gold supply and demand

On Friday New York closed at $1,134.40 up $10.30. The dollar was stronger at $1.1335 at the close up from $1.1496, against the euro, with the dollar Index stronger at 96.07 up from Friday’s 95.19. Because of the Bank Holiday in the U.K. no LBMA gold price was set today. Ahead of New York’s opening, gold was trading at $1,132.80 and in the euro at €1,010.80.

The silver price closed at $14.59 up 41 cents over Friday’s close in New York. Ahead of New York’s opening today it was trading at $14.53. The silver price will likely follow gold this week

Global financial markets have been sensitized to more volatility, from now on. When a rate hike in the States comes, we will see a different pattern to the one we saw last week. Instead of bonds acting as a safe haven for investors both bonds and equities will fall, cutting off a key market for retreat. This removes Treasuries as a ‘safe haven’. Here are the fundamental prospects for gold:

In the global gold market there have been +15 tonnes of gold bought into the SPDR gold ETF. On COMEX we have seen hedge funds and speculators cover more than 125 tonnes of gold short positions but only increasing 50 tonnes of long positions in the last month. More importantly COMEX added 281 tonnes of gold to stock up on gold, available for delivery [as stocks were at very low levels].

In the world’s largest gold market, the Shanghai Gold Exchange, we have seen 194 tonnes withdrawn in the last three weeks, a figure that represents total imports of gold to China and including local production, an annualized 3,233 tonnes. To put that in context, that represents 111% of newly mined gold production and 75% of total gold supply. After newly mined gold supply, only ‘scrap’ gold supplies the balance. This is somewhat of a misnomer as it is mainly kept in the family in India. It is also a variable supply, dependent on prices. Now add a conservative 950 tonnes of Indian demand annually [this ignores smuggled gold which is preferred, as it is cheaper but harder to hide in the books, but done] and a conservative estimate of 250 tonnes of smuggled gold and Indian demand is expected to reach around 1,200 tonnes. Chinese and Indian demand then add up to a potential 4,433 tonnes against 4,357 tonnes potential supply. We have omitted U.S., E.U and Middle eastern and the rest of Asian demand usually accounting for up to 50% of demand from these figures.

The resulting current shortfall has to be made up with stocks representing the liquidity of the London and New York [and central banks?] markets. In the past, such a drain was tolerated only for a short time in the face of persistent demand, at which point pricing power goes east! So, how long are gold and silver prices going to remain at current levels?-

Julian D.W. Phillips for the Gold & Silver Forecasters – www.goldforecaster.com and www.silverforecaster.com

If we take the SGE gold withdrawal figures as being a more representative indicator of physical gold movement from the West to China, rather than the limited assessments by GFMS used in the latest WGC report, and add in Indian and other global demand then gold supply is already in deficit, with shortfalls becoming ever higher.

Lawrie Williams

Returning to the latest World Gold Council (WGC)/GFMS Gold Demand Trends report, which puts mainland Chinese 2014 consumer demand at a mere 814 tonnes together with the Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE) overall withdrawal figures (around 2,100 tonnes) – assuming both to be in essence correct, but looking at different parameters – the difference is explained in the Gold Demand Trends report as due to gold purchases by commercial banks, which it doesn’t include in its statistical calculations – see Chinese gold demand discrepancy explained?

In terms of physical gold flows, however, one has to see this apparent flood of gold into the Chinese commercial banks as a significant contributor to total global physical gold offtake and thus in our view should be added into the figure for total gold demand. The actual figure for this ‘additional demand’ last year will have been around 1,200 to 1,300 tonnes – a huge amount and one wonders if this is actually perhaps a proxy for Chinese central bank offtake, or even an accounting mechanism whereby the Chinese central bank increases its effective gold reserves without having to report it to the IMF. (This will be the subject of a following article).

What the WGC also noted in its latest report was the big recovery in Indian demand ahead of a widely anticipated relaxation of some of that nation’s gold import controls under the new more gold- and business-friendly Modi government. This represents something of a change in perception within the huge gold jewellery and trading business in the world’s second largest gold consumer (by our reckoning) and bodes well for total global gold demand this year with China (if one uses the SGE withdrawal figures as being that country’s total offtake) and India alone between them consuming virtually all global gold supply. This averaged around 82 tonnes per week last year from all sources including scrap supply (falling along with lower gold prices), sales out of gold ETFs (also falling), net hedging (perhaps rising but a small component) and new mined gold (expected to be flat this year).

Thus Chinese and Indian demand alone is probably exceeding total gold supply at the moment as sales out of gold ETFs so far this year are around zero to negative. Meanwhile, of course, these two Asian nations are not the only global gold consumers as they account between them for around 56% of global total demand according to the WGC statistics (although as we’ve noted above they seem to ignore the gold being taken in by Chinese banks which would make the percentage rather larger, but still leave the rest of world consuming around another 35 tonnes a week!)

That all suggests a substantial total global gold supply deficit. Indeed on this basis gold supply may have actually been in deficit over the past couple of years too, although this will have been mitigated by the big sales out of the gold ETFs. If demand continues at current levels throughout the current year (which it most probably won’t) that would suggest a very large global gold supply deficit of somewhere around 1,800 tonnes. But with the normal fall-off in Chinese and Indian demand through the middle months of the year that kind of deficit is unlikely, but the overall deficit figure would still likely be large – perhaps in the region of 1,000 tonnes of physical gold or more given ETF liquidations will likely be much lower this year unless there is a big further fall in the gold price.

With gold disappearing from the supply chain at this kind of rate one wonders how long the gold price can be held down at current levels, dependent as it is largely on financial dealings on the Western commodity markets. New such markets are now springing up in the East – notably in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Singapore. If they eventually succeed in wresting precious metals price control away from the West we could see a sea change occurring in gold and silver market valuations. This is perhaps an inevitable process over time, but we don’t yet have a handle on how long this will take – but surely by the end of the decade, if not earlier?

Gold fundamentals suggest big physical supply shortfall ahead

2015 global gold supply deficit could be substantial