2026 Lunatic Fringe - Market and Trade Chat

[Goldhedge]

Don't bother listening to the video...



China is going to implement new rules for non SGE & SHFE (off-exchange) Gold and Silver trading.

1) Off-exchange leveraged derivatives (leveraged paper longs of leveraged paper naked shorts) will no longer be tolerated.

2) Physical Gold and Silver deliveries will be enforced.

3) Off-exchange fractional reserve Gold and Silver will be scrutinized.

4) Off-exchange Gold and Silver rehypothecation will not be tolerated (so no more Bugsy Siegel operations).

 

[Voodoo]

There were supposedly quite embarrassed and MAD at that trader guy with the massive short.

 

[Goldhedge]

If you have nothing to do for 90 minutes...

This is the first time it's come up for free on YT.

The Forecaster | Investigation | Full Documentary on Martin A. Armstrong​

 

[Goldhedge]

 

[Viking]

 

[Viking]

 

[nickndfl]

The pain the pain.

 

[Goldhedge]

Hecla, a silver mining stock, announced their earnings yesterday. Something jumped out from their report.

These companies are reporting record earnings. The average price of silver (London) during the 4th quarter of 2025 was $54.83 per oz.

Hecla's averaged realized price was $69.28 per oz.

If you go thru each quarter of 2025, they were receiving about $1 to $2 per oz above the average price for each quarter. Then in Q3 of 2025, it was over $3 more above the average price. Then for Q4 they received over $14 more than the average price.

That means the actual silver market is paying WAY higher than the publicly quoted spot price, in order to secure silver supply from miners.

 

[pmbug]

SCOTUS striking down Trump's tariffs are likely to provide tailwinds for gold (and silver) as US Gov will have to print ~$300B to cover refunds.

 

[Goldhedge]

 

[Cigarlover]

Silver has done ok since my last posting about it.

 

[Cigarlover]

There's still work to do. Have to get above the 20 and hold and then we have some resistance at 92 or so we have to get through. If we get some continuation on this on Monday then I'll probably start taking some of my mining positions off the table that I bought last week as a swing trade.

 

[pmbug]

China will still be closed Sun night (Monday for them). They reopen Mon night (Tues for them). FWIW

 

[Viking]

I think some big players in China are buying.

 

[Goldhedge]

I thought by now the COMEX would have slammed the metals

 

[Goldhedge]

Silver: 5 days to go.The fuse is lit. Silver is tightening. Silver is draining from CME warehouses.​

The amount of Registered (i.e. deliverable) silver held in CME warehouses is currently around 88 million ounces. Yet the March open interest is the equivalent of 239 million ounces — nearly three times the available supply.
Nobody knows exactly how many of those longs intend to close their position before the first delivery date. That uncertainty is the shorts' problem. If too many longs stand for delivery, the shorts will be squeezed and the silver price could explode upwards.

Thursday 26th February — First Position Date
This is the last day for longs who do not want to take physical delivery to close or roll their March contracts. From this date onward, clearing firms require that any remaining long positions are held by parties with both the cash and the infrastructure to accept delivery. Speculators and funds who do not want silver must be out by this date.

Friday 27th February — First Notice Day
This is the first day a short can formally notify the exchange of their intention to deliver physical silver. The exchange then assigns that notice to a long. Critically, it is the SHORT — not the long — who initiates delivery. The long who is still open on this date simply receives whatever notice the exchange assigns to them, with no say in the timing.

Once a long receives a delivery notice, they cannot easily exit. They are obligated to take and pay for the physical silver. That is why any long who does not want the metal must be out of the market before this date.

Given the current shortage of registered silver relative to open contracts, it is the naked shorts — those without physical silver — who are in the most precarious position.

If a significant number of March contracts remain open after First Delivery Day (2nd March), we could see an explosive move in the silver price.

MAKING A VIDEO LIKE THIS INVOLVES MANY HOURS OF WORK. EQUIPMENT IS EXPENSIVE TOO.

Support the Channel & Useful Resources
If you find these videos helpful and would like to support the channel, you can do so by using the affiliate links below.There is no extra cost to you, and it helps me continue producing independent, experience‑based investment content.

