Silver Demand Drivers (and vault totals)

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🚨 Yesterday (11-6) in silver

Yesterday silver spot bobbed up and down around the $48 mark throughout the day. Let's investigate what played out below the surface...

COMEX

COMEX silver stock report for Wednesday (COMEX reports activity for the previous working day) says a total 1.49M ozt (~46.4 metric tons) was withdrawn (half of that from the Asahi vault) while 1.5M ozt (46.7 metric tons) was deposited (almost all of it in the Loomis vault). There is a *lot* of silver moving in and out of the COMEX vaults, but you wouldn't know it if you only tracked the net change.

The Delaware vault staff is probably getting worried as they had to work twice as hard yesterday as the day before storing two LGD bars (1,948 ozt received) and removing four other LGD bars (4,010 ozt withdrawn). I wonder if they bothered with the forklift.

The vaults moved a tiny 127K ozt (~4 metric tons) from registered to eligible. The drain on registered stock would appear to be dwindling after Monday's massive 6.2M ozt move.

The EFP spread remains in negative territory, though it appears to be normalizing towards zero (~ -$0.16 this morning, it was ~ -$0.22 yesterday). Will COMEX withdrawals slow down as the EFP heads to zero?

SLV

My "canary in the silver mine" had another quiet day yesterday. SLV shares available to borrow hovered around 850K to 1M most of the day. The borrow fee dropped early in the morning and then rose slightly throughout before settling at 1.65% for the day. It's come back down ever so slightly to 1.64% overnight as the available shares have decreased to 650K.

Blackrock reported another decrease of 1.3M shares and JPM reported an outflow of 1.2M ozt (38 metric tons) to the vault stock. SLV has shed vault stock for three days in a row now and each successive day, the daily outflow has gotten larger. 👀

PSLV

PSLV was again quiet with zero ozt added the vault stock and zero units added to the trust. This is the 12th consecutive day with no material change to the PSLV vault stock.

 
Update (all values in metric tons) (see post #215 for last month):

Global Vault Stock - October 2025​

Market​
This month​
Last month​
Difference​
LBMA (total)
26,255​
24,581​
1,674​
London vaulted ETFs*
20,450​
21,152​
-702​
LBMA-ETFs (free float)*
5,805​
3,419​
2,386​
COMEX
15,002.46​
16,509.29​
-1,506.83​
SLV NYC Vault
3,209.14​
3,209.14​
0.00​
COMEX-SLV (free float)
11,793.32​
13,300.15​
-1,506.83​
SFE/SGE
1,495.854​
2,406.613​
-911.613​
PSLV
6,345.231​
6,216.872​
128.359​

If these numbers are to be believed, the West has roughly 17,598.32 metric tons vaulted at LBMA + COMEX not owned by ETFs. That's an increase of 869.17 tonnes over last month's report! At face value, that does *not* make sense. Even considering the ETF losses of ~702 tonnes, it stretches the boundaries of belief that the LBMA increased free float during a period of record high demand from India.

Total global free float including China (SFE/SGE) is 19,094.174 metric tons (a decrease of just 41.589 tonnes). PSLV's silver vault stock is not directly available for settling COMEX or LBMA deliveries, so it is not included in free float totals - I include it because every 1,000 ozt that PSLV acquires is an LGD silver bar that is no longer available to the LBMA or global free float for trade settlement.

In the month of October, the COMEX and SLV shed a massive amount of inventory back to the LBMA trying to refill their silver ocean. It is difficult to reconcile the LBMA free float purportedly growing by 2,386 tonnes while the COMEX+SLV/ETFs+SFE/SGE drained 3,120 tonnes. If we use some conservative estimates (90% of COMEX, 100% of ETFs and 70% of SFE/SGE) for silver withdrawals that went to London, that would come out to ~2,696.27 tonnes meaning only ~310 tonnes left the LBMA in October while India reported record demand (and they aren't the only ones buying LBMA silver).

As a reminder, news reports indicated that India was on pace to acquire/import around 1,000 tonnes of silver in October. JPM reportedly told India that they would have to wait until November to receive silver they had purchased in the LBMA markets. The only way these numbers make any sense to me is if JPM indeed held off on those deliveries until after the LBMA compiled their end of October report (ie. the LBMA is reporting silver that is encumbered/owed to India). This would seem to be corroborated by the backwardation in Indian silver futures indicating high demand for immediate delivery physical silver.

I am now tracking the global vault stock changes every day/week for the COMEX, SFE/SGE, SLV and PSLV. Of course, there is no daily or weekly data for the LBMA because they are run by dinosaurs. The LBMA apparently thinks their monthly grand total report provides sufficient transparency to their operations.
LBMA said:
These figures provide an important insight into London's ability to underpin the physical OTC market.
Click to expand...
:lmao:

I frequently receive comments asking why I bother compiling this data. The comments commonly claim that the numbers are a fraud or they don't matter. Whether or not the numbers are completely accurate or not, they are the only public data we have and they *are* telling a story - revealing the rip currents of physical demand underneath the frothy paper market trading.


India silver projections


JPM told India it would have to wait until November


Indian futures in backwardation


Sources:
LBMA: https://www.lbma.org.uk/prices-and-data/london-vault-data
LBMA ETFs:

COMEX: I am saving COMEX silver stock reports and tracking the totals in a spreadsheet now.
SGE/SFE: I am saving SFE/SGE vault totals from Xiaojun Bai's daily X tweets and tracking them in a spreadsheet now.
PSLV: I am saving Sprott's PSLV silver stock data and tracking the totals in a spreadsheet now.
 
pmbug said:
Update (all values in metric tons) (see post #215 for last month):

Global Vault Stock - October 2025​

Market​
This month​
Last month​
Difference​
LBMA (total)
26,255​
24,581​
1,674​
London vaulted ETFs*
20,450​
21,152​
-702​
LBMA-ETFs (free float)*
5,805​
3,419​
2,386​
COMEX
15,002.46​
16,509.29​
-1,506.83​
SLV NYC Vault
3,209.14​
3,209.14​
0.00​
COMEX-SLV (free float)
11,793.32​
13,300.15​
-1,506.83​
SFE/SGE
1,495.854​
2,406.613​
-911.613​
PSLV
6,345.231​
6,216.872​
128.359​

If these numbers are to be believed, the West has roughly 17,598.32 metric tons vaulted at LBMA + COMEX not owned by ETFs. That's an increase of 869.17 tonnes over last month's report! At face value, that does *not* make sense. Even considering the ETF losses of ~702 tonnes, it stretches the boundaries of belief that the LBMA increased free float during a period of record high demand from India.

Total global free float including China (SFE/SGE) is 19,094.174 metric tons (a decrease of just 41.589 tonnes). PSLV's silver vault stock is not directly available for settling COMEX or LBMA deliveries, so it is not included in free float totals - I include it because every 1,000 ozt that PSLV acquires is an LGD silver bar that is no longer available to the LBMA or global free float for trade settlement.

In the month of October, the COMEX and SLV shed a massive amount of inventory back to the LBMA trying to refill their silver ocean. It is difficult to reconcile the LBMA free float purportedly growing by 2,386 tonnes while the COMEX+SLV/ETFs+SFE/SGE drained 3,120 tonnes. If we use some conservative estimates (90% of COMEX, 100% of ETFs and 70% of SFE/SGE) for silver withdrawals that went to London, that would come out to ~2,696.27 tonnes meaning only ~310 tonnes left the LBMA in October while India reported record demand (and they aren't the only ones buying LBMA silver).

