Registered Versus Eligible
Every business day the CME publishes a warehouse stocks report for its approved gold depositories. Gold listed as eligible meets exchange specifications — 100-ounce or kilo bars of acceptable fineness from approved refiners — and sits in the vault, but the owner has not made it available for delivery. Gold listed as registered has a warrant attached, meaning it is formally positioned to be delivered against a futures contract.
The distinction matters more than the total. A vault can hold millions of eligible ounces with almost nothing registered, and that metal is effectively off the market until owners decide otherwise. Moving metal from eligible to registered is a clerical and financial decision, not a physical one — the bars do not move.
Why Inventories Rise and Fall
- Arbitrage flows. When COMEX futures price rich to London spot, dealers ship metal to New York to capture the difference, and inventories climb. This happened on a large scale in 2020 and again in early 2025 when tariff concerns pulled metal into US vaults.
- Delivery demand. Heavy delivery months draw registered stocks down as longs stand for metal.
- Category shifts. Owners flipping metal between eligible and registered change the reported numbers without an ounce leaving the building.
Because of these flows, a rising inventory number can reflect a pricing quirk in the futures curve rather than a glut of unwanted gold, and falling registered stocks can reflect paperwork rather than a shortage.
What the Signals Are Worth
Inventory data earns its keep at the extremes. A rapid drawdown in registered stocks heading into an active delivery month can force shorts to scramble, tighten spreads, and flip the curve toward backwardation. That is real information about deliverable supply. But day-to-day wiggles in the totals are mostly noise, and gold's true available supply extends far beyond COMEX vaults to London, refiners, and central banks.
Use the warehouse report as one input alongside the futures curve, EFP pricing, and delivery notices — never as a standalone reason to trade. Context from positioning data and the outright price trend matters just as much. If you trade on supply stories, remember that futures trading involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all investors.