam."
The VN Index, the local stock benchmark, has lost more than 20 percent from this year's high on May 6, and Nguyen Duc Hai, head of research at Vietcombank Securities, said Aug. 24 there's "no sign of a bottom." The index rose 0.5 percent today.
The trade deficit narrowed to $900 million in August from $978 million in July, according to preliminary figures from the General Statistics Office in Hanoi. The economy expanded 6.4 percent in the second quarter, after advancing 5.8 percent during the first three months. Inflation is 8.18 percent.
Gold in dollars may reach at least $1,300 this year as investors seek a shield against financial turmoil, GFMS Chief Executive Officer Paul Walker said. "Prices are going to ratchet up," Walker said in an interview.
Bernanke Signals Stepped-Up Efforts to Spur Economy
By SEWELL CHAN
Published: August 27, 2010
JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. — The Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, said Friday that the central bank was determined to prevent the economy from slipping into a cycle of falling prices, even as he emphasized that he believed growth would continue in the second half of the year, "albeit at a relatively modest pace."
To help sustain the economy, Mr. Bernanke gave his strongest indication yet that the Fed was ready to resume its large purchases of longer-term debt if the economy worsened, a move that would add to the Fed's already substantial holdings.
"We have come a long way, but there is still some way to travel," Mr. Bernanke said.
"I believe that additional purchases of longer-term securities, should the F.O.M.C. choose to take them, would be effective in further easing financial conditions," Mr. Bernanke told a Fed policy symposium here. He was referring to the Federal Open Market Committee, the panel that sets interest rates, which Mr. Bernanke leads; some members have expressed unease over the prospect of the Fed pursuing any further monetary accommodation.
"Central bankers alone cannot solve the world's economic problems," he said.
and this
Jim Sinclair's Commentary
QE to infinity is the reality of our current economic situation.
Gold will go to $1650.
Bernanke: Fed will take action if economy falters
By JEANNINE AVERSA
JACKSON, Wyo. — Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Friday that the Fed will consider making another large-scale purchase of securities if the slowing economy were to deteriorate significantly and signs of deflation were to flare.
The Fed chief offered his most extensive thoughts yet on how to pull the U.S. economy out of a deepening slump. His remarks came 90 minutes after the government said the economy slowed sharply in the second quarter to a 1.6 percent pace.
Fears are growing that the country could lapse back into a recession. Bernanke described the economic outlook as "inherently uncertain" and said the economy "remains vulnerable to unexpected developments."
Bernanke stopped short of committing to any specific action. But he raised the prospect of another Fed purchase of securities, most likely government debt or mortgage securities, to drive down rates on mortgages and other debt to spur more spending by Americans.
"I believe that additional purchases of longer-term securities should the FOMC choose to undertake them, would be effective in further easing financial conditions." he said. The FOMC stands for the Federal Open Market Committee, the group of Fed policymakers that makes decisions on interest rates and other steps to aid the economy.
El-Erian Says `Alarming' Data Show U.S. Economy Slowing
By Wes Goodman – Aug 27, 2010 3:03 AM MT
PIMCO CEO Mohamed A. El-Erian, seen here, wrote, "Current policy approaches here and abroad are unlikely to deliver a durable and robust U.S. recovery." U.S. economic data are "alarming," signaling the recovery is losing momentum, Mohamed A. El-Erian, Pacific Investment Management Co.'s chief executive officer, wrote in an opinion piece in the Washington Post.
Unemployment is high, consumer credit is shrinking and small companies are having trouble obtaining bank lines of credit, wrote El-Erian, who is also co-chief investment officer at Pimco, which runs the world's largest bond fund. Increased government spending and additional debt purchases from the Federal Reserve are unlikely to spur a rebound, he wrote.
GDP seen revised down on imports and inventories
CIGA Eric
U.S. economic growth likely was much weaker than initially thought between April and June, hurt by surging imports and as rebuilding of business inventories softened, a government report is expected to show on Friday.
Gross domestic product now is estimated to have grown at a 1.4 percent annual rate during the second quarter, rather than the 2.4 percent estimated in the government's first reading last month, according to a Reuters survey.
While cracks in the façade of big consumption and government are beginning to show, the economic and financial structures that maintain it are still in place. As long as Americans consume more than they produce, they must issue debt (paper claims against future production) to balance the shortfall.
BIG CONSUMPTION -
Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) As A %GDP and Personal Consumption Expenditures As A %GDP Average from 1947: 
BIG (GROWING) PUBLIC SECTOR -
Government Consumption Expenditures and Gross Investment (GCEI) As A %GDP Average from 1947: 
The more debt America issues, the more devaluation of the U.S. dollar will be consequence of most, if not all, policy responses.
