In this week’s ‘Days to Cover’ chart, the Big 4 traders are short about 106 days of world silver production, up two days from last week’s COT Report. The ‘5 through 8’ large traders are short an additional 41 days of world silver production, up one day from last week, for a total of about 147 days that the Big 8 are short, up about three days from last week’s report. [In last week’s COT Report, they were short 144 days of world production.]
That 147 days that the Big 8 are short, represents just about five months of world silver production, or 316.7 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 244.3 million troy ounces. As mentioned in the previous paragraph, the short position of the Big 4/8 traders is 316.7 million troy ounces. So the short position of the Big 4/8 traders is larger than the total Commercial net short position by 316.7-244.3=72.4 million troy ounces…up 20.5 million troy ounces from the 51.9 million troy ounces in last week’s report.
It was the raptor buying of that 20.5 million troy ounces/4,100 COMEX contracts that made up for most of the change in the commercial net short position in silver in the above COT Report.
The reason for the difference in those numbers two paragraphs ago…as it always is…is that Ted’s raptors, the 28-odd small commercial traders other than the Big 8, are net long that amount…72.4 million troy ounces.
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, platinum and palladium — and for ten weeks in gold, except the last two.
As per the first paragraph above, the Big 4 traders in silver are short around 106 days of world silver production in total. That’s about 26.5 days of world silver production each, on average…up a bit from last week’s report. The four big traders in the ‘5 through 8’ category are short 41 days of world silver production in total…a bit over 10 days of world silver production each on average — and up a hair from last week’s COT Report.
The Big 8 traders are short 44.8 percent of the entire open interest in silver in the COMEX futures market, which is up a bit from the 43.7 percent they were short in last week’s COT 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 45.3 percent of the total COMEX open interest that the Big 8 are short, which is down an insignificant amount from the 45.4 percent they were short in last week’s COT Report — and also a bit over 50 percent mark once their market-neutral spread trades are subtracted out.
In gold, the Big 4 are short 47 days of world gold production, down one day from last week’s report. The ‘5 through 8’ are short 30 days of world production, unchanged from a week ago…for a total of 77 days of world gold production held short by the Big 8 — and obviously down one day from last week’s COT Report. Based on these numbers, the Big 4 in gold hold about 61 percent of the total short position held by the Big 8…down about one day from last week’s report.
The “concentrated short position within a concentrated short position” in silver, platinum and palladium held by the Big 4 commercial traders are about 72, 83 and 70 percent respectively of the short positions held by the Big 8…the red and green bars on the above chart. Silver is about unchanged from last week…platinum is up 1 percentage point from a week ago — and palladium is up about 2 percentage points week-over-week.
The Big 4/8 traders are still firmly stuck on the short side in both gold and silver — and their short position increased a bit in this week’s COT Report in silver — and decreased a bit in gold. But it’s pretty much a given that they’ve increased their short position in both since the Tuesday cut-off.
But that won’t be known for sure until we see next Friday’s COT Report — and there are still two more trading days left in the reporting week.
The situation regarding the Big 4/8 shorts in silver, gold [and platinum] continues to be beyond obscene, twisted and grotesque — and as Ted correctly points out ad nauseam, its resolution will be the sole determinant of precious metal prices going forward.
Nothing else matters.