COTS Report, page-6

Bank participation report

The total open interest is 521,506 which includes longs and shorts and are in contracts of 100 troy ounces.

That makes 52,150,600 troy ounces in play in the paper gold futures market.

The total short interest for the banks is 158,584 contracts of 100 troy ounces.
That makes 15,858,400 troy ounces short on the futures market.

Now given there are somewhere over 9,000,000 troy ounces in the COMEX and 15,858,400 ounces short on the futures markjet that makes a whole lot more ounces short of what exists for delivery at the COMEX .

Of course I think it is less than 1% is of those short contracts are ever delivered.

There is only a tad over 2,000,000 ounces available for delivery in the COMEX the rest is not in the London gold standard delivery form ie a weighed ounce of 99.999 purity.

Interesting or what?