Bloomberg: How the silver market broke

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By the end of last week, the frenzy had rippled across to the London silver market, where global prices are set and where the world’s biggest banks buy and sell in huge quantities. Now, it had run out of available metal. Traders describe a market that was all but broken, where even large banks stepped back from quoting prices as they fielded repeated calls from clients yelling down the line in frustration and exhaustion.
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This account of how the silver market broke is based on conversations with more than two dozen traders, bankers, refiners, investors and other market participants, many of whom spoke on condition of anonymity as they weren’t authorized to speak publicly.
It’s a story of how a perfect storm of events coincided to drain the silver market’s buffer of inventories — including a multi-year solar power boom, a rush to ship metal to the US to beat possible tariffs, a wave of investment in precious metals as part of the so-called “debasement trade,” and a sudden spike in demand from India.
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More (long and worth it):

https://archive.ph/fkn2h

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