As a reminder, news reports indicated that India was on pace to acquire/import around 1,000 tonnes of silver in October. JPM reportedly told India that they would have to wait until November to receive silver they had purchased in the LBMA markets. The only way these numbers make any sense to me is if JPM indeed held off on those deliveries until after the LBMA compiled their end of October report (ie. the LBMA is reporting silver that is encumbered/owed to India). This would seem to be corroborated by the backwardation in Indian silver futures indicating high demand for immediate delivery physical silver.

I am now tracking the global vault stock changes every day/week for the COMEX, SFE/SGE, SLV and PSLV. Of course, there is no daily or weekly data for the LBMA because they are run by dinosaurs. The LBMA apparently thinks their monthly grand total report provides sufficient transparency to their operations.

:lmao:

I frequently receive comments asking why I bother compiling this data. The comments commonly claim that the numbers are a fraud or they don't matter. Whether or not the numbers are completely accurate or not, they are the only public data we have and they *are* telling a story - revealing the rip currents of physical demand underneath the frothy paper market trading.


India silver projections


JPM told India it would have to wait until November


Indian futures in backwardation


Sources:
LBMA: https://www.lbma.org.uk/prices-and-data/london-vault-data
LBMA ETFs:

COMEX: I am saving COMEX silver stock reports and tracking the totals in a spreadsheet now.
SGE/SFE: I am saving SFE/SGE vault totals from Xiaojun Bai's daily X tweets and tracking them in a spreadsheet now.
PSLV: I am saving Sprott's PSLV silver stock data and tracking the totals in a spreadsheet now.
Click to expand...

you did get a specific mention on salivate metals youtube channel today
 
🚨 Yesterday (11-7) in silver

Yesterday silver spot again bobbed up and down around the $48 mark throughout the day. Let's investigate what played out below the surface...

COMEX

COMEX silver stock report for Thursday (COMEX reports activity for the previous working day) says a total 1.35M ozt (~42 metric tons) was withdrawn (mostly from the CNT and JPM vaults) while zero was deposited. The COMEX continues to see outflows at over 1M ozt a day.

The Delaware vault staff caught a break as they only had to remove one LGD bar (1,016 ozt withdrawn). I'm pretty sure that after the last three days of activity, by LBMA regulations, they would now be due a week of vacation. /s

The vaults moved a respectable 590K ozt (~18.3 metric tons) from registered to eligible. Looks like the bullion banks are not quite done sending metal to London.

The EFP spread remains in negative territory, though it appears to be normalizing towards zero (~ -$0.13 today, it was ~ -$0.16 yesterday). Will COMEX withdrawals slow down as the EFP heads to zero?

SLV

My "canary in the silver mine" had another quiet day yesterday. SLV shares available to borrow started the day around 600K and finished around 1.8M. The borrow fee was mostly around 1.64% all day. Somehow the shares available to borrow keep increasing by 1M or so every time they get low even though Blackrock keeps reporting that shares are disappearing.

Blackrock reported another decrease of 900K shares and JPM reported an outflow of 815.8K ozt (~25.4 metric tons) to the vault stock. SLV has shed vault stock for four days in a row now. 👀

If I was correct in guessing that the LBMA has not delivered a significant amount of silver owed to India yet, we might start seeing more activity in the SLV as the LBMA silver pond (available free float) drains a bit again.

PSLV

PSLV was again quiet with zero ozt added the vault stock and zero units added to the trust. This is the 13th consecutive day with no material change to the PSLV vault stock.
 
Last week in silver:

SGE silver vault - loses 7.9 metric tons
SFE silver vault - loses 42.5 metric tons
SLV London vault - loses 101.2 metric tons
PSLV silver vault - no change
COMEX silver stock - loses 100.6 metric tons
LBMA silver stock - ??? (no daily or weekly data because LBMA is run by dinosaurs)

Global net change (less LBMA and SGE):
Nov 3-7 = -252.2 metric tons
Oct 27-31 = -622.1 metric tons
Oct 20-24 = -907.6 metric tons
Oct 13-17 = -640 metric tons
Oct 6-10 = -310.9 metric tons
...

The COMEX slowed down bigly with the outflows last week - measuring about a third to a fourth of the weekly outflows seen over the previous four weeks. There were even two days of net deposits last week even as the daily withdrawals averaged about 1M ozt a day. It seems that the COMEX is not quite done draining even as EFP spreads spent last week normalizing back towards zero (which should remove the arbitrage profit for shipping COMEX silver to London).

SLV started the week with no activity and then ramped up the vault stock bleeding. In the last weekly report I said that it appeared as if authorized participants were winding down their raiding of SLV silver stock. Last week the vault stock drained with increasing volume as the week progressed. I'm very curious to see if this pattern continues now that silver spot appears to be heading back up again.

PSLV was very quiet last week with no units created and no silver added to the vault stock. Will PSLV remain quiet as the spot price of silver heads up again?

The SFE and SGE (China) continue to report outflows in spite of silver trading at a premium to LBMA spot all last week. Is this all domestic demand or are some foreign actors getting China's silver while they can (before export controls/restrictions become effective in January) even if it is at a premium to LBMA/London?

The LBMA's monthly vault stock "report" was just published. As expected, they claimed a massive inflow of silver. See [post 282 above] for a more detailed analysis.

One can only imagine what chaos might be unfolding in the LBMA's London vault system right now. We can only imagine because the dinosaurs at the LBMA do not provide daily/weekly reporting of their vault stock like every other market and major fund in the world.
 
🚨 Yesterday (11-10) in silver

Yesterday silver spot surged back above $50. Let's investigate what played out below the surface...

COMEX

COMEX silver stock report for Friday (COMEX reports activity for the previous working day) says a total 1M ozt (~31.8 metric tons) was withdrawn (mostly from the JPM vault) while a paltry 10k ozt (ie. 10 LGD silver bars) was deposited in the Loomis vault. The COMEX continues to see outflows at over 1M ozt a day.

The Delaware vault staff did not get their LBMA rules vacation as they had to process a withdrawal of 82.8K ozt. That's a lot of work for these folks!

The vaults moved 357K ozt (~11.1 metric tons) from registered to eligible. Looks like the bullion banks are still not quite done sending metal to London, even if the volume appears to be lessening.

The EFP spread remains in negative territory, and it appears to be widening again (~ -$0.24 today, it was ~ -$0.13 yesterday). I had speculated that London owed to India a significant amount of the silver stock they claimed in their recent monthly report. I suspect that when they deliver, the LBMA will once again be faced with a mostly drained silver pond and the EFP spread would seem to be signalling that this is the case (the deeper the EFP spread goes negative, the more it seems physical silver is scarce in London).

SLV

My "canary in the silver mine" had another quiet day yesterday. SLV shares available to borrow started the day around 1.8M and finished around 2.8M. The borrow fee was mostly around 1.56% all day. Somehow the shares available to borrow keep increasing by 1M or so every time they get low even though Blackrock keeps reporting that shares are disappearing.

Blackrock reported another no change in shares and JPM reported no change in the vault stock. Did they take another "LBMA reporting day" or was there really zero activity?

If I was correct in guessing that the LBMA has not delivered a significant amount of silver owed to India yet, we might start seeing more activity in the SLV as the LBMA silver pond (available free float) drains a bit again.

PSLV

Now that the spot price of silver has reclaimed $50, we have proof of life with PSLV. They reported adding almost 1.5M units to the trust with zero ozt added the vault stock. I assume this means that they will be adding to the vault stock shortly.
 
🚨 Yesterday (11-11) in silver

Yesterday silver spot rose back above $51. Let's look below the surface...

COMEX

COMEX silver stock report for Monday (COMEX reports activity for the previous working day) says a total 546K ozt (~17 metric tons) was withdrawn (all from the CNT vault) while zero was deposited. The streak of consecutive 1M ozt a day withdrawals has been broken.

