COMEX Gold Stockpiles - Trading From Physical to Paper

Since 2002 the trend has been to store Registered gold at COMEX - with over 8.5 million ounces have been stockpiled there.

Also noticeable is Eligible stocks which have declined to 0.5 million ounces.

The next chart shows COMEX Deliveries vs Stockpiles.

I have added in 2015 deliveries up to June & so far only 0.7 million ounces this year.

This shows that deliveries have declined from around 9 million ounces to approx 2 million ounces per year.

Here's another view showing the decline in deliveries.

Meanwhile trading has increased significantly over the period as shown with daily volumes & open interest.

And with derivative positions

With available stocks now down to approx 0.5 million ounces & so many paper contracts being traded we now see the metric "Owner's per Ounce" skyrocket.

This metric measures the available gold at COMEX (Registered) vs the current paper contracts open against them.

The above charts are thus confirming that COMEX has changed over the last decade.

Now we see a lot less gold being delivered, a lot more gold being held & huge increases in the number of paper trades.

It appears that COMEX has become the Los Vegas of paper trading whilst Asia is taking over the physical supply.

It is interesting to note that the COMEX recently added a KiloBar contract trading in Hong Kong that is now delivering more physical than COMEX in New York.

Since late March it has delivered approx 321 tonnes of physical gold whereas in New York COMEX has only delivered 22 tonnes for the whole of 2015.

This shows what a sorry state the COMEX has turned into - gambling paper with little correlation to the underlying physical metal.

And so leveraged via derivatives that it is an accident waiting to happen....

If ever the paper markets at COMEX melt down then the price of gold is assured to melt up.