It was imperative that the position be brought under control, and accordingly, it appears that central banks, presumably at the behest of the Bank of England, arranged for gold to be leased to the bullion banks to ease liquidity pressures. And then trading desks were hit by a perfect storm.
The coronavirus put large swathes of the global economy into lockdown, disrupting payment chains in industrial production. This meant that formerly solvent businesses now face collapse and are turning en masse to their banks for liquidity. The bankers’ natural instinct is no longer the pursuit of profit, but fear of losses, and they now have an overwhelming desire to contract outstanding bank credit. In a panic, the Fed cut the Fed funds rate to the zero bound and promised unlimited liquidity support in a desperate attempt to avoid a deflationary spiral. Meanwhile, our swaps traders in gold futures were caught record short, the worst possible position for them given the evolving situation.
The coup de grâce has now come from their banking superiors. Despite the efforts of the Fed to persuade them otherwise, bankers in their lending have become strongly risk-averse and know they will be forced to commit bank credit to failing corporations against their instincts. For this reason, they are taking every opportunity to reduce their balance sheet exposure to other activities. One of the first divisions to suffer is bound to be bullion bank desks running short positions, synthetic in London and actual on Comex, which are wholly inappropriate at a time of massive monetary inflation.
It is this last pressure that has led to an unusual combination of collapsed open interest, shown in the chart above, and rising gold prices, accompanied by a persistent premium of $40 or more over the spot price in London. Clearly, there is good reason for the LBMA and the CME to panic. If the gold price rises much further, there will be bullion desks, managing shorts on Comex and fractionally reserved positions in London, at risk of bankrupting their employers.
The Comex contract, which anchors itself to physical gold through the option of physical delivery at expiry, will face enormous challenges when the active June contract expires at the end of next month. At expiry, the speculators have a chance to obtain delivery. Normally, when the spot price is lower than the future, only the insane would insist on delivery at the higher price. But with very low availability of bullion and price premiums for delayed delivery common, London is being rapidly drained of physical liquidity as well. It is like a good old-fashioned one-two boxing combination: first the Comex market is delivered a body-blow, and then the LBMA gets an uppercut.
Many central banks who have stored their earmarked gold at the Bank of England will be unhappy as well, having leased their gold in the expectation it would stabilise the bullion market. They will not do it again for an interesting reason: gold leasing rates have turned strongly negative, with the two-month rate currently minus 3.7%.[ii] No sensible entity is going to pay a lessor to lease its gold and will want leased gold returned instead. Therefore, the availability of gold for leasing is now cut off and gold already leased will need to be returned if delivered to the lessors, or unencumbered if it remained in the Bank of England’s vaults as is the normal leasing practice.
Gold liquidity in London will then disappear entirely, at which point those with a claim to custodial gold will hope that their property rights remain protected.
- Source, Goldmoney
