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View Full Version : James Turk - Silver Still in Backwardation, Headed Higher



Serpo
26th April 2011, 04:48 AM
With gold and silver surfing the wave of volatility, today King World News interviewed James Turk out of Spain. When asked about the reason for the increased volatility Turk stated, “There are some earthshaking events coming, that’s what the precious metals are telling us. That’s what the dollar chart has also been telling us and that is why I am expecting a waterfall decline in the dollar index. The dollar has a unique position as the world’s reserve currency and as people lose confidence in it they will go to other moneys they consider safer.”

“During times of trouble the natural reaction is to bring assets home. So as confidence in the dollar declines you might see an emotional knee-jerk reaction with people buying the euro even though that currency has serious problems as well.



But people who buy the euro will soon learn it is only a stepping stone to the only real safe haven which is gold and silver.”



When asked about silver Turk remarked, “The important point Eric is that silver is still in backwardation. I mentioned to you previously in the KWN blog piece on April 1st of this year that if silver remained in backwardation when we neared the $50 area it would be a truly extraordinary event. Here we are with silver touching $49 in Asian trading this morning, yet it remains in a 63 cent backwardation from spot to December 2015.



I can’t stress enough how significant that event is. Over the past three months the price of silver has nearly doubled, yet the backwardation has not disappeared. Markets are not designed to work that way, the higher price is supposed to entice people to sell their physical and hold dollars instead. I think the market is quite clearly sending the signal that people would rather hold silver instead of paper money.



The bottom line is that as long as silver remains in backwardation, price declines will be short-lived, it’s also telling us that silver has not yet reached a top on this move.”



When asked about gold specifically Turk replied, “We have taken out $1,500 and we look ready to move higher. Often times when you take out a century mark it brings in a lot of new buying and that is what I expect to happen this time. I had not expected the gold/silver ratio to move in silver’s favor as fast as it has below the 35 level.



At on point in early trading today the ratio was below 31. That is telling me that silver is still leading the way, but when I look at the gold chart and the huge base that it has built under $1,500, I still conclude that gold is ready to rocket higher.”

http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2011/4/26_James_Turk_-_Silver_Still_in_Backwardation%2C_Headed_Higher.ht ml

Neuro
26th April 2011, 04:53 AM
Damn! Now I almost regret selling Silver....

PatColo
26th April 2011, 06:05 AM
Oil's in backwardation too (http://www.crbtrader.com/data.asp?page=quote&sym=CLM11), turns the corner with the Nov '11 contract and descends from there.

The conventional wisdom re backwardation is that it signals urgency to get physical product sooner, implying doubts about longer term supply.

But I see commods go backwardation here and there, and it doesn't seem that reliable of a bullish indicator. Maybe I'm wrong- what I'd love to see is a graphic study of "continuous contract" of leading commods' graphs over a decade or more, with a graphic overlay of a line indicating contango/backwardation with intensity of each, such that I could then see what the commod tended to do price wise in relation to those backwardation areas.

This wouldn't seem so hard to do, it's all historical price data, but why doesn't someone produce such graphs?

I tend to dismiss backwardation, esp with the energies, by assuming that the market is anticipating "demand destruction" resulting from economic collapse. But I've been thinking that for years, and the econ has just been so much slower to collapse than I first feared upon "waking up" several years ago, it's humbling. I'm long oil now though (WTI), got in a few months ago near $90, believe it's going much higher this year, along with most commods. I'd have done better in unleaded though, it's outperformed crude like silver's outperformed gold.

BTW, gold is in strong contango (http://www.crbtrader.com/data.asp?&page=quote&sym=GCJ11&mode=i), with Dec '16 contract $1,766/oz.

Here's silver's contracts (http://www.crbtrader.com/data.asp?page=quote&sym=SIK11), hard to judge at this writing because the back months are thinly traded and mostly show the 4/25 close quote still, not reflecting the couple buck drop the past half day. Check it at the end of COMEX today.

Awoke
26th April 2011, 06:15 AM
Seriously, WTF does backwardation mean? I thought I knew, but after reading the OP, I don't thinkni have a clue.

Silver Shield
26th April 2011, 06:20 AM
the price of the near contract is higher than the longer contract. This is not natural in the futures market because the longer the contract has more risk, interest and storage costs. This means that people are paying a premium to get their silver now.

Neuro
26th April 2011, 06:53 AM
Another thing to consider is that 2015 is a long time in the future, does the contracts of coming months this year show backwardation too?

Good point about a thinly traded contract too, especially if the underlying commodity is rising fast in price. The last trade can be several hours before the last spot price update, if the spot has gone up $2 since then, on paper it would look like backwardation, but it isn't...

gunDriller
26th April 2011, 07:49 AM
During times of trouble the natural reaction is to bring assets home


yep.

that's why silver is going to $100.

China has $3 Trillion to spend. and Yosemite isn't for sale ... yet.