Chaos in Gold Markets Ripples to Other Precious Metals
(Bloomberg) -- The chaos that engulfed the gold market in March as the global pandemic choked off physical trading routes is rippling through other precious metals, resulting in price dislocations and a surge in exchange inventories for silver and platinum.
The gold market was thrown into turmoil in March as lockdowns grounded planes and closed refineries, leading traders to worry they wouldn't be able to get gold to New York in time to deliver against futures contracts. That caused futures, which typically trade close to the London spot price, to soar to a premium, inflicting losses on banks that struggled to close arbitrage bets and spurring them to shift some positions out of New York futures.
There are signs that the dynamic isn't limited to gold. Silver and platinum futures have traded at elevated levels relative to spot metals since early April. And as in the case of gold, the premiums are spurring big increases in on-exchange inventories in New York.
On Monday, first-notice data for the July silver contract on the Comex in New York showed the largest single day of deliveries in almost 25 years. Deliveries for platinum on the New York Mercantile Exchange were more than five times the next largest month this year.
Those deliveries serve as a way for banks to reduce their exposure to price dislocations and limit risk, said David Holmes, a senior vice president at Heraeus Metals New York, a precious metals refiner.
READ MORE: New York Gold Traders Drown in a Glut They Helped Create
The blowout in gold spreads earlier this year led to big losses for some banks, which typically sell futures in New York as a hedge for their positions in the London over-the-counter market. HSBC Holdings Plc. lost $200 million in a single day of trading, illustrating the challenges to banks due to the turmoil in the exchange-for-physical price, or EFP.
Wider Spreads
Silver and platinum have been seeing similar price differentials. The spread between silver futures and spot prices ended the second quarter at the highest in nearly four decades. Platinum's EFP spiked to the highest since early 2008. And palladium had the largest spread on record, dating back to late 1993.
The turmoil caused stockpiles to jump amid efforts to meet the apparent shortages. On-exchange inventories for silver and platinum surged to a record and remain close to those levels.
Meanwhile, futures positions have been shrinking in the wake of the pandemic-induced dislocations, creating a glut of metal akin to gold's stockpiles. Platinum open interest, a tally of outstanding futures contracts, is near the lowest in eight years and is down more than 56% from a peak in January. Open interest in silver futures is down nearly a third from a February high. Gold positions reached the lowest in a year before recovering, while palladium is at a more than 16-year low.
“If a bank is short, it's hard to close the arbitrage,” Holmes said. “Therefore, instead of increasing their position as the arbitrage grew wider, they've had to either hold constant their position or even reduce it.”
©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
-
Opinion | India at 38: From Innovation Overperformer to Innovation Powerhouse
India now has 453 VC-backed deep science startups, 18 of them late-stage, after 117 percent growth since 2020. Laurus Labs, at USD 9.3 billion, is the most valuable deep science company in any middle-income economy outside China.
-
Navigating Energy Crossroads: S Jaishankar's Call For Diversified Supply Chains At G20 Ministerial Meeting
As geopolitical fault lines continue to test maritime trade routes and commodity flows, Jaishankar's message remains pertinent: true economic resilience requires open markets, protected transit lines, and a genuine commitment to multilateral cooperation rather than coercion.
-
Indians Are Travelling, But Not Every Journey Is A Holiday | The Week In Whys
Pilgrims, patients and working women are the real travellers, and the system hasn't quite caught up with them.
-
Getting To Work Costs Women More | The Reason Why
It is not just about women paying more than men. It is about women paying much more in cities than in villages.
-
AI Bias In Investing Cannot Be Eliminated, But It Can Be Governed
Framing is a particularly important example as identical financial information presented in terms of gains rather than losses can lead an LLM to reach a different assessment.
-
Joining The Dots | Dark Skies, Steady Diya: Why Hope Holds This Diwali
With war, a weak rupee and foreign outflows weighing on sentiment, policymakers at the NDTV World Summit and market veterans at NDTV Profit Ignite: Diwali Edition offered the same advice: stay invested and filter out the noise.
-
The Curious Case of Equitas Small Finance Bank And A CEO Who Quit For Stock
PN Vasudevan believes persistent investor concerns over a perceived conflict of interest had become a governance overhang on Equitas Small Finance Bank's stock, even as the lender improved profitability and asset quality.
-
Talking Points This Week: AI Cash Burn, A Tiger Comeback And An India That Still Finds Its Own Path
India is not immune to higher oil or tighter global liquidity, yet its earnings base is broader, its domestic policy levers are still available.
-
Foreign Investors Own Half Of HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank. An LTCG Cut Could Matter Most Here
Foreign portfolio investors have US$115 billion parked in HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank. If the government cuts long-term capital gains tax, Jefferies says returning foreign money could land here first.
