This week, the prices of the metals went up, with the gold
price rising every day and the silver price stalling out after rising 42 cents
on Tuesday. The gold-silver ratio went up a bit this week, an unusual
occurrence when the prices are rising. Everyone knows that the price of silver
is supposed to
outperform—the way
Pavlov’s Dogs know that food comes after the bell. Speculators usually make it
so.
This will be a brief Report this week, as we are busy
working on something new and big.
Below, we will show the only true picture of the gold and
silver supply and demand fundamentals. But first, the price and ratio charts.
The Prices of Gold and Silver
Next, this is a graph of the gold price measured in silver,
otherwise known as the gold to silver ratio. It rose slightly this week.
The Ratio of the Gold Price to the Silver Price
For each metal, we
will look at a graph of the basis and cobasis overlaid with the price of the
dollar in terms of the respective metal. It will make it easier to provide
brief commentary. The dollar will be represented in green, the basis in blue
and cobasis in red.
Here is the gold graph.
The Gold Basis and the Cobasis and the Dollar Price
Do we have rising price of gold, up $25 (i.e. falling
dollar, from 26mg to 25.5mg gold)? Yes. Do we have rising scarcity of gold
(i.e. the cobasis, our measure of scarcity)? Why yes, we do.
This resumes the pattern that began the last week of
December. The price of gold made a low of $1,127 (i.e. the dollar made a high
of 27.6mg). Since then, the price of gold has been rising (i.e. the dollar has
been falling) while the scarcity of gold has been rising.
Not a lot. Not Defcon 5, gold is going to spike to $10,000
(i.e. the dollar is going to crash to 3mg gold). Not a big obvious
crisis-looking sort of move. Just a gradual move from -100bps to -68bps. What
makes it significant is that it occurred with rising price. Gold is becoming
scarcer as its price rises.
So far, this move has been driven by buyers of physical
metal.
Our calculated fundamental price is up $40 to stay about
$100 over the market price.
Now let’s look at silver.
The Silver Basis and Cobasis and the Dollar Price
In silver, there is quite a bit more volatility in the
basis. And though the March cobasis is up, farther contracts do not show the
same move.
Our calculated fundamental price did move up a bit—15 cents.
However, it did not keep up with the market move. So now it’s basically even
with the market price. It turns out speculators did think that silver ought to
outperform gold, and they tried. They caught up to and passed the buyers of
physical metal.
We note that in the futures market, the open interest in
gold turned down sharply starting last week. However, silver open interest diverged,
and continued to skyrocket.
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Keith Weiner is CEO of Monetary Metals, a precious metals fund company in Scottsdale, Arizona. He is a leading authority in the areas of gold, money, and credit and has made important contributions to the development of trading techniques founded upon the analysis of bid-ask spreads. He is founder of DiamondWare, a software company sold to Nortel in 2008, and he currently serves as president of the Gold Standard Institute USA.
Weiner attended university at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and earned his PhD at the New Austrian School of Economics. He blogs about gold and the dollar, and his articles appear on Zero Hedge, Kitco, and other leading sites. As a leading authority and advocate for rational monetary policy, he has appeared on financial television, The Peter Schiff Show and as a speaker at FreedomFest. He lives with his wife near Phoenix, Arizona.
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The author is not affiliated with, endorsed or sponsored by Sprott Money Ltd. The views and opinions expressed in this material are those of the author or guest speaker, are subject to change and may not necessarily reflect the opinions of Sprott Money Ltd. Sprott Money does not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, timeliness and reliability of the information or any results from its use.
