The Big 4 traders are short about 118 days of world silver production, up about 5 days from the prior week’s report. The ‘5 through 8’ large traders are short an additional 37 days of world silver production…unchanged from the prior COT Report — and the week before — for a total of about 155 days that the Big 8 are short…obviously up 5 days from last week’s COT report. [In the prior reporting period they were short 150 days of world silver production.]
This represents a bit over five months of world silver production, or about 361 million troy ounces of paper silver held short by the Big 8.
In the COT Report above, the Commercial net short position in silver was reported by the CME Group at 253 million troy ounces. As mentioned in the previous paragraph, the short position of the Big 4/8 traders is around 361 million troy ounces. So the short position of the Big 4/8 traders is larger than the total Commercial net short position by about 361-253=108 million troy ounces…down about 16 million troy ounces from last week’s report…so these small commercial traders were big long sellers during the reporting week.
The reason for the difference in those numbers…as it always is…is that Ted’s raptors, the 31-odd small commercial traders other than the Big 8, are net long that amount.
Another way of stating this [as I say every week in this spot] is that if you remove the Big 8 shorts from the commercial category, the remaining traders in the commercial category are net long the COMEX silver market. It’s the Big 8 against everyone else…a situation that has existed for almost five decades in silver — and in platinum and palladium as well…and as of last week’s COT Report, now in gold too!
As per the first paragraph above, the Big 4 traders in silver are short around 118 days of world silver production in total. That’s about 29.5 days of world silver production each, on average…up a bit from last week’s COT Report. The four big traders in the ‘5 through 8’ category are short 37 days of world silver production in total, which is a bit more than 9 days of world silver production each, on average…unchanged for the last three weeks in a row.
The Big 8 commercial traders are short 46.8 percent of the entire open interest in silver in the COMEX futures market, which is up a bit from the 45.3 percent they were short in last week’s COT report. And once whatever market-neutral spread trades are subtracted out, that percentage would be over the 50 percent mark. In gold, it’s 46.3 percent of the total COMEX open interest that the Big 8 are short, which is up from the 43.0 percent they were short in the prior week’s COT Report — and also over the 50 percent mark once their market-neutral spread trades are subtracted out.
In gold, the Big 4 are short 53 days of world gold production, up 2 days from last week’s COT Report. The ‘5 through 8’ are short 21 days of world production, also up 2 from last week’s report…for a total of 74 days of world gold production held short by the Big 8 — and obviously up 4 days from last Friday’s COT Report. Based on these numbers, the Big 4 in gold hold about 72 percent of the total short position held by the Big 8…down about 1 percentage point from last week’s report.
As mentioned further up, Ted said that JPMorgan is still long around 6,000 contracts in gold, down 3,000 contracts from last week’s report — and are now market neutral in silver, which is down from the 1,000 contracts that they were long in last week’s COT Report. They have been a non-factor in the COMEX futures market for the last year…leaving the other Big 8 traders to struggle through on their own.
The “concentrated short position within a concentrated short position” in silver, platinum and palladium held by the Big 4 commercial traders are about 76, 72 and 74 percent respectively of the short positions held by the Big 8…the red and green bars on the above chart. Silver is up about 1 percentage point from last week’s COT Report…platinum is down about 1 percentage point from a week ago — and palladium is down about 5 percentage points week-over-week.
The Big 8 shorts are still hugely exposed in all four precious metals in the COMEX futures market, especially the Big 4…or maybe just the Big 2. They increased their short positions in both silver and gold by very reasonable amounts during the reporting week — and the above chart tells you all you need to know about their current plight.
The situation regarding the Big 4/8 shorts continues to be beyond obscene, twisted and grotesque — and as Ted correctly points out, its resolution will be the sole determinant of precious metal prices going forward.