Adam Hamilton: Commitment of traders reports don’t fully tell the tale

9:15a CT Sunday, October 11, 2009

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:

Adam Hamilton, publisher of the ZEAL Intelligence letter, argues in commentary published Friday that the commitment of traders reports for gold trading on the U.S. commodity exchanges do not determine price direction as much as the constant analysis of them suggests.

Record commercial short positions in gold, Hamilton writes, often have failed to precede declines in price. Hamilton also suspects that the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which publishes the commitment of traders data, is not terribly accurate in defining commercial shorts.

Further, quite apart from Hamilton’s commentary, one does not need to be wearing one’s tinfoil hat to wonder if the big market players counted by the CFTC as commercial shorts on the U.S. exchanges might be hedging their positions there with unreported purchases elsewhere. Gold trading around the world is far from transparent.

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