As we can see from the action in Sept 2011, right before gold went vertical, the commercial net short positions were at a peak. But, when the price moved up it caused a HUGE SHORT SQUEEZE, forcing the commercials to cover.
Here we can see that the BULLS won the battle. Presently, the gold price could go either way as we are seeing extreme high levels in the commercial net short positions. However, if we do see large buying coming in from the Hedge Funds and etc, it could cause a huge short squeeze, similar to what took place back in Sept 2011.
Well, it looks as if gold production from the Top 5 gold companies declined 5% in the first half of 2012 compared to the same period last year:
Barrick had less gold production due to less ore processed and GoldCorp was dealing with the drought in Mexico which cut back their production. Regardless, it will be difficult for these top 5 miners to make up the shortfall in the second half of 2012… especially with 39% of the gold production offline in South Africa.
