”Men in general live as much by appearances as by realities: indeed, they are often moved more by things as they appear than by things as they really are.” — Machiavelli

It appears that Peoples Bank of China is going to report gold holdings monthly. A report on its website suggests it bought 24.38 mt, or 760,000 ounces, last month. This is about on par with a good month for Russia and is not an especially big deal. Now that we see China devaluing the Yuan 2% so far this week, it is starting to add up. China is being less than forthright about its gold holdings because it wants to avoid hard currency status. In fact, China is flirting with a big inflationary crack-up boom. The real substantial demand for gold in that scenario will come from the Chinese public and institutions.

I'm always surprised when I see a crime syndicate network like CNBC report on fraud and crime syndicate activity. In a rare “candid” moment, this story about U.S. Treasury market spoofing and the preponderance of high frequency trading got past the editor. If the plan is to deliberately pull the plug on the bond bubble, then damaging stories like this will be revealed.

Crimex open interest increased by 7,939 contracts during Monday's gold price lift. That does not support short covering and in fact suggests the specs sold even more paper gold. Indeed, as soon as less-liquid and quieter Globex trading opened, they were back with slam attempts. Then mid-morning in Europe, gold rallied again. Perhaps the real squeeze will now get underway? I can be forgiven for thinking so.

Zinc is being reported in tight supply in China. 

Insider Awde is back with some steady buying of Gold Standard. I will be the first to admit that these insiders show no better timing than the rest of us, but it does show how they view the situation and prospects of their companies.