Snoopy said:
I'd say, it is the're (COMIX) god damn job to ensure and guarantee the data provided by these sources and services is correct and trustworthy. Besides, for all those years it seemed not to be a problem, yet they suddenly felt they need to publish this disclaimer, I wonder why, why now ?
The job of the Comex (why "Comix"?) is to make sure that those on the futures market will meet the obligations associated to a futures position and that the market is "liquid" ie sellers and buyers can always find eachother.
Look at Thomson Reuters, I've seen them adjusting data that they published as long as 5-7 years ago.
There is a red line though: all revisions shift towards a same direction: they collect data for supply, they collect data for demand, and the difference is explained by missing data, which they give a separate category (ex for silver was Implied Net Investment). Later on when they collect old sales figures, they subtract it from that separate "various" category to add it to the category it really was.
Why the Comex added that disclaimer one day, well, any disclaimer comes into existence one day. Maybe it was just that day? There could have been a particular trigger, ex that they had an error and someone complained. I once saw a rather crazy/exceptional adjustment in their Gold_Stocks.xls, and it turned out to have been a fat finger error, no doubt about it, the error was precisely (with a 1/1000 ounce accuracy) explained by 1 wrong figure (Bron Suchecki proved it that way).
Not that you can't be right in suspecting special / manipulative reasons, only that there is not that much out there supporting it.
I've come across remarkable coincidences (different things over many years summing up to near exact matches) in the supply/demand data, remarkable enough to raise an eyebrow. But on the other hand, if I think about it, maybe it's just because derivatives in the end "milk" the underlying market, and a 100% hedge is nothing but 1 paper ounce for every cash market ounce, which can explain those near exact matches. That's what averages do: reveil underlying long term strategies.