According to our conversations, the majority of our clients went into the weekend expecting a ‘yes’ result.” — Goldman Sachs

A 60% ‘No’ vote is pretty impressive, especially since the propaganda was that it would cause all Greeks to die in a fiery inferno. For Greece, this now may mean a pivot to the Silk Road unless the Troika comes back with substantial debt haircuts and eats the losses. Since that seems to be impossible to concede, it makes a confirmed default all the more likely. The Silk Road pivot is dangerous for Greece because the US’ economic hit men or worse are in play.

These events are in motion and perhaps rapidly, so I will get this post up and update in comments. So far the “magic hand” seems to be suppressing the reaction. But a lot of players have been primed to panic. The bail in of Greek banks must be at hand. The scuttlebutt is 30% but that strikes me as low. The reaction of the periphery is critical, but here we would expect more intervention.

Elsewhere, it’s definitely appearing as though the Chinese are losing control of their bubbles. By intervening and directly monetizing stocks, they are flirting with igniting a deadly inflation. That would be a game changer and accelerant for additional gold demand there.

There are some hefty silver production drops going on in Mexico. Over the first four months of 2015, said production is down 11.9%, or 92 mt. I’ve scraped up some funds to buy some more Bear Creek (which of course is silver and zinc) on Friday at 72.6 cents U.S. (roughly 91 cents Cdn). I added some AGI at 5.53.

Amid this backdrop, I don’t think there is a rational person reading this who believes actual demand for gold is weak at this moment, or that holders are selling it. There is zero evidence of that.

The only question then is paper shorting, and who would take more runs at that. We will get CoT at the close today, and the short exposures of the specs will be off the charts. That is true of most commodities now. There is such a thing as continuation or rote momo trades, but what dangerous exposure for those attempting it.