Shorts loading up on SLV; physical being withdrawn

[pmbug]

A quick review of Shortsqueeze.com indicates that the SLV's short interest increased by 6.71%, or 1,670,600 shares (ounces) in the past week! Even more astonishing, the SLV has reportedly had over 3 million ounces of silver withdrawn since the beginning of January- likely deposited directly into COMEX vaults.

At 26.57 million, the short interest in the SLV is a whopping 8.7% of the entire 305 million shares of SLV! ...

http://silverdoctors.blogspot.com/2012/01/slv-short-interest-increases-to-2657.html

:flail:

 

[swissaustrian]

For a minute, I thought somebody might speculate on slv blowing up as a scam, then I read this:

As Ted Butler has long argued, such an extreme naked short position of the SLV is pure manipulation aimed at preventing the SLV from holding 26.57 million ounces of silver that would otherwise be required to be held by the fund. 27 million ounces of silver is almost an entire year's US production! Don't expect Blackrock, the CFTC, or the SEC to do anything about this anytime soon however. In fact, if anything- expect the cartel's manipulation of silver via the SLV to only intensify as the COMEX fades into irrelevance.

 

[pmbug]

I think this lends more credence to the idea that there is a real shortage of physical silver (in large, [serialized?] bars favored by SLV, PSLV, IRAs, etc.).

 

[ancona]

I would bet that the number of institutionally held serialized good delivery bars of silver has dropped significantly in the last three years. When silver got smashed during the massive post-Lehman liquidation, there were some very astute investors who could see through the fog of obfuscation, and knew instinctively that silver was brought down through paper vehicles, not organic selling of bars. Once all the paper finished burning, those who grabbed the bars have held on to them and are still holding them, because when you manage to get silver at 12 - 15 dollars, and get it at quantity, you have to know the move will richly reward you if you are patient about it.

I would hazard a guess and say that some of the selling when silver was between 40 and 49 was some of these very people, simply cashing out their original investment, and keeping the difference in physical metals.

I sold 1k oz. at 44, and saw nearly 300% profit. I have yet to buy it all back, but did pick up about 400 at 29. Suffice it to say that I am waiting, just as we all are waiting, for the time to come when we truly need to liquidate our metals simply to pay our bills, because fiat is no longer trusted. I believe we are getting closer to that time every day.

 

[pmbug]

* necro bump *

 

[Peter89]

new high for the year
I can understand new 3 years high is important, new 5 years high very important... but the high within a 2,5 months time span
Is it that meaningful?

 

[Peter89]

Here is another explanation for this

Credit to B. Coleman

Banks create PM derivatives and use ETFs like SLV and GLD as underlying instruments as benchmark:
"This meant that these large banks ... have deposited their ... metal or inventory ... to create ETF shares that could be then used to benchmark their tertiary derivative/structured investment vehicles..."

The market for PM derivatives products has been booming since 2022

"Something began to happen in 2023 that may have correlation to the secular decline in ounces held in ETFs. The structured products shown above which were issued in 2020, 2021, etc, started to mature in 2023 and 2024. This is when the divergence in the ETF ounces held/ shares outstanding began to diverge. There was no need by the investment banks to hold these shares of the ETF and tie up their metal inventory or collateral if these structured products were maturing and not reissued. This can also be corroborated by the large decline in notional value of derivative exposure held by these banks.

When one examines Basel 3, the leverage of the financial system, and the profiteering by banks and the financial industry to issue derivative products/supply through the use of ETFs when demand is high, is there any wonder why these ETFs have begun to diverge with the underlying physical market?"


So, if I understand it correctly, Coleman is saying that GLD inventories are declining not because of a physical shortage but because
Basel 3 has lowered demand for gold derivatives -->
derivatives maturing in 2023 and 2024 don't get re-issued -->
derivatives issuers don't need ETF shares anymore -->
they sell their ETF shares -->
they don't need to keep their gold in GLD as ETF shares collateral

 

[pmbug]

FWIW:

 

[searcher]

In this one Mario talks about physical silver demand & derivatives

Physical Silver Demand Jeopardising Bullion Banks' Paper Game.​

Oct 21, 2024

19:39

 

[pmbug]

 

[pmbug]

** bump **

 

[pmbug]

For July 21, SLV reports adding a massive 9,539,135.40 troy ounces (~297 metric tons) to the JPM London vaults! I'm guessing these are accounting moves in the LBMA system because no way the LBMA sloths can move that much weight around in one day! Today's additions totally recoup the 271.3 metric tons that were removed last week.

 

[pmbug]

Related to SLV trading...

 

[pmbug]

I've commented previously on the curious SLV stock movements over the last couple of weeks (weeks starting 9-22 and 9-29) whereby SLV added big to start the week and then shed (or get raided) the rest of the week (see link in comment below).

Yesterday, SLV broke the pattern as the stock report informed of a loss of 3.3M ozt to start the week. This occurred while SLV shares to borrow hit zero and the borrow fee blew out to almost 10%. This prompted me to speculate that perhaps SLV will have trouble creating new shares if the LBMA doesn't have available silver to back them.

But then I see a report that SLV actually reported adding ~5M shares yesterday (while losing 3.3M ozt of stock). That got me curious as I have not been tracking the SLV share issuance closely, so I looked back at the share issuance since 9-22 and compared it to the vault stock movements.

When SLV added 8.8M ozt to the vault stock on 9-22, they also added ~9M shares on 9-22 and 9-23. As the vault stock shed ~3.5M ozt on 9-25 and 9-26, SLV also shed ~4M shares. It looks like shares and vault stock tracked each other closely.

When SLV added ~10M ozt to the vault stock on 9-29 and 9-30, they also added ~12M shares. As the vault stock shed ~8.5M ozt 10-1 through 10-3, SLV also shed ~18M shares. It looks like the late week share dissolution way overshot the vault stock drain.

Yesterday, SLV shed 3.3M ozt, but added 5M shares! This is an anomaly and I have to wonder if it is just a correction - bringing the share/stock ration back to balance from late last week's apparent overshoot, or if SLV needs to find silver to back the new shares.

 

[pmbug]

 

[Voodoo]

Probably just entered a Swap and created some more derivatives/synthetics. It's what bankers do best.

 

[pmbug]

"As of 2025-10-20 08:32:34 AM EDT, there were 200,000 shares available with a fee of 19.23%."

lol. 800k shares gone in a flash and the borrow rate did not budge.

 

[Voodoo]

Since it is a commodity fund...they probably are a bit more limited on creating shares. The rate limiting step is getting metal into the vault I'm sure.

 

[pmbug]

Blackrock appears to have added a lot more shares as the available to borrow spiked to 2.7M this morning (and is now down to 1.9M) all with the borrow fee staying steady at 16.23%.

 

[nickndfl]

Must be really low supply with the carnage. Yikes!

 

[Voodoo]

If they want to short they will always just find new shares in the morning. Probably a whole team of people standing by just to complete such a task.

 

[pmbug]

3.9M now. They have been ramping up the shares all morning. Prep for a big, incoming monkey hammer?

 

[Voodoo]

Told ya, been there done that. Higher short interest means they know a smash is coming.