Watch out for Japan’s election on Sunday

Japan is the world’s exporter of capital, which could be disrupted by its election this weekend with consequences for the dollar. But first, we look at gold and silver.

We can see from open interest on Comex that speculator interest in both contracts is now extremely low. When prices collapsed on Friday, it was because there were no buyers. There was a vacuum under prices. The correction was a washout.

That is now behind us, and buyers are returning. Prices will continue to be driven by China’s and India’s demand for physical gold and silver. In the case of silver, while the price in Shanghai did drop, it has maintained a significant premium over paper values in London and New York. Paper gold is still in touch with Shanghai physical and the demand for it seems more general and western bullion banks have balanced books.

Silver’s chart is interesting, particularly in the context of a log scale for price. Intraday