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

All vault stock quoted in metric tons:

Upper bound
Vault Stock = 27,646 (from 27,611)
Free Float (FF) = 7,215 (from 7,059)
Liquid (LFF) = 7,215 FF - 3421 illiquid = 3,794

Realistic? (using Jan-Apr F' factor)
F' Vault Stock = 27,586 (from 27,611)
F' Free Float (FF) = 7,155 (from 7,059)
F' Liquid (LFF) = 7,155 FF - 3421 illiquid = 3,734

At a spot price of $70/ozt, LFF = ~$8.4B to ~$8.5B

Big Picture​

The LBMA is due to report their end of June silver stock report on July 7. 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 60 metric tons over my upper bound estimate. And, as with last few months, when we got April UK import/export data, we again saw a large disparity between the LBMA report and the UK import data.

Formula (Updated Factors through April)​

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

X = LBMA free float vault stock
A = (27,611) LBMA vault stock (previous month)
B = (20,430.69) ETF London vault stock as of June 30
C = (165.5174) COMEX withdrawn for June
D = (0.5665from 0.5974) Estimated % of COMEX Withdrawn that was exported to London
E = (0.6538from 0.6446) Estimated % of USA import vs total UK silver imports
F = (0.2471from 0.3494) Estimated % of UK imports that are NET (accounting for exports)
F'= (-0.1725from -0.1077) Average of Jan-Apr only as they are wildly outside the range of Oct-Dec

Note: In February, the UK exported more than it imported. The "F" factor for February was actually strongly negative. It lowered the five month "F" factor average since October greatly, but my upper bound estimate will still be on the high side if net UK silver imports in June are closer to Jan-Apr (2%, -56%, 22%, -36%) than the 3 month average for October-December (~80% of the total imports). Thus, I include an F' estimate that reflects more recent large UK exports.

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 March, April and May, the LBMA vault stock would be ~667 metric tons lower.

COMEX withdrawals in June were abnormally low. I suspect this is a result of demand for silver in India getting monkey hammered by the Indian government. It is possible that UK imports/export (and LBMA outflows) will be skewed in June as a result of the same issue. It will be interesting to see how well my forecasting formula (and factors) hold up when eventually get UK import/export data for June in a few months.