Source: finance.yahoo.com
Housing is Dragging the Economy to Hell
CIGA Eric
A little more than two months ago, banking analyst Meredith Whitney said on CNBC, "Unequivocally, I see a double-dip in housing. There's no doubt about it . . . prices are going down again."
Housing, an asset that depreciates over time, is a function of demographics, leverage, and access to credit (emphasis on access to credit in recent years). Once the credit machine shutdown in late 2008, housing began to revert to its unleveraged, supply and demand driven mean price. The virtuous cycle, positive reinforcing credit on the upside, had turned vicious by negatively reinforcing credit and home prices on the downside. I suggest that once currency devaluation is removed, no discernable "bounce" can be recognized from which a dip could materialize. The steep and largely uninterrupted down trend in the U.S. median home price (MHP) to gold since 2005 illustrates this point.
Source: usawatchdog.com
UK bank accounting rules 'fatally flawed', warns influential watchdog
The Government has been warned of a "regulatory fiasco" in which British banks have apparently adhered to flawed reporting standards for more than five years.
An influential watchdog has written to the Department of Business listing a catalogue of staggering regulatory errors that allegedly contributed to the collapse of several banks in 2008 – and still threatens the system today.
While reviewing the proposed expansion of the International Financial Reporting Standards for accounting, Tim Bush, a member of the "Urgent Issues Task Force" that scrutinises the work of the Accounting Standards Board (ASB), claims to have uncovered "fatal" and "dangerous" flaws in the system.
The City veteran has argued that applied to banks, the standards "produced false profits and overstated capital" which have "misled creditors, misled shareholders, the Bank of England, FSA and others".
In a devastating assessment, Mr Bush alleges the regulations, and specifically the way they have been implemented in the UK and Ireland, have led to "mistakes [being made] of such severity that it is difficult to overstate".
His letter, written on August 19 and sent to the BIS as well as the ASB and other accounting bodies, claims:
* The ASB has "not fully understood" the IFRS accounting standards and implemented them in a way that even contravenes the Companies Act. As a result, UK and Irish banks have wrongly relied on a different – and flawed – financial reporting system from the rest of Europe.
* The application distorted bank's company accounts, giving "false assurances", and hampered the directors and regulators from seeing the build-up of leverage and other risks.
* The system is still "causing direct business risk" in the banks and will do the same if applied to other companies too.
* The dangers are set to spread to small and medium-sized businesses under proposals to roll-out the accounting system further.
According to Mr Bush, who was formerly a fund manager at Hermes, the root of the "fatal flaw" lies in the adoption of the new IFRS accounting system to work alongside the Companies Act, whose rules had applied to financial reporting in Britain since 1879.
Although the IFRS system was introduced in the wake of the Enron scandal to combat accounting fraud, it has been widely criticised by accounting experts across Europe.
Mr Bush has argued that the standards preclude the principle of "prudence", or the likelihood of money being repaid, disguising, for instance, a bad loan until it actually fails. But Mr Bush has claimed that while European banks applied the standard at group level, Britain's ASB said that all bank units and subsidiaries should use the same measures, too.
The standards also applied to the Republic of Ireland, where the ASB is one of the last remaining British bodies to have any jurisdiction.
In his letter, Mr Bush wrote: "Although IFRS had been rolled out across the EU, the UK and Ireland implemented it so extensively that the impact was different. It has been a 'double dose' to the extent of being a deadly dose, by removing what had underpinned banking solvency for over 120 years."
He said the system produced figures that hid instability in banks, so that directors and regulators of the banks could look at the audited figures and conclude that banks were not just solvent but had excess cash.
As for banks in the lead-up to the financial crisis: "They did not have the capital that they presented, and they were not going concerns. The true situation was that business models were loss-making and actually consuming capital."
Mr Bush wrote: "In engineering terms it was like a signalman sending a train down the wrong track. The UK had the first failing bank, Northern Rock, which only the month earlier appeared to have so much capital it applied to reduce it. IFRS merely reports the train crash rather than prevents it."
He said the system is still flawed and urged the Government to scrap plans to extend the standards. "In my view, the direction that the ASB took, and is still taking, is… causing direct business risk."
He added: "The proposed further roll-out of full IFRS and the IFRS for SMEs has the same fundamental flaws as what has gone so badly wrong in the banks, a level of apparent compliance that undershoots what the law requires. It is difficult in the extreme to envisage Parliament knowingly assenting to a model of company accounts that dilutes the responsibilities of auditors at the same time as offering less for directors, creditors and the wider public interest."
The ASB could not be reached for comment.