The vaults moved a paltry 45K ozt (~1.4 metric tons) from registered to eligible. It would seem that the COMEX was winding down outflows to London and this would seem to be corroborated by the EFP spread. The EFP spread remains in negative territory, but just barely (~ -$0.03 today, it was ~ -$0.24 yesterday).

LBMA/India

Has LBMA/JPM started delivering India's silver yet? Indian futures remain in backwardation with the November contract at $55.29/ozt and the December contract at $55.04/ozt, so it would seem that India is still looking for immediate delivery of physical silver, so perhaps not.

SLV

My "canary in the silver mine" had another odd day yesterday. SLV shares available to borrow started the day at around 2.6M, immediately fell to 950K at the open and then recovered to 2.5M. The borrow fee went up from 1.52% to 1.68%. This is the first day in a while where the borrow fee actually finished the day higher than it started (more than by just hundredths of a percent anyways).

For the second day in a row, Blackrock reported no change in shares and JPM reported no change in the vault stock. Are they taking "LBMA reporting days" now or was there really zero activity for two straight days?

If I am correct in guessing that the LBMA has not delivered a significant amount of silver owed to India yet, we might start seeing more activity in the SLV shares available / borrowing fee as the LBMA silver pond (available free float) drains a bit again.

PSLV

PSLV reported adding almost no units to the trust but did add 100K ozt (3.1 metric tons) to the vault stock. That's 100 more London Good Delivery 1K ozt bars that are no longer available to the COMEX/LBMA for settling trade.
 
🚨 Yesterday (11-12) in silver

Yesterday silver spot rose above $53. Let's look below the surface...

COMEX

COMEX silver stock report for Tuesday (COMEX reports activity for the previous working day) says a total 1.5M ozt (~47 metric tons) was withdrawn (from CNT, JPM and Loomis vaults) while 1.1M ozt (35.6 metric tons) was deposited (in CNT and Loomis vaults - they were busy!). Have we begun a new streak of ~1M ozt a day withdrawals?

The folks at the Delaware vault are back from "their LBMA vacation" having withdrawn four 1,000 ozt LGD bars from the vault. I hope they didn't strain themselves!

The vaults moved a small 289K ozt (~9 metric tons) from registered to eligible. The EFP spread remains just barely in negative territory (~ -$0.09 today, it was ~ -$0.03 yesterday). Is that enough to make arbitrage profitable moving silver from COMEX to LBMA?

LBMA/India

Has LBMA/JPM started delivering India's silver yet? Indian futures remain in backwardation with the November contract now at $58.16/ozt and the December contract at $57.77/ozt, so it would seem that India is still looking for immediate delivery of physical silver.

SLV

My "canary in the silver mine" had a quiet day yesterday. SLV shares available to borrow started the day at around 2.6M but fell to about 1M by the end of the trading day. The borrow fee continued a slow ascent, going from 1.68% to 1.82%. This is the second consecutive day for the borrow fee to finish the day higher than it started (by more than just hundredths of a percent anyways).

For the third day in a row, Blackrock reported no change in shares and JPM reported no change in the vault stock. Are they taking "LBMA reporting days" now or was there really zero activity for three straight days?

If I am correct in guessing that the LBMA has not delivered a significant amount of silver owed to India yet, we might start seeing more activity in the SLV shares available / borrowing fee as the LBMA silver pond (available free float) drains a bit again.

PSLV

PSLV reported adding 1,388,237 units to the trust but only 189 ozt to the vault stock. The 189 ozt is likely just a correction to yesterdays 100K inflow. The new units added yesterday should indicate that they will be adding more vault stock today or very soon. When PSLV adds silver to its vault stock, that silver is no longer available to the COMEX/LBMA for settling trade.
 
🚨 Yesterday (11-13) in silver

Yesterday silver spot struggled to stay above $53. Let's look below the surface...

COMEX

COMEX silver stock report for Wednesday (COMEX reports activity for the previous working day) says a total 2.3M ozt (~73 metric tons) was withdrawn (mainly from CNT, HSBC, JPM and Loomis vaults) while 472K ozt (14.7 metric tons) was deposited (all in Loomis' vault - they were busy again!). Seems like we have confirmed a new streak of at least ~1M ozt a day withdrawals.

The folks at the Delaware vault had to do some real work withdrawing 21 LGD bars from the vault. I hope they didn't strain themselves!

The vaults moved zero ozt from registered to eligible. It's been a while since there was not silver moved out of the registered category. Is it a signal or just an anomaly? Perhaps this is a lagging reflection of the EFP spread squeezing to (near) zero the other day.

The EFP spread remains firmly in negative territory (~ -$0.14 today, it was ~ -$0.09 yesterday). Is that enough to make arbitrage profitable moving silver from COMEX to LBMA?

LBMA/India

Has LBMA/JPM started delivering India's silver yet? Indian futures remain in backwardation with the November contract now at $55.83/ozt and the December contract at $55.13/ozt. The November contract is at a $0.70/ozt premium to the December contract this morning - it was $0.39/ozt yesterday. It would seem that India is still looking for immediate delivery of physical silver.

SLV

SLV shares available to borrow started the day at around 1.7M, fell to 650K by the end of the trading day, and recovered to 1.3M right after market close (it's now at 2.1M this morning). The borrow fee remained more or less steady at around 1.82% (it is 1.80% this morning).

Blackrock reported adding 3M shares and JPM reported adding 2.7M ozt (84.6 metric tons) to the vault stock. This is the first addition to shares/vault stock since October 20 - almost a month ago. Looks like the ETFs are back to squeezing the LBMA's silver ocean (available free float vault stock) as the spot price of silver is rising again.

PSLV

PSLV reported adding zero units to the trust but 400K ozt (12.5 metric tons) to the vault stock. The vault stock addition was expected in light of the new units added yesterday. When PSLV adds silver to its vault stock, that silver is no longer available to the COMEX/LBMA for settling trade.
 
🚨 Yesterday (11-14) in silver

Yesterday silver spot fell below $53 and held at $50. Let's look below the surface...

COMEX

COMEX silver stock report for Thursday (COMEX reports activity for the previous working day) says a total 646K ozt (~20.1 metric tons) was withdrawn (from CNT, Loomis and StoneX vaults) while 1 LGD silver bar was deposited in Delaware Depository. The sub 1M ozt withdrawal breaks the two day streak.

There was no movement of silver from registered to eligible. This is the second day in a row to see this and it is unusual for the last month or so. Are we nearing the end of withdrawals for London?

The EFP spread remains firmly in negative territory (~ -$0.16 today, it was ~ -$0.14 yesterday). Is that enough to make arbitrage profitable moving silver from COMEX to LBMA?

LBMA/India

Has LBMA/JPM started delivering India's silver yet? Indian futures remain in backwardation with the November contract now at $55.26/ozt and the December contract at $54.58/ozt. The November contract is at a $0.68/ozt premium to the December contract - it was $0.70/ozt yesterday morning. It would seem that India is still looking for immediate delivery of physical silver.

SLV

SLV shares available to borrow started the day at around 2.1M and climbed to 3.7M before closing the trading day around 3.5M (it's now at 2.7M in the after hours). The borrow fee rose early in the day to 1.97% before returning to 1.83%. A rising fee should indicate strong demand or tightness for borrowing SLV shares. It was curious to see the borrow fee rise as shares were apparently plentiful.

Blackrock reported adding 1.6M shares and JPM reported adding 1.5M ozt (45.2 metric tons) to the vault stock. This is the second consecutive day for additions to shares/vault stock. Looks like the ETFs are back to squeezing the LBMA's silver ocean (available free float vault stock).

PSLV

PSLV reported adding zero units to the trust but 100K ozt (3.1 metric tons) to the vault stock. The vault stock addition was expected in light of the new units added recently. When PSLV adds silver to its vault stock, that silver is no longer available to the COMEX/LBMA for settling trade.
 
