Price Moves And Term Structures 20 Sep, 2015

The prices of the metals moved up a bunch this week, with gold + $32 and silver +$0.55. We have seen some discussion of gold backwardation in the context of scarcity, and hence setting expectations of higher prices. That’s good, as the swings from contango to backwardation and back are the only way to understand changing supply and demand in the market.

You should be cautious about trading yesterday’s news. There was indeed backwardation in gold and silver. However, the cobasis is a sensitive indicator. It predicts the likely path of the price, but you should get an updated picture before buying based on an old reading after a sizeable price move.

In this Report, we’ll look at both metals bases, as well as their cobasis term structures. So read on…

First, here is the graph of the metals’ prices.

The Prices of Gold and Silver

We are interested in the changing equilibrium created when some market participants are accumulating hoards and others are dishoarding. Of course, what makes it exciting is that speculators can (temporarily) exaggerate or fight against the trend. The speculators are often acting on rumors, technical analysis, or partial data about flows into or out of one corner of the market. That kind of information can’t tell them whether the globe, on net, is hoarding or dishoarding.

One could point out that gold does not, on net, go into or out of anything. Yes, that is true. But it can come out of hoards and into carry trades. That is what we study. The gold basis tells us about this dynamic.

Conventional techniques for analyzing supply and demand are inapplicable to gold and silver, because the monetary metals have such high inventories. In normal commodities, inventories divided by annual production (stocks to flows) can be measured in months. The world just does not keep much inventory in wheat or oil.

With gold and silver, stocks to flows is measured in decades. Every ounce of those massive stockpiles is potential supply. Everyone on the planet is potential demand. At the right price, and under the right conditions. Looking at incremental changes in mine output or electronic manufacturing is not helpful to predict the future prices of the metals. For an introduction and guide to our concepts and theory, click here.