Silver (and Gold) May Be Set-Up To Launch and the HUI To Do A Moonshot

Friday's action in the metals was quite predictable and a look "behind the headlines" reveals some interesting information.  I had mentioned to several colleagues after this week's option expiry, in which the cartel failed to slam the metals below key call option strike prices, that if a lot of the in-the-money call holders exercised and took delivery of their contracts the metals might get slammed during Wed/Fri low volumn trading.  I guess it was another lucky guess on my part per yesterday's ambush.

As it turns out, Monday is "first notice" day for December gold/silver.  What this means is that anyone with a long position has to either sell their position by yesterday's access close OR have an account that can 1) to accept delivery (most online trading futures accounts to not allow this) and 2) if the account can take delivery, it has to be fully funded to accept a delivery notice as of Friday evening.  What typically happens leading into the day before first notice is that the cartel will make an aggressive attempt to force the market lower knowing that many smaller traders will be natural sellers going into the day before first notice.  Moreover, the thin volumn on Wed/Fri makes this task a lot easier - ergo yesterday's action.

With this as the context, a couple of data points in silver and gold could make next week very interesting - to the upside.  First, as of Wednesday, there were 28,000 open silver contracts.  Yesterday's ambush may have forced most of those to sell (see the previous paragraph).  Preliminarily, and I do not put a lot of faith in the Comex "prelimary" open interest report, only about 7900 December silver contracts liquidated.  That would mean about 105 million ounces are standing for potential delivery.  The Comex would default if this were to play out like that.  It is likely that the silver contract liquidation was closer 20,000 contracts.  We'll find out Monday mid-morning.  That would leave 8k contracts standing, or 40mm ounces.  That is still about 80% of the silver reported to be available for delivery. If that scenario plays out, the price of silver is going to explode over the next couple of weeks.

The second interesting piece of data was reported yesterday evening by zerohedge.com.  Right at the close of the afternoon electronic trading session, someone bought 2000 contracts of February gold.  I don't think I've ever seen something like that in 9 years of doing this sector exclusively.   That is an enormous purchase.  It was either desperate short-covering ahead of news that could propel the metals higher next week or a very big player has decided to square off against the egregiously corrupt maneuvers of JPM/HSBC.  You can read about that trade and some interesting volatility color here:  LINK

Are gold stocks poised to stage a big move higher?

The answer to this depends on which the way metals move.  I've posted a chart which shows the ratio of the HUI to gold over the past year.  The chart shows the relative price performance between mining stocks and gold.  As you can see, the ratio is roughly in the middle of its trading range for the past year.  It has bumped up against resistance again and appears to be headed lower.  If this is the case, the mining stocks are likely to outperform gold/silver for awhile.

(click on chart to enlarge)

If my trading scenario for higher gold/silver outlined above plays out, the mining stocks should really start to move higher in December.  From a technical/fundamental standpoint, I would argue that the metals are set up to rally big-time.  We have already seen that the Fed/Treasury are willing to do whatever it takes in terms of monetizing the system in order to stimulate a big holiday season and keep the economy from collapsing.  Furthermore, the Fed typically injects a lot of extra short-term liquidity into the banking system via repos in December for several reasons, not the least of which is to fuel a year-end/January-effect rally in the stock market.  Gold and silver will smell this if it occurs again and will outperform the stock market to the upside.  The mining stocks will do that times-2.  

In addition, with Europe melting down again and the geopolitical climate heating up (see the Koreas, the U.S./China battleship tension and the China/Russia currency announcement), I think we can expect a considerable flood of global money to seek shelter from fiat currencies and reckless Government policies everywhere.  Layer on top of that the Islamic world returning from an extended religious hiatus, which will likely create a bullish influence on the metals.  And finally, the sentiment indicators in the precious metals, using several metrics, have plummeted in the past week.  From a contrarian perspective, this is usually quite bullish.

So, will the metals/mining stocks move a lot higher in December?  I have no idea - anything can happen.  I would suggest though that the conditions are set up for a possible significant move higher.  If that is the case, you want to be positioned accordingly because once this freight train leaves the station, you will have a hard time convincing yourself to jump on board.