London Gold is Emptying Without a Trace

Added: 2026-05-18

[00:00:04]Good morning. Front and center, Bullion Bank. Central banks now buying OTC gold under the radar. According to the bank Goldman Sachs, the discrepancy likely represents sovereign gold movements increasingly disappearing from trade statistics altogether. Talk about that in a second. Top left. Partnet warns markets are entering a late cycle meltup driven by AI, rising inflation, and exploding household wealth. but says the same bond yield pressures that ended prior bubbles are beginning to reappear beneath the surface referring to 1999 and 2008. Let's start with the markets.

[00:00:41]10ear yields are up four up. 04 the dollar is down 10. The S&P 500 is down 10. The Nasdaq is down 55. The VIX is unchanged up about 64 basis points.

[00:00:56]Gold is up three bucks, vacasillating between up and down $20 all night.

[00:01:00]Silver is 7578 down 101 13 was 80 cents higher at one point was about 80 cents lower at one point.

[00:01:11]Chinese silver demand is weak compared to uh US silver demand.

[00:01:17]So there's no real demand coming out of China right now.

[00:01:22]Copper is down 4 cents.

[00:01:25]WTI is down is up 82 cents. Natural gas is up 10 cents. Platinum down $3 and change. Palladium down $8 and change. Gold, silver steady, stable after rallying strong on Friday. Bitcoin down 529 and grains are all up with wheat up a remarkable 18 cents trading 658 3% or so a little bit less than 3%.

[00:02:02]First story. One could say the Goldman Sachs report described central banks. We would say that increasingly buying gold under the radar as sovereign purchases appear to be disappearing from traditional UK trade statistics. Even while London vault outflows continue rising, London vaults are emptying, but statistics are not matching that. Metal is leaving, but it's not showing metal leaving. The bank's revised methodology effectively argues that official sector demand remains stronger than publicly visible data had suggested. Goldman in a special weekend note believes central bank gold demand has remained materially stronger than previously estimated even as publicly visible purchase data appeared to slow over the past year. In a notice it says publicly available publicly visible.

[00:02:51]Gold is leaving and it's not being cataloged as leaving. So maybe it's non-monetary gold. Meanwhile, gold is leaving even as publicly visible purchase data appear to be slowed over the last year. In a precious metals note, Goldman Sachs analysts Lena Thomas and Dan Stroven revised the bank's proprietary central bank now cast higher after identifying what they describe as quote missing sovereign flows end quote in London gold trade data. That's must readad and it's not going to affect price today. But what you suspect is happening is probably happening. Gold is leaving the London vaults headed to the east, but it's not showing up in the data because somebody doesn't want it to show up in the data.

[00:03:37]That's another that's another leg that we haven't seen before. It's getting pretty aggressive. Next, Michael Hartnett. Hartnet says the US boom loop is accelerating as AI enthusiasm, rising stock wealth and expectations of no Fed hikes push equities and commodities higher, but inflation is climbing towards dangerous territory, bond yields are rising and weakening financials and tech credit suggest the same pressures that ended prior bubbles may be building up again. We go through that in a walk through and uh the parallels are getting very strong with both 1999 and 2008.

[00:04:14]I see the 2008 parallel, but others see the 1999 parallel. It's getting pretty creepy, which you would think that if we see it, the Fed sees it as well. So, if they're not if they're not if they're not worried about it, maybe we shouldn't be worried about it, but maybe we should be, you know. Other stories, uh, why Eric Sprock put 98% of his wealth in gold and silver. That was a very popular story.

[00:04:41]Founder of central bank purchases acceleration likely. That's our founders coverage of the Goldman story. And then founders understanding options volatility. That's a master class uh video that we did some years ago that we shared with everyone. India expands precious metals crackdown with new silver restrictions. That's another material story. Someone else will probably cover that as well. Um, India is restricting the import of 39 silver uh for investors in an attempt to uh bolster the rupee and narrow their trade uh surplus.

[00:05:17]They're feeling pressure because of the the the uh Iran war. Dat deck this week, welcoming remarks by Fed First Vice President Cheryl Venal for Monday, which is basically means nothing. Uh Tuesday, 10 a.m. pending home sales. Wednesday, uh minutes of the Fed's May FOMC meeting. That'll be the highlight of the week.

[00:05:44]Thursday, jobless claims, building permits, and flash PMI. Flash PMI should be the the uh the headline of the week.

[00:05:51]That should be an idea of where manufacturing is going in this in the in the country. And uh Friday is consumer sentiment and leading economic indicators.

[00:06:04]Reminder, if you're buying dips, Goldfix members exclusive bullion pricing now available. GFX has partnered with Battalion Medals to give our community direct access to institutional grade physical bullion at exclusive member pricing. Through this partnership, GFX members can purchase gold and silver products at pricing typically about 100 basis points below prevailing dealer rates.

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[00:06:32]And there's the rest of the data for the week. Let's go to the charts.

[00:06:38]Okay, so those of you who know I was long silver, I am no longer long silver as of today. The options that I was long that went in the money expired out of the money. So that's on me. Uh so we'll just keep it straight up with you right now. We're hoping for a trading range.

[00:06:54]We need 7530 to hold. It was broken, but it's above it now. So we're very close to that area. We want 7530 to hold.

[00:07:02]Above 7530, we could rebound up to 7947.

[00:07:07]Um uh if it doesn't hold, you should seriously expect, let me tell you where 7,300 to trade and below that all the way down to 7130. So the absolute low of this move, if it comes, knocking wood, would be like 7130. I think if it gets below that, then we're into that whole area uh that we had the first sell off on. So, there's your silver market. Let's look at gold.

[00:07:49]Gold, as you would imagine, has a similar structure, just not as aggressive.

[00:07:55]Gold shows us as right at the level we need to be above as well. Uh we need to hold 4521.

[00:08:04]Trading 4539 right now. We need to hold 4529. If we break 4521 uh we should gravitate towards 4407.

[00:08:13]Okay, that would put us into a dangerous territory. If we hold 4521, then 4687 is on the radar to go back up to, and then we're in a trading range. So again, the market has made a high, come off the high, and now we're hoping it's back in that um conga line trading range, right? It used to do this, spike higher, and then spike lower. Now, we're hoping it goes does this spikes higher, doesn't spike lower, and just stays in the range. And we think it could very well stay in the range because the central bank buying is underneath, at least the central bank buying that we see and know about. I'm Vince. Have a great day.