Right on cue, as we detailed here, precious metals prices have been pummeled as China Golden Week begins...

Silver futures have accelerated lower since losing $18...

And Gold futures plunge back below $1500...

Gold is notably outperforming Silver...

Source: Bloomberg

One glance at the last few years and the gold price action should not be a huge surprise...

Source: Bloomberg

As of today, China will be on vacation for its Golden Week National Holiday and this weakness appears to be traders front-running the traditional chaos that the rest of the world plays when China leaves the playing field.

China will be back in business on October 9th, and that means the Shanghai Gold Exchange, which opened in 2015 to counter Western manipulation of precious metals, will likely help re-balance prices to where they were before this recent takedown.

We could be wrong, but something tells us gold and silver prices won’t stay this low for much longer and that they could well see a complete turnaround when China reopens on October 9th.