Wednesday, Jan 16, 2008

Who's wearing the concentrated shorts?

SilverSeek.com: Danger Zone

One for S2R1 and techieman, and anyone else interested in metals. Watch out for the concentrated shorts (who are these guys?!) - there could be blood on the carpet. Sorry if this seems a bit off the HPC topic, but all these things are related and there has been much talk of gold lately on the forum.

Posted by harold @ 11:54 AM (360 views) Add Comment

11 Comments

1. drewster said...

To summarise the article, the gold futures market is 95% driven by speculators and only 5% by real gold buyers and sellers like miners and jewellers. The writer thinks this creates a problem, but I see it as part of the return to a gold standard.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008 01:49PM Report Comment
 

2. Ellipse said...

..idea: could they be reprensentatives of a consortium of central banks ?keeping the gold/silver prices low to offset prevent currencies deflation? (it's purely speculative and open to debate)

Wednesday, January 16, 2008 01:50PM Report Comment
 

3. techieman said...

The article refers to the largest non commercials (i.e. non producers etc) and the fact that a small number of them account for a large short position in Gold. (actually see http://www.cftc.gov/dea/futures/deacmxlf.htm which shows the current numbers).

Im none too sure of this guys conclusions - hes basically saying that the BIG non commercials are short and a large increase will cause them to short cover or put up lots of margin, and that at a point in time they will have to buy back, causing an upward move. This would be normal but for the fact that positions are concentrated in a few hands. I dont really buy that myself, but still.

Its the change in the positions that is the issue with this indicator and why its tracked. See: http://www.investopedia.com/articles/forex/05/COTreport.asp. Particularly "Extreme positioning in the currency futures market has historically been accurate in identifying important market reversals".

Wednesday, January 16, 2008 02:27PM Report Comment
 

4. sold 2 rent 1 said...

I have had several friends contact me in the last week about buying gold.
This suggests that there are many weak hands joining the party.

These weak hands need to be scolded before this gold party can continue.
Have now sold a third of my gold.

Of course I might be wrong, that is why I always want to remain at least 2/3 invested.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008 03:05PM Report Comment
 

5. harold said...

"This suggests that there are many weak hands joining the party.''

True. But the vast majority in the world are still to wake up to the fact that gold is money.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008 03:11PM Report Comment
 

6. cornishman said...

Hi techieman - you're the man! [re 'correction' in gold price]

Wednesday, January 16, 2008 03:28PM Report Comment
 

7. techieman said...

Well not the only one who sugested it Cornish, but the problem now is gettin back in!!! Ive got no strong feelings on that at the moment. As i said before I was just applying rules - sometimes they work sometimes they dont. (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Elliott-Wave-Principle-Anniversary-Advantage/dp/0471988499/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1200497711&sr=8-1) its funny look at the comments, its like marmite i spose - you love it or you hate it!!! :-).

Wednesday, January 16, 2008 03:37PM Report Comment
 

8. harold said...

...the problem now is gettin back in!!!

What do people reckon on this - $850?

Wednesday, January 16, 2008 03:48PM Report Comment
 

9. hpwatcher said...

Gold sounds like another HPC. Whenever everybody piles into something, it always goes tits up!

Look at property.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008 03:50PM Report Comment
 

10. sold 2 rent 1 said...

"What do people reckon on this - $850?"
Low 800s maybe.

hpwatcher,
Gold will be a bubble - that will crash badly - maybe even to zero - but not before 2010

Wednesday, January 16, 2008 04:33PM Report Comment
 

11. Ellipse said...

It's a bull market, although programmed to brutally eliminate the late weak hands...

Wednesday, January 16, 2008 05:22PM Report Comment
 

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