 

[nickndfl]

 

[Cigarlover]

Silver: 5 days to go.The fuse is lit. Silver is tightening. Silver is draining from CME warehouses.​

The amount of Registered (i.e. deliverable) silver held in CME warehouses is currently around 88 million ounces. Yet the March open interest is the equivalent of 239 million ounces — nearly three times the available supply.
Nobody knows exactly how many of those longs intend to close their position before the first delivery date. That uncertainty is the shorts' problem. If too many longs stand for delivery, the shorts will be squeezed and the silver price could explode upwards.

Thursday 26th February — First Position Date
This is the last day for longs who do not want to take physical delivery to close or roll their March contracts. From this date onward, clearing firms require that any remaining long positions are held by parties with both the cash and the infrastructure to accept delivery. Speculators and funds who do not want silver must be out by this date.

Friday 27th February — First Notice Day
This is the first day a short can formally notify the exchange of their intention to deliver physical silver. The exchange then assigns that notice to a long. Critically, it is the SHORT — not the long — who initiates delivery. The long who is still open on this date simply receives whatever notice the exchange assigns to them, with no say in the timing.

Once a long receives a delivery notice, they cannot easily exit. They are obligated to take and pay for the physical silver. That is why any long who does not want the metal must be out of the market before this date.

Given the current shortage of registered silver relative to open contracts, it is the naked shorts — those without physical silver — who are in the most precarious position.

If a significant number of March contracts remain open after First Delivery Day (2nd March), we could see an explosive move in the silver price.

MAKING A VIDEO LIKE THIS INVOLVES MANY HOURS OF WORK. EQUIPMENT IS EXPENSIVE TOO.

Support the Channel & Useful Resources
If you find these videos helpful and would like to support the channel, you can do so by using the affiliate links below.There is no extra cost to you, and it helps me continue producing independent, experience‑based investment content.

My guess is this will be a double helping of nothing burger. COMEX has cash settlement available to them and as if that wasn't enough, LBMA already showed what can be done when they just stepped in and cancelled contracts in the nickel market.
Also, if the shorts are the big bankers they can just pull from SLV if I understand that correctly. They are the only ones who can actually pull from SLV AFAIK.

 

[pmbug]

Silver open interest will likely shrink greatly over the next few days and I expect the March contract for silver to be interesting, but not alarming like many pundits are claiming. It makes a good hype machine story for attracting eyeballs and attention though.

Michael Lynch publishes a chart where he tracks the open interest over time for monthly contracts and the rolling always accelerates as the deadline draws near. Silver is just under the curve.



Gold however, is apparently a different story:

With just 4 days to last notice on the February gold contract, remaining open interest is 4,366 (436,600 oz or 13.5 tonne). This is 24x the average OI at this point in the delivery cycle and more than 2x greater than any prior contract.

February OI is greater than the upcoming March contract! That's probably never happened before.

This short probably held these contracts since first notice day. I'm saying that because OI has been flat for weeks. I've learned that profile is the signature of a naked short. See the plots below.

What's this mean? It could be that this short hasn't yet delivered because he was hoping to close the position. If so, he's now trapped as liquidity this late in the contract is punk. Friday's volume was 134.

Or, it could mean that he's a naked short ... doesn't have metal to deliver. In that case, he's going to have to find someone to bail him out.

I've seen this pattern several times over the years. In those scenarios either BofA or Citibank issued delivery notices in the final days and that is a WTF moment.

My interpretation of those events is that the naked short does an off-exchange deal with one of those 2 banks. This is anomalous because banks nearly always deliver in the first days following first notice.

Why should the banks bail out the short? I'm sure they pick up some fiat for their trouble.

The take away is ... the physical market is tight and trading during the delivery period may be influenced by those without physical gold.

 

[Goldhedge]

If you follow "Q" you know that everything Trump is doing is legal.

What he's done is define exactly what the POTUS is allowed to do from a legal standpoint. He used the SCOTUS to lawfully define it.

This is to stop future POTUS' from abusing their powers and to keep Congress from meddling in POTUS powers.


Luongo is correct... Trump is reorganizing the financial system as we know it...

Here is how:



"You have to fix the money before you fix the politics." Tom Luongo

 

[Voodoo]

I find the Gold delivery thing interesting. We've pointed that out before as well but Gold is NOT a problem with having physical Gold. There is plenty of that around. So, its either that the banks are pretty much out of physical or they are out of money... Well that is kinda the same thing now as Gold is becoming money again.

 

[Viking]