Last week in silver:

SGE silver vault - loses 47.7 metric tons
SFE silver vault - loses 46.2 metric tons
SLV London vault - gains 129.8 metric tons
PSLV silver vault - gains 18.7 metric tons
COMEX silver stock - loses 297.6 metric tons
LBMA silver stock - ??? (no daily or weekly data because LBMA is run by dinosaurs)

Global net change (less LBMA):
Nov 10-14 = -243 metric tons
Nov 3-7 = -252.2 metric tons
Oct 27-31 = -622.1 metric tons
Oct 20-24 = -907.6 metric tons
Oct 13-17 = -640 metric tons
Oct 6-10 = -310.9 metric tons
...

The smallish outflow we saw two weeks ago appears to be an anomaly as the COMEX returned to the ~300 metric tons weekly outflows seen throughout most of October. It seems that the COMEX is not quite done draining. The EFP spread touched zero two weeks ago, but then returned firmly into negative territory last week which should continue encouraging arbitrage profit for shipping COMEX silver to London.

SLV started the week with no activity and then reported large additions on Thursday and Friday. It seems that the SLV vault stock increases as the spot price of silver rises - at least - until the LBMA's free float runs dry again. Thus SLV is our indirect indicator of potential stress with LBMA vault stock. So far, it is not signalling stress.

PSLV woke up last week and added vault stock after zero activity the prior two weeks. PSLV also appears to be adding to the vault stock primarily when the spot price of silver rises.

The SFE and SGE (China) continue to report outflows in spite of silver trading at a premium to LBMA spot for the last two weeks. Is this all domestic demand or are some foreign actors getting China's silver while they can (before export controls/restrictions become effective in January) even if it is at a premium to LBMA/London? @oriental_ghost hinted that the LBMA may have defaulted on silver delivery obligations to China.

Since the LBMA does not publish daily or weekly vault stock data, we are left to speculate on their inventory and that's what I did recently. Best I can figure, as of last week, the LBMA had roughly 1-2 months worth of liquid free float in the vaults.

One can only imagine what chaos might be unfolding in the LBMA's London vault system right now. We can only imagine because the dinosaurs at the LBMA do not provide daily/weekly reporting of their vault stock like every other market and major fund in the world.



LBMA defaulted on silver to China?


LBMA free float speculation
 
🚨 Yesterday (11-17) in silver

Yesterday silver spot struggled to hold $50. Let's look below the surface...

COMEX

COMEX silver stock report for Friday (COMEX reports activity for the previous working day) says a total 4.3M ozt (~135.2 metric tons) was withdrawn (from Asahi, CNT and JPM vaults) while 1.8M ozt (~55.6 metric tons) was "adjusted" out of existence in the Asahi vault. Like, "Poof!" it's gone. Was this a correction to a massive 55 tons of vault stock that was misreported? There were zero deposits.

There was no movement of silver from registered to eligible. This is the third day in a row to see this and it is unusual for the last month or so - especially given the massive withdrawals (from eligible) reported Friday. Have we reached the limit of vault stock from registered that the COMEX is willing to send to London?

The EFP spread remains firmly in negative territory (~ -$0.29 today, it was ~ -$0.16 yesterday). It would seem that the bullion banks will be sending more of the COMEX's silver ocean back to London with the EFP spread this deeply negative.

LBMA/India

Has LBMA/JPM started delivering India's silver yet? Indian futures remain in backwardation with the November contract now at ~$54.59/ozt and the December contract at ~$54.06/ozt. The November contract is at a ~$0.53/ozt premium to the December contract - it was ~$0.68/ozt yesterday morning. It would seem that India is still looking for immediate delivery of physical silver.

SLV

SLV shares available to borrow started the day at around 3M and jumped to 7.1M before closing the trading day around 7M. The borrow fee rose early in the day to ~1.90% before falling to 1.45%. Where did all these shares come from?

Blackrock reported no change to the shares and JPM reported no change to the vault stock. Did they take an "LBMA reporting day"?

PSLV

PSLV reported adding zero units to the trust and zero ozt to the vault stock. It seems PSLV gets active mostly as the spot price of silver rises.
 
🚨 Yesterday (11-18) in silver

Yesterday silver spot fought back to just under $51. Let's look below the surface...

COMEX

COMEX silver stock report for Monday (COMEX reports activity for the previous working day) says a total 4M ozt (~124.4 metric tons) was withdrawn (from Asahi, CNT and JPM vaults - again for the 2nd day in a row) while zero was deposited (again).

Once again, there was no movement of silver from registered to eligible. This is the 4th day in a row to see this and it is unusual for the last month or so - especially given the massive withdrawals (from eligible) reported the last couple of days. Have we reached the limit of vault stock from registered that the COMEX is willing to send to London?

The EFP spread remains in negative territory, but not as severe as the last few days (~ -$0.11 today, it was ~ -$0.29 yesterday). It would seem that the bullion banks will be sending more of the COMEX's silver ocean back to London with the EFP spread negative.

LBMA/India

Has LBMA/JPM started delivering India's silver yet? Indian futures remain in backwardation with the November contract now at ~$56.08/ozt and the December contract at ~$55.60/ozt. The November contract is at a ~$0.48/ozt premium to the December contract - it was ~$0.53/ozt yesterday morning. It would seem that India is still looking for immediate delivery of physical silver although the backwardation does appear to be shrinking over the last few days.

SLV

SLV shares available to borrow started the day at around 7M and fell to 3.8M by the close of the trading day. The borrow fee steadily fell throughout the day down to 1.37%. I'm still wondering from where all these millions of shares that came available yesterday originated.

Blackrock again reported no change to the shares and JPM again reported no change to the vault stock. Two "LBMA reporting days" in a row is an "LBMA reporting" vacation.

PSLV

PSLV has changed their website. They no longer (as far as I could see) report on the number of units in the trust. They also made it more difficult to see the changes to the vault stock (which appears to be unchanged from yesterday).

Ironically, they did add a units to ozt calculator that says as of yesterday, 1 PSLV unit = 0.3434 ozt silver. Applying that to the 595,880,890 units reported yesterday indicates that they should have 204,625,497.626 ozt in the vault, but they are reporting 204,605,154.00 ozt in the vault. Looks like they need to add another 20,343 ozt.
 
🚨 Yesterday (11-19) in silver

Yesterday silver spot fought dipped below and then recovered above $51. Let's look below the surface...

COMEX

COMEX silver stock report for Tuesday (COMEX reports activity for the previous working day) says a total 3.1M ozt (~96.6 metric tons) was withdrawn (from Asahi, CNT and JPM vaults for the 3nd day in a row, but also from HSBC vault) while 99K ozt (3 metric tons) was deposited mostly in StoneX vault (directly into the registered category).

The folks in the Delaware vault had to wake up from their naps to process a deposit of one single LGD silver bar. Whew!

The string of no movement of silver from registered to eligible was broken Tuesday with a massive 3.6M ozt (112.2 metric tons) moved in the JPM and MT&B vaults. Looks like the COMEX is not quite done sending silver to London.

The last few days of withdrawals were mostly pulled from Asahi, CNT and JPM (eligible) vaults. Asahi only has ~4.9M ozt left in their eligible vault (versus 37.6M in their registered vault). They are going to run out of eligible if they keep withdrawing without moving some over from registered.

The EFP spread remains firmly in negative territory at ~ -$0.48 today. It was ~ -$0.11 yesterday. This was a strong deepening of the futures-spot backwardation. It would seem that London needs more silver.

LBMA/India

Has LBMA/JPM started delivering India's silver yet? Indian futures remain in backwardation with the November contract now at ~$55.14/ozt and the December contract at ~$54.49/ozt. The November contract is at a ~$0.65/ozt premium to the December contract - it was ~$0.48/ozt yesterday morning. It would seem that India is still looking for immediate delivery of physical silver.

