Gold Continues to See Consistent Exit of Metal from Comex Vaults

The CME Comex is the Exchange where futures are traded for gold, silver, and other commodities. The CME also allows futures buyers to turn their contracts into physical metal through delivery. You can find more detail on the CME here (e.g., vault types, major/minor months, delivery explanation, historical data, etc.).

The data below looks at contract delivery where the ownership of physical metal changes hands within CME vaults. It also shows data that details the movement of metal in and out of CME vaults. It is very possible that if there is a run on the dollar, and a flight into gold, this is the data that will show early warning signs.

Gold

Gold continues to consolidate in a range between $4400 and $4800. This is a healthy consolidation pattern given the big move seen last year. When looking at Comex delivery volume, the numbers are below trend for the last year but well above where delivery volumes stood prior to 2025. May is a minor month and saw deliveries of 8,428 contracts delivered.

Figure: 1 Recent like-month delivery volume

When looked at from a dollar amount perspective (rather than raw ounces), you can see that the amount delivered is about half the amount last year despite much higher prices. Looking back over the last several years shows a much higher amount delivered.

Figure: 2 Notional Deliveries

Net new contracts (contracts that open and settle for immediate delivery) were very low this month, accounting for 4,556 contracts. This is on the lower side, but the late surge is interesting. Typically the net new contracts come in throughout the month where for this May, volume did not pick up until about halfway through the delivery window.

Figure: 3 Cumulative Net New Contracts

While deliveries at the Comex have slowed, metal leaving the vault has not. A delivery at the CME is really just a warrant moving from one owner to another. But the physical bar of gold actually stays within the vault. So to get a better perspective on actual metal movement, you need to look at inventory levels.

As shown below, metal leaving the vault has continued unabated. What is even more interesting is that you are no longer seeing large spikes or drawdowns. The exit has become a slow steady drip indicating a very deliberate and methodical move to take metal out of Comex reserves.

This has been ongoing since right after the massive price drop at the end of January.

Figure: 4 Inventory Data

Looking ahead to the June delivery period (a major month for gold), we see a contract that is hovering near the lower end of the average. This is mainly due to a big drop following the Memorial holiday weekend.

Figure: 5 Open Interest Countdown

With the recent drop in inventory, the open interest relative to physical stocks is slightly higher and more within the normal range.

Figure: 6 Open Interest Countdown Percent

Bottom line, May did not see a great exchange of warrants but it did see a continuation and acceleration of the metal leaving the Comex vaults all together.

Silver

Silver has fully exited backwardation. This is when the spot price was above the futures price for most of Q4 2025 and into January.

Figure: 7 Spot vs Futures

Silver delivery drifted down again when compared to the recent months. At 5,686 contracts delivered, May saw the smallest delivery volume for a major month since September 2024.

Figure: 8 Recent like-month delivery volume

Switching to notional values, and focusing on the month of May, produces the chart below. Last May saw almost triple the amount of contracts delivered (15,122) but the notional was only a bit higher due to the massive price increase in silver over the last year.

Figure: 9 Notional Deliveries

Silver net new contracts were almost entirely flat, even trending negative at the beginning of the month. This will be the lowest net new contract volume since early 2024.

Figure: 10 Cumulative Net New Contracts

Similar to gold though, despite slowing delivery volume, silver continues to be drained from the vault at an alarming pace. In this case, Eligible are owned bars that are not even available for delivery, so this is people just taking metal they own and getting it out of Comex. This did slow in May after a massive drawdown of almost 100M ounces since the beginning of 2026.

Figure: 11 Inventory Data

Registered metal (metal available for delivery) has seen a small uptick in May. The drawdown in Registered started in September of last year, reaching almost 125M ounces out before a slight reprieve started at the end of March.

Figure: 12 Inventory Data

As we approach June delivery, the silver contract has actually increased. It now sits at the third highest amount, behind only January 2026 and October 2025. This could lead to increased delivery volume for June which is a minor month in silver.

Figure: 13 Open Interest Countdown

On a relative basis, the open interest is actually very near the top due to the massive drawdown in inventories.

Figure: 14 Open Interest Countdown Percent

Conclusion

Delivery volume has subsided across both metals. However, in terms of metal leaving the vaults, gold continues to see a very slow but deliberate exit. This is not an accident. Someone is extracting metal from Comex in a very organized fashion to avoid pushing the price back up. Whoever is accumulating wants to see prices stay contained for now, which makes a lot of sense. Silver is slightly different though. It looks like metal stopped leaving the vault after a massive 6-month drawdown. It will be interesting to see if this resumes shortly. If it does, keeping the price of silver contained will be nearly impossible. There is still a nearly 12% premium for silver in China when compared to the US. Until this gap closes, expect the demand for physical metal to remain… even if it takes a breather for now.