But the information that follows is accurate, as I’m able to compute this data manually. In this week’s ‘Days to Cover’ chart, the Big 4 traders are short about 105 days of world silver production, up about 5 days from last week’s COT Report. The ‘5 through 8’ large traders are short an additional 43 days of world silver production, down about 8 days from last Friday’s report, for a total of about 148 days that the Big 8 are short — down about 3 days from last week’s COT Report. [Note: As of last week’s report, Ted says there were two Managed Money traders in the Big 8 short category — and whether they are both still there or not as of yesterday’s COT Report, is something that I forgot to ask him yesterday. Regardless of that, this fact distorts the numbers you see above — and the distortions in silver are now so great, that I’m not going to bother doing much in the way of calculations…just approximations.] I suspect that the big drop in the ‘5 through 8’ category is the result of a Managed Money trader disappearing out of that category — and it was the Big 4 that did most of the shorting during the reporting week. That 148 days that the Big 8 traders are short, represents just about five months of world silver production, or 317.3 million troy ounces/63,466 COMEX contracts of paper silver held short by these eight traders…at least one of which is a Managed Money trader. Ted said that the ‘commercial only’ component of this number was around 265 million troy ounces, which works out to about 121 days of world silver production held by these Big 8 commercial traders…a lot different that the 148 days that’s shown on the ‘Days to Cover’ chart posted above. He also said that the Big 4 commercial traders are short around 175 million troy ounces — and that works out to about 81 days of world silver production, which is hugely different from the 105 days on the chart above. Ted said that his raptors, the 22-odd small commercial traders other than the Big 8 shorts, are net long silver by around 175,000 contracts…down only 10 million troy ounces from the 185 million they were long in last week’s COT Report. This is why the big commercial shorts had to step in a big way this past reporting week in order to prevent a silver price explosion. In gold, the Big 4 are short 32 days of world gold production, up 3 days last Friday’s COT Report. The ‘5 through 8’ are short 21 days of world production, up about 1 day from last week…for a total of 53 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 60 percent of the total short position held by the Big 8…up about 1 percentage point from last Friday’s COT Report. These are still very bullish numbers. As of last week’s COT Report, as mentioned earlier, it appeared that there is one Managed Money trader in each of the Big 4 and Big ‘5 through 8’ categories in gold — and that certainly affects the above numbers. Whether those two big Managed Money shorts are both still there is something else I forgot to ask Ted about in our telephone conversation yesterday. So, like for silver, the days of world production held short by the commercial traders in gold is a very decent amount less than shown in the previous paragraph and, for the same reasons, this applies to platinum and palladium as well…plus copper and WTIC. The Big 8 traders are short 49.0 percent of the entire open interest in silver in the COMEX futures market, which is down a bit from the 50.4 percent they were short in the last COT report. And once whatever market-neutral spread trades are subtracted out, that percentage would be something over the 55 percent mark. In gold, it’s 36.3 percent of the total COMEX open interest that the Big 8 are short, up a decent amount from the 32.2 percent they were short in last Friday’s COT Report — and something just over the 40 percent mark once their market-neutral spread trades are subtracted out. That percentage increase in gold was also influenced by the fact that total open interest in gold dropped by 4.5 percent during the reporting week. But remember there are still Managed Money traders contaminating the Big 4/8 short positions. Because of that, these numbers are actually far less than stated, particularly in silver…as I pointed out a few paragraphs earlier. The Big 4/8 commercial traders are still a force to be reckoned with in gold and silver — and they raised their ugly heads once more in this week’s COT Report. And as Ted always and correctly points out, we won’t know that the lows are in until we see them in the rear-view mirror. So far, we’ve been fooled more than several times since these engineered declines commenced starting at the blow up in the LME nickel market back on March 8. As I keep reminding you in this spot every Saturday, the circumstances in silver have been altered by an unimaginable [and monstrously bullish] amount by Ted’s discovery of the 1 billion troy ounce physical short position in silver that Bank of America holds in the OTC market, courtesy of JPMorgan & Friends …along with the big increase in Goldman’s derivatives position in silver in that market. They’ve increased even more in the latest OCC Report for Q2/2022… which Ted figures is a long position. The situation regarding the Big 4/8 concentrated commercial short positions in silver, gold is still obscene to some extent — and they’re obviously still throwing their weight around. As Ted has been pointing out ad nauseam forever, the resolution of the Big 4/8 short positions will be the sole determinant of precious metal prices going forward…with that resolution currently obviously still a work in progress at the moment. And, as always, nothing else matters — and I certainly look forward to what he has to say in his weekly review later this afternoon EDT. |