SLV

SLV shares available to borrow started the day at around 5M and fell to 3.2M by the close of the trading day. The borrow fee jumped early in the day to 1.63% before falling back down to 1.44%. The shares available to borrow fell to a low of 2.6M last night before climbing to 4.3M this morning.

After two days of no activity, Blackrock reported adding 300K shares and JPM reported adding 272K ozt (8.5 metric tons) to the vault stock. It's a relatively small addition for SLV and curious given the nearly 2M million shares that became available after the trading day ended.

PSLV

Yesterday I grumbled that the PSLV website had changed. I guess they were just having a technical issue as the site is back to normal this morning. PSLV reports no new units to the trust nor ozt to the vault.
 
🚨 Yesterday (11-20) in silver (several odd things yesterday!)

Yesterday silver spot struggled around $50.50. Let's look below the surface...

COMEX

COMEX silver stock report for Wednesday (COMEX reports activity for the previous working day) says a total of just 680K ozt (~21.1 metric tons) was withdrawn (mostly from Asahi and some from Loomis and StoneX vaults) while 60K ozt (1.9 metric tons) was deposited in StoneX and CNT vaults.

The withdrawal from Asahi was notable as it was exactly 600,000.000 ozt withdrawn. The withdrawn numbers are *never* even like that. They are always odd numbers like Loomis' 60,748.460. The Good Delivery bars that these vaults are moving around are not made to exact weights to the thousandth degree. Was this a paper/phantom withdrawal? Was this a lazy recording (not actually weighing bars that were withdrawn? It is very suspect IMO.

Asahi only has ~4.3M ozt left in their eligible vault (versus 37.6M in their registered vault). They are going to run out of eligible if they keep withdrawing without moving some over from registered.

355K ozt (11 metric tons) moved from registered to eligible in the CNT vault while 101K ozt (3.1 metric tons) moved from eligible to registered in the Brinks vault. These movements between registered and eligible seem schizophrenic to me - from zero one day to 3.6M the next to 253K (net) the next. It's hard to make rhyme or reason for their movements.

The EFP spread remains firmly in negative territory at ~ -$0.44 today. It was ~ -$0.48 yesterday. It would seem that London still needs more silver.

LBMA/India

Has LBMA/JPM started delivering India's silver yet? Indian futures remain in backwardation with the November contract now at ~$54.45/ozt and the December contract at ~$53.63/ozt. The November contract is now at a whopping ~$0.82/ozt premium to the December contract - it was ~$0.65/ozt yesterday morning. It would seem that India is still looking for immediate delivery of physical silver.

SLV

SLV shares available to borrow started the day at around 3.9M and fell to 3.2M by the close of the trading day. The borrow fee stayed pretty steady and ended the day at 1.40%. The shares available to borrow fell to a low of 2.5M after hours before climbing to 3.6M this morning.

Blackrock reported adding 700K shares and JPM reported adding a net 634.7K ozt (19.7 metric tons) to the vault stock. However, this was a *net* amount. Yesterday, JPM, for the first time in well over a year, made an adjustment to the silver stock held in the NYC vault. As I'm so used to this number never changing, I had to check with @mypreciousilver to double check the NYC numbers (he saves copies of these JPM bar lists for deeper analysis on the bar inventories).

JPM's NYC vault for SLV held the same 103,176,253.000 ozt it has always held on Nov. 14 (the last day Solve snagged a copy of the bar list). Yesterday, JPM's NYC vault for SLV held 100,171,112.200 ozt. That's a drop of 3M ozt (93.5 metric tons).

Meanwhile, JPM reports the London vault for SLV adding 3.6M ozt (113.2 metric tons). That's the largest one day addition to the London vault since October 20.

So what does this mean? What can we infer from this? I don't know for sure. Maybe nothing. But given:

- the registered->eligible patterns in the COMEX vault movements
- the anomalous Asahi withdrawal today and dangerously thin remaining eligible stock
- the deeply negative EFP
- the deepening Indian futures backwardation
- SFE/SGE silver vaults draining while silver trades at a premium to LBMA spot

It seems to me that the LBMA has a huge problem with their physical silver stock at the moment. It looks like they are in technical default on deliveries to India and China. It looks like they do not have sufficient physical stock to supply SLV with the silver that it needs (and presumably this extends to the other ETFs that vault in London). It looks like the COMEX is nearing the end of the line on silver that can easily be sent to London. It looks like JPM is being forced to move SLV vault stock from NYC to London to alleviate the stress a bit.

PSLV

PSLV reports no new units to the trust nor ozt to the vault.
 
🚨 Yesterday (11-21) in silver

Yesterday silver spot got slammed right at the close to finish the week right at or just under $50. Let's look below the surface...

COMEX

COMEX silver stock report for Thursday (COMEX reports activity for the previous working day) says a total of 2.6M ozt (~80.6 metric tons) was withdrawn (mostly from Brinks and some from Asahi) while 1.4M ozt (43 metric tons) was deposited in CNT, HSBC and Loomis vaults.

This is the second day in a row that Asahi reports a withdrawal of exactly 600,000.000 ozt. Withdrawn numbers are *never* precisely even like this. They are always odd numbers like Brinks' 1,991,045.097. The Good Delivery bars that these vaults are moving around are not made to exact weights to the thousandth degree. There is something very odd happening with the Asahi vault IMO.

Asahi only has ~3.7M ozt left in their eligible vault (versus 37.6M in their registered vault). They are going to run out of eligible if they keep withdrawing without moving some over from registered.

716K ozt (22.3 metric tons) moved from registered to eligible in the Brinks and JPM vaults. I guess someone changed their mind from the previous day with their silver in the Brinks vault as the 101K ozt moved from eligible to registered Wednesday moved back to eligible on Thursday.

The EFP spread remains firmly in negative territory at ~ -$0.36 today. It was ~ -$0.44 yesterday. It would seem that London still needs more silver.

LBMA/India

Has LBMA/JPM started delivering India's silver yet? As we approach the end of the month, the backwardation in Indian futures is growing with the November contract now at ~$55.11/ozt and the December contract at ~$54.06/ozt. The November contract is now at a whopping ~$1.05/ozt premium to the December contract - it was ~$0.82/ozt yesterday morning. It would seem that India is still looking for immediate delivery of physical silver.

SLV

SLV shares available to borrow started the day at around 3.6M shares and rose to 4.2M by the close of the trading day. The borrow fee jumped up to 1.71% for most of the day before falling back to 1.58%.

Blackrock reported adding 400K shares and JPM reported adding a 362.6K ozt (~11.3 metric tons) to the vault stock. There was no further drain on the NYC vault stock - all movement was in the London vault as is the norm for SLV.

Whatever happened Thursday that caused JPM to shed NYC vault stock may happen again in the near future and I will be watching for it. As of now, it appears the half life on a 3M ozt switcheroo band-aid is at least longer than 1 trading day.

PSLV

PSLV again reports no new units to the trust nor ozt to the vault.
 
Apparently Mr. Slammy's silver spot smashing efforts are not dampening ETF/investor demand as silver ETFs have reportedly added 494.2 metric tons to their vault stock so far since the start of the month.

The COMEX has drained 673.7 metric tons of silver so far this month. Assuming most of it was shipped to London, that essentially covers the ETF inflows.

As the SGE has been trading at a premium to LBMA spot, I don't expect that any of the SGE outflows in November were shipped to London. If they were, someone took a huge loss to ship it (now that would be desperation!).

If JPM/LBMA delivers the silver to India that JPM promised last month*, I expect the LBMA's next monthly report (due Dec 5) to reflect a large drop in free float inventory.

