Estimating LBMA silver vault stock as of the end of August 2026

Welcome to the Precious Metals Bug Forums

Welcome to the PMBug forums - a community supported watering hole for folks interested in gold, silver, precious metals, sound money, investing, market and economic news, central bank monetary policies, politics and more.

Register a free account to join the discussions. When you register an account and log in, you may enjoy additional benefits including access to market data/charts and additional members only rooms (including one for trade/barter with the community).

pmbug

Your Host
Administrator
Benefactor
Messages
21,532
Reaction score
9,076
Points
268
Location
Texas
United-States
All vault stock quoted in metric tons:

Baseline
F Vault Stock = 28,255 (🔼from 28,213)
F Free Float (FF) = 6,812.39 (🔻from 7,347)
F Liquid (LFF) = 6,812.39 FF - 3421 illiquid = 3,391.39

Realistic
F' Vault Stock = 28,218 (🔼from 28,213)
F' Free Float (FF) = 6,775.39 (🔻from 7,347)
F' Liquid (LFF) = 6,775.39 FF - 3421 illiquid = 3,354.39

At a spot price of $70/ozt, LFF = ~$7.55B to ~$7.63B

Big Picture​


The LBMA is due to report their end of August silver stock report on September 7 or 8. LBMA dinosaurs apparently need 5 business days to figure out their end of the month total vault stock and even with that time, their report is not always consistent with UK silver import/export data. I calculate my own forecast estimate to keep the LBMA honest.

Last month, the LBMA came in 66 metric tons over my "realistic" estimate. Once again, when we got June UK import/export data, the LBMA report was ~125 metric tons more than what was imported.

Formula (Updated Factors through May)​


X = A - B + (((C * D) / E) * F)

X = LBMA free float vault stock
A = (28,213) LBMA vault stock (previous month)
B = (21,442.61) ETF London vault stock as of Aug 31
C = (113.599) COMEX withdrawn for August
D = (0.5432🔼from 0.5147) Estimated % of COMEX Withdrawn that was exported to London
E = (0.5661🔻from 0.5997) Estimated % of total UK silver imports that came from the USA
F = (0.3856) Estimated % of NET (accounting for exports) UK monthly imports represented by UK monthly imports - Avg Oct-Jun
F' = (0.0435) Estimated % of NET (accounting for exports) UK monthly imports represented by UK monthly imports - Avg Jan-Apr + Jun (when India was actively importing silver)

Note: India restarted importing silver in August. My "F" factor represents a baseline average including months where India was and was not actively importing. The "F'" factor represents only the months where India was actively importing silver and should yield a more realistic estimate.

Commentary​


I did not adjust the LBMA vault stock ("A" factor in the formula) downwards according to the previous months of import discrepancies. If we factored the discrepancies for Feb-Apr + Jun, the LBMA vault stock would be ~773 metric tons lower (that represents ~23% of the estimated LFF).
 
Back
Top Bottom