what's occuring?

[stone]

The precious metal prices don't seem to move in a way that would make much sense if it was all down to moms and pops cashing in their savings or people buying wedding rings. Is it all down to emerging economy central banks trying to convert large USD and Euro reserves into gold? I guess if you have several trillion USD and you want to exchange that for a substancial proportion of the global stock of gold and also preserve the value of the USD, then it is quite a tortuous task. The big sell offs we have had seem to occur at the least liquid times of day on Sunday nights etc. I guess they try and sell at the most illiquid time so that selling a given amount of gold has the maximum effect on lowering the price. They then buy back the gold along with more gold at the most liquid time of day so as to minimise the effect on increasing the gold price. The silver and platinum shock downs are to create a diversion, causing people to sell gold and snap up bargins in silver. Silver is a small market and so is easier to bounce about willy nilly. I guess for them USD are basically a waste product of pegging their currencies in the teeth of massive trade surpluses. They are not out to make a USD profit so they act by different rules. The aim for them is to steadily peel away a greater and greater proportion of the global gold stock from those who currently own it.

[Gumby]

You're right, stone..

Gold Falls 2% in Minutes in Asian Trade

[escafandro]

Clive says:
Decision Moose stopped out of gold last Friday.

I jump to DM just last week, four days before the switch I´m a spectacular market timer.
So, I put this poticion in the gold PP part.

[Drewskers]

Another opinion about what's happening with gold:

http://seekingalpha.com/article/295835- ... heavy-fire

[stone]

Drewskers and Clive, the drop in the gold market on Thursday and Friday fits in with the margin hike, general need to get hold of cash after stock falls, "technical chart pattern" etc theme but to my mind the big fall between New York closing on  Friday 23th Sept and London opening on Monday 26th Sept is something beyond that. Anyone wanting to offload billions of dollars of gold and get a fair price for it would sell when buyers were available. Sunday night plummets in the gold price are all about sacrificing billions of dollars so as to keep a lid on the gold price. Gumby's link suggested that such action was by developed world central banks trying to prevent flows into gold and out of developed world currencies. I struggle with that explanation because in the last few years, all the other developed world central bank action seems aimed at weakening their currencies.

The 24hour spot gold price was $1630 at 04:00GMT sep26th, $1540 at 07:00GMT Sep26th and recovered back up to $1630 when London and New York opened.
http://www.kitco.com/charts/livegold.html

How much gold selling is needed to cause such a $90 dip in price? Perhaps the selling was genuinely trying to get the highest price available and mistakenly thought London was going to have a further selling panic but I'm doubtful.
I'm not saying that it is necessarily a bad thing if there was market manipulation. If gold had formed an uber bubble with 10% monthly gains unchecked then that might have been very hazardous.

[stone]

I wonder whether getting the price down to $1540, (even if it is only for a few hours when all the western world is asleep) is thought worthy because of what it does to moving averages and the actions of traders who subscribe to chart voodoo.

[SanMiguel]

Drewskers and Clive, the drop in the gold market on Thursday and Friday fits in with the margin hike, general need to get hold of cash after stock falls, "technical chart pattern" etc theme but to my mind the big fall between New York closing on  Friday 23th Sept and London opening on Monday 26th Sept is something beyond that. Anyone wanting to offload billions of dollars of gold and get a fair price for it would sell when buyers were available. Sunday night plummets in the gold price are all about sacrificing billions of dollars so as to keep a lid on the gold price. Gumby's link suggested that such action was by developed world central banks trying to prevent flows into gold and out of developed world currencies. I struggle with that explanation because in the last few years, all the other developed world central bank action seems aimed at weakening their currencies.

The 24hour spot gold price was $1630 at 04:00GMT sep26th, $1540 at 07:00GMT Sep26th and recovered back up to $1630 when London and New York opened.
http://www.kitco.com/charts/livegold.html

How much gold selling is needed to cause such a $90 dip in price? Perhaps the selling was genuinely trying to get the highest price available and mistakenly thought London was going to have a further selling panic but I'm doubtful.
I'm not saying that it is necessarily a bad thing if there was market manipulation. If gold had formed an uber bubble with 10% monthly gains unchecked then that might have been very hazardous.

a margin hike doesn't cause that much of a downturn, it is simply profit taking, selling to cover stock market losses in a risk off environment, and also banksters manipulating the price down.