* Backwardation in Indian futures casts doubt that the silver has been delivered yet.

 


~~~

For weeks now the SFE and SGE silver vault stock have been recording outflows while SGE silver price remains at a premium to LBMA spot (which should encourage silver to flow from LBMA to China). @oriental_ghost hints that the LBMA is defaulting on silver deliveries to China. SFE backwarded futures is another data point indicating tightness in the physical silver market in China.

 
Last week in silver:

SGE silver vault - loses 58.8 metric tons
SFE silver vault - loses 57.6 metric tons
SLV London vault - gains 132.9 metric tons
PSLV silver vault - no change
COMEX silver stock - loses 274.5 metric tons
LBMA silver stock - ??? (no daily or weekly data because LBMA is run by dinosaurs)

Global net change (less LBMA):
Nov 17-21 = -258 metric tons
Nov 10-14 = -243 metric tons
Nov 3-7 = -252.2 metric tons
Oct 27-31 = -622.1 metric tons
Oct 20-24 = -907.6 metric tons
...

The COMEX continued to bleed vault stock last week though the outflows started the week strongly and then diminished as the week progressed. The EFP spread remained firmly in negative territory all last week which should continue encouraging arbitrage profit for shipping COMEX silver to London.

For the second week in a row, SLV started the week with no activity and then reported large additions on Thursday. Last week SLV reported a very unusual move reducing the vault stock in New York while adding to the vault stock in London. See this previous post for more comments on that.

The SFE and SGE (China) continued to report outflows in spite of silver trading at a premium to LBMA spot for the last three weeks (which should encourage LBMA silver to flow to China). Is the LBMA defaulting on silver delivery obligations to China?

Since the LBMA does not publish daily or weekly vault stock data, we are left to speculate on their inventory. While we have to wait until Dec. 5 for the LBMA's vault stock report, we can see that ETFs holding vault stock in London have increased their holdings (which reduces the LBMA's free float). See this previous post for more detailed comments. Additionally, we are left wondering about JPM's comments to India that they would have to wait until November to receive the silver they bought in October. Have they delivered yet? Indian silver futures are still in backwardation, so it would appear not.

One can only imagine what chaos might be unfolding in the LBMA's London vault system right now. We can only imagine because the dinosaurs at the LBMA do not provide daily/weekly reporting of their vault stock like every other market and major fund in the world.
 
🚨 Yesterday (11-24) in silver

Yesterday silver spot rose back above $51. Let's look below the surface...

COMEX

COMEX silver stock report for Friday (COMEX reports activity for the previous working day) says a total of 593K ozt (~18.5 metric tons) was withdrawn (mostly from Asahi) while 601K ozt (18.7 metric tons) was deposited in HSBC vault. The net change was a very small inflow of 7.6K ozt.

After two consecutive days reporting a withdrawal of exactly 600,000.000 ozt, on Friday the Asahi vault reported another ~600K withdrawal, but this time it was a more normal uneven number.

Asahi only has ~3.1M ozt left in their eligible vault (versus 37.6M in their registered vault). They are going to run out of eligible if they keep withdrawing without moving some over from registered.

78.7K ozt (2.5 metric tons) moved from registered to eligible in the Delaware vault. 198.7K ozt (6.2 metric tons) moved from eligible to registered in the Brinks vault. This is the second day in a row that Brinks moves silver from eligible to registered.

The EFP spread remains firmly in negative territory at ~ -$0.33 today. It was ~ -$0.36 yesterday. It would seem that London still needs more silver. It would also seem that the COMEX might be slowing down on withdrawals to send there.

LBMA/India

Has LBMA/JPM started delivering India's silver yet? The backwardation in Indian futures remains elevated with the November contract now at ~$55.16/ozt and the December contract at ~$54.54/ozt. The November contract is now at a ~$0.62/ozt premium to the December contract - it was ~$0.46/ozt yesterday morning. It would seem that India is still looking for immediate delivery of physical silver.

SLV

SLV shares available to borrow started the day at around 5.4M shares and rose to 8M by the close of the trading day. It is up to 9.2M as of this morning. The borrow fee immediately fell to 1.26% in the morning before climbing back up to 1.53%. It was odd to see the borrowing fee going up as available shares were also going up.

After seeing the available shares increase by almost 3M, I was expecting to see Blackrock report new shares and I was not disappointed. Blackrock reported adding 9M shares and JPM reported adding 8.2M ozt (~253.1 metric tons) to the vault stock. There was no further change on the NYC vault stock - all movement was in the London vault as is the norm for SLV.

This was the largest one day increase in SLV vault stock since October 20. That is a huge drain on the LBMA's free float.

PSLV

PSLV again reports no new units to the trust nor ozt to the vault.
 
🚨 Yesterday (11-25) in silver

Yesterday silver spot tread water just below $51.50. Let's look below the surface...

COMEX

COMEX silver stock report for Monday (COMEX reports activity for the previous working day) says a total of 1.8M ozt (~56.2 metric tons) was withdrawn (mostly from Asahi, Brinks and JPM) while 604K ozt (18.8 metric tons) was deposited in HSBC vault. The net change from deposits and withdrawn was an outflow of 1.2M ozt (~37.4 metric tons). However, an additional 271.6K ozt (8.4 metric tons) was immediately removed from the Brinks registered vaults as well bringing the total net outflow to 1.47M ozt (45.8 metric tons).

This marks the second consecutive day that the Asahi vault reports a ~600K withdrawal, but with more normal uneven numbers (as opposed to the exactly even numbers they reported a couple of times last week).

Asahi vault finally moved some silver from registerd to eligible to support the draining eligible inventory. Asahi has ~3M ozt left in their eligible vault (versus 37.1M in their registered vault).

1.5M ozt (46.9 metric tons) moved from registered to eligible. 1M ozt of that left the registered vault in Brinks, but only 745K of it actually remains in eligible as 271K was withdrawn immediately.

The EFP spread remains firmly in negative territory at ~ -$0.40 today. It was ~ -$0.33 yesterday. It would seem that London still needs more silver.

LBMA/India

Has LBMA/JPM started delivering India's silver yet? The backwardation in Indian futures remains elevated with the November contract now at ~$55.86/ozt and the December contract at ~$55.14/ozt. The November contract is now at a ~$0.45/ozt premium to the December contract - it was ~$0.62/ozt yesterday morning. It would seem that India is still looking for immediate delivery of physical silver.

SLV

SLV shares available to borrow started the day at around 9.2M shares, dropped to 7.6M during the day and rose back up to 10M as of this morning. The borrow fee dropped slightly from 1.53% to 1.44%.

Blackrock reported adding another 2.5M shares (on top of yesterday's 9M) and JPM reported adding another 2.2M ozt (~70.5 metric tons) to the vault stock. There was no further change on the NYC vault stock - all movement was in the London vault as is the norm for SLV. That is a huge drain on the LBMA's free float.

PSLV

PSLV again reports no new units to the trust nor ozt to the vault.
 
🚨 Yesterday (11-26) in silver

Yesterday silver spot rose above $53. Let's look below the surface...

COMEX

COMEX silver stock report for Tuesday (COMEX reports activity for the previous working day) says a total of 815K ozt (~25.4 metric tons) was withdrawn (mostly from Asahi, MT&B and StoneX) while 422K ozt (13.1 metric tons) was deposited in CNT vault. The net change from deposits and withdrawn was an outflow of 393K ozt (~12.2 metric tons). However, an additional 757.5K ozt (23.5 metric tons) was "adjusted" out of the Brinks eligible vaults as well bringing the total net outflow to 1.15M ozt (35.8 metric tons). The 757K Brinks adjustment is almost exactly the same amount that was moved (and not immediately withdrawn/adjusted) from the registered category yesterday.

This marks the third consecutive day that the Asahi vault reports a ~600K withdrawal, but with more normal uneven numbers (as opposed to the exactly even numbers they reported a couple of times last week). That's five consecutive days of ~600K withdrawals. Asahi has ~2.4M ozt left in their eligible vault (versus 37.1M in their registered vault).

No silver was moved from registered to eligible in any vault in the system.

The EFP spread turned positive yesterday. It is currently at +$0.52 this morning. It was -$0.40 yesterday morning. It would seem that the COMEX will stop sending silver to London now. If the EFP spread holds at this level, the LBMA is going to get stressed again in the coming weeks.

LBMA/India

Has LBMA/JPM started delivering India's silver yet? The MCX November futures contract is now off the board. The December contract is at ~$56.58 and the February contract is at ~$58.18. It would appear that the backwardation is gone now. I am new to watching Indian MCX futures and so I'm not 100% sure how contracts settle/roll over as they have a two tier system with "silver" and "silverm" contracts. I'll keep watching to see if backwardation develops in the next few days.

SLV

SLV shares available to borrow started the day at 10M shares and never dropped below 9.5M during the day. 9.3M remain available as of this morning. The borrow fee dropped slightly from 1.44% to 1.37%.

Blackrock reported no change in shares and JPM reported no change to the vault stock. Given the rising spot and EFP change mentioned above, this feels like not just "the calm before the storm", but the "eye of the hurricane" stillness before we hit the backside. SLV is likely to get very busy in the coming weeks as the LBMA free float vault stock comes under duress.

PSLV

PSLV again reports no new units to the trust nor ozt to the vault.

Special Note

It's Thanksgiving holiday here in the USA. The COMEX futures markets will be closed today.
 
Looks like they had almost 50 million oz's stand for Delivery at the start of Dec.

1764251216149.png

Also the delivery pressure on the Comex appears to be back as the EFP spread is going pretty high today. Of course the futures are closed so a bit hard to judge.
 
October silver flow update

Three weeks ago I crunched the vault stock numbers to examine global free float activity wherein I wrote:
pmbug said:
In the month of October, the COMEX and SLV shed a massive amount of inventory back to the LBMA trying to refill their silver ocean. It is difficult to reconcile the LBMA free float purportedly growing by 2,386 tonnes while the COMEX+SLV/ETFs+SFE/SGE drained 3,120 tonnes. If we use some conservative estimates (90% of COMEX, 100% of ETFs and 70% of SFE/SGE) for silver withdrawals that went to London, that would come out to ~2,696.27 tonnes meaning only ~310 tonnes left the LBMA in October while India reported record demand (and they aren't the only ones buying LBMA silver).
Click to expand...

About a week ago, I revisited that speculation based upon some comments from oriental_ghost:
pmbug said:
90% of COMEX, 100% of ETFs and 0% of SFE/SGE would yield 2,058.147 metric tons sent to London in October while the LBMA reports an increase of 2,386 metric tons. That would imply that the LBMA sent no silver to India in October and somehow found ~328 metric tons of silver outside of the COMEX+ETFs which I find difficult to believe.
Click to expand...

Now we are getting some silver import numbers from India. If I'm reading that chart (quoted below) correctly, they are claiming:

~480 metric tons from the UK (London/LBMA)
~400 metric tons from China (SGE/SFE)
~200 metric tons from Switzerland (could be recast metal from UK or China)
~470 metric tons from "Other" which is probably mostly the UAE (Dubai which could also be indirect from UK or China) and/or COMEX

Total import was on the order of ~1,600 metric tons, which is a bit more than the 1,000 metric tons than I had estimated based upon prior reporting. In any event, we can now do some number crunching with this import data.

Starting with China, the SGE/SFE drained 911.6 metric tons in October. If ~400 metric tons went to India, that leaves just 511.6 metric tons that could possibly have been sent to London.

That means LBMA free float purportedly grew 2,386 tonnes while the COMEX+SLV/ETFs+(non-Indian export SFE/SGE) drained 2,720 tonnes. That's a difference of only 334 metric tons - not enough to explain how India imported ~480 metric tons from the UK (London) in October.

These numbers are impossible even assuming the most extreme case where 100% of available COMEX and SGE/SFE outflows went to the LBMA for the entire month of October which I do not believe to be reasonable. I suspect the the LBMA's monthly report was BS and they had much less silver vaulted than what they reported.

 
🚨 Yesterday (11-28) in silver

Yesterday silver spot rose above $56 after the CME reinstalled the plug they had pulled on the futures exchange. Let's look below the surface...

COMEX

COMEX silver stock report for Wednesday (COMEX reports activity for the previous working day) says a total of 657K ozt (~20.4 metric tons) was withdrawn (from Asahi and JPM) while 556K ozt (17.3 metric tons) was deposited in Asahi vault (directly into the registered category). The net change from deposits and withdrawn was an outflow of 100K ozt (~3.1 metric tons). However, an additional 1.2M ozt (37.7 metric tons) was "adjusted" out of the Brinks eligible vaults (again - for the second day in a row) as well bringing the total net outflow to 1.3M ozt (40.9 metric tons).

The Asahi vault only drained ~222K on Wednesday breaking their five day streak ~600K withdrawals. Because the deposit to Asahi went straight to registered, Asahi now has only ~2.2M ozt left in their eligible vault (versus 37.7M in their registered vault).

There was a lot of movement between registered and eligible on Wednesday. JPM moved 13.4M ozt (417.1 metric tons) from registered to eligible while CNT moved 898K ozt (27.9 metric tons) from eligible to registered. I assume this is related to COMEX contract settlement processes.

The EFP spread is slightly negative this morning at -$0.04. I thought it was +$0.52 yesterday morning, but I was looking at the continuous futures instead of the Dec/front month, so I think I was mistaken. I'm not sure that there is sufficient arb this close to zero to incentivize shipping silver to London as there are costs for the logistics involved (shipping, insurance, recasting potentially).

LBMA/India

Has LBMA/JPM started delivering India's silver yet? The MCX December contract is at ~$59.77 and the February contract is at ~$61.09. It would appear that the backwardation is gone now. I guess India got their LBMA silver. The LBMA silver vault stock report due on Dec 5 is going to be interesting. Hopefully the numbers make sense this time given the vault flows and Indian import numbers (see post above for context).

SLV

SLV shares available to borrow started the day at 10M shares, finished the trading day at 9.7M shares and dropped to 9.4M available as as of this morning. The borrow fee dropped slightly from 1.37% to 1.13%. It seemed to be a very quiet day as expected during a holiday period in the USA.

Blackrock reported adding 1M shares and JPM reported adding 906K ozt (28.2 metric tons) to the vault stock. There has not been a drop in SLV vault stock since Nov 7. SLV has added 18.9M ozt (587.2 metric tons) since then. That's a bit more than what the LBMA sent to India in October.

PSLV

Apparently the Canadians at Sprott celebrated Thanksgiving as they did not update their data on Thursday. PSLV reports adding 1,470,800 new units to the trust on Friday, but no new ozt to the vault. I expect they will be adding ~500K ozt (15.5 metric tons) to the vault next week.
 
Monday morning 12-1 (USA) in silver.

Silver spot was on the rise in overnight trading in China (remaining at a premium to LBMA spot). The SFE silver vault has reported inflows for the last week. It would seem that London is sending some silver back to China now.

EFP spread (COMEX Dec futures - LBMA spot) remains barely in negative territory at -$0.07 this morning. Is that enough to encourage COMEX silver to flow to London?

Indian futures appear to be solidly in contango again with the December contract now at ~$60.51/ozt and the February contract at ~$62.23/ozt. The February contract is at a ~$1.72/ozt premium to the December contract. It would seem that the LBMA has delivered India's October silver purchases.

SLV shares available to borrow remain at 10M and the borrow fee has fallen to 1.13%. So far, SLV is not signalling any stress in the LBMA system.
 
...
Li Lecheng, minister of industry and information technology, said in an exclusive signed article written for China Daily that when global climate governance encounters setbacks and some nations are backsliding on their commitments, China's determination to pursue a green transition in manufacturing underlines its drive to foster new quality productive forces and pursue high-quality development.

China will "encourage competitive Chinese enterprises in photovoltaics, wind power, lithium batteries and new energy vehicles to expand globally and to invest in and develop green energy projects in countries and regions involved in the Belt and Road Initiative and beyond", Li said.
...
Click to expand...

global.chinadaily.com.cn

China to boost green industry cooperation

global.chinadaily.com.cn global.chinadaily.com.cn
 
🚨 Yesterday (12-1) in silver

Yesterday silver spot rose above $58 before closing just under the mark. Let's look below the surface...

COMEX

COMEX silver stock report for Friday (COMEX reports activity for the previous working day) says a total of 777K ozt (~24.2 metric tons) was withdrawn (mostly from Brinks and a little from Delaware) while none was deposited.

It was an unusual report in that most of the most active vaults recently - Asahi, CNT, JPM, Loomis, HSBC, MT&B - were very quiet with no deposits or withdrawals.

CNT recorded 321K ozt (10 metric tons) moving from registered to eligible.

The EFP spread is firmly negative this morning at -$0.23. It was -$0.04 yesterday morning. I'm guessing there is sufficient arb at -$0.23 to incentivize shipping silver to London. We'll see!

LBMA/India

The Indian futures MCX December contract is at ~$60.58 and the February contract is at ~$62.43. The February contract is at a ~$1.85/ozt premium to the December contract (it was $1.72/ozt yesterday morning). It would seem that the LBMA has delivered India's October silver purchases.

SLV

SLV shares available to borrow started and ended the day at 10M shares with little variation throughout the day. The borrow fee dropped rose slightly from 1.13% to 1.27% before dropping back to 1.11% by the close of trading. SLV share borrowing seems to be signalling that all is well with the LBMA silver vault stock at the moment.

Blackrock reported adding a whopping 6.8M shares and JPM reported adding 6.1M ozt (191.8 metric tons) to the vault stock. This follows last week where SLV added 11.3M ozt (352 metric tons) to the vault stock. This has got to hurt the LBMA's free float.

PSLV

PSLV reports adding zero new units to the trust and 300K ozt (9.3 metric tons) to the vault. I think they still need to add another ~200K ozt to the vault per the units added last Friday.
 
Last week in silver:

SGE silver vault - loses 28.7 metric tons
SFE silver vault - gains 39.6 metric tons
SLV London vault - gains 352.6 metric tons
PSLV silver vault - no change
COMEX silver stock - loses 146.7 metric tons
LBMA silver stock - ??? (no daily or weekly data because LBMA is run by dinosaurs)

Global net change (less LBMA):
Nov 24-28 = +216.8 metric tons
Nov 17-21 = -258 metric tons
Nov 10-14 = -243 metric tons
Nov 3-7 = -252.2 metric tons
Oct 27-31 = -622.1 metric tons
Oct 20-24 = -907.6 metric tons
...

The COMEX continued to bleed vault stock last week interrupted only by the Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday. The EFP spread remained in negative territory all last week though the magnitude diminished to almost zero which might cause a slow down in the shipping of COMEX silver to London.

Last week, SLV flipped the script and started the week large additions and ended with low activity. Overall, SLV added huge amount to their vault stock and SLV's gain is the LBMA's free float loss. The LBMA is due to report the end of November vault stock on Friday. I hope it makes sense this time. Last month's report did not.

After reporting outflows for 9 of the last 11 weeks (and for the last 3 previous weeks in a row), the SFE managed to turn things around last week reporting inflows most every day. The SGE reported another outflow, but it was about half of what was reported in previous weeks. It would seem that the LBMA might be delivering silver to China again as the SFE/SGE maintains a premium to LBMA spot.

Since the LBMA does not publish daily or weekly vault stock data, we are left to speculate on their inventory. While we have to wait until Dec. 5 for the LBMA's vault stock report, we can see that ETFs holding vault stock in London have increased their holdings (which reduces the LBMA's free float). See tweet below for more detail.

My intuition after watching all these numbers for so long is that we are in the eye of the hurricane right now. All appears calm but the other side of the storm is approaching.

One can only imagine what chaos might be unfolding in the LBMA's London vault system right now. We can only imagine because the dinosaurs at the LBMA do not provide daily/weekly reporting of their vault stock like every other market and major fund in the world.

ETFs increased vault stock:
 
🚨 Yesterday (12-2) in silver

Yesterday silver spot rose to $58.50. Let's look below the surface...

COMEX

COMEX silver stock report for Monday (COMEX reports activity for the previous working day) was amazingly quiet. The only activity listed in the report was a tiny withdrawal of 60.8K ozt (1.9 metric tons) from Loomis vault. There were no deposits and no movements between reigstered and eligible. The calm before the storm?

The EFP spread is strongly negative this morning at -$0.58 for the front month of December. It was -$0.23 yesterday morning. Is this a sign of stress in the LBMA system needing physical silver?



LBMA/India

The Indian futures MCX December contract is at ~$61.67 and the February contract is at ~$63.54. The February contract is at a ~$1.87/ozt premium to the December contract (it was $1.85/ozt yesterday morning).

Is it odd that the Indian futures are at such a premium to COMEX futures? The December (Indian) MCX contract is at a $3.72/ozt premium to the COMEX December contract at the moment. I honestly don't know as watching the Indian futures is new to me, but that seems like a pretty large difference. China's SFE futures (not sure if it is a December contract) is currently at a $1.89/ozt premium to the COMEX December contract. Why is December silver on the COMEX so cheap?

SLV

SLV shares available to borrow started and ended the day at 10M shares with little variation throughout the day (again - 2nd day in a row). The borrow fee dropped slightly from 1.13% to 0.90% as of this morning. All seems well in SLV land - no APs appear to be raiding their vault stock at the moment.

Blackrock reported adding another 2.35M shares and JPM reported adding another 2.1M ozt (66.3 metric tons) to the vault stock. SLV's vault stock gains are the LBMA's free float losses.

PSLV

PSLV reports adding zero new units to the trust and 600K ozt (18.7 metric tons) to the vault. I think they still need to add another ~350K ozt to the vault per the units added recently.
 
Looking right now I see COMEX Dec 2025 contract at $58.54. It was ~$57.94 when I checked early this morning and wrote my daily report.
 
🚨 Yesterday (12-3) in silver

Yesterday silver spot was volatile going up and down before settling about where it started at ~$58.50. Let's look below the surface...

COMEX

COMEX silver stock report for Tuesday (COMEX reports activity for the previous working day) shows 962K ozt (29.9 metric tons) were withdrawn primarily from JPM (~600K ozt) and CNT (~300K ozt) with a tiny 10 bars from Delaware. There was also 1.75M ozt (54.4 metric tons) deposited in HSBC (1.1M ozt) and Brinks (566K ozt).

703K ozt (21.9 metric tons) were moved from registered to eligible in the Asahi vault while 2.2M ozt (68.8 metric tons) were moved from eligible to registered in the Brinks vault.

The EFP spread moved a lot yesterday from my morning read to the middle of the trading day. As of the moment I'm composing this, the spread is positive at +$0.10 for the front month of December. It was -$0.58 yesterday morning and right around zero during the trading day. A positive EFP spread is bad news for the LBMA as there is no profit for bullion banks to send COMEX silver to London.

LBMA/India

The MCX December contract (Indian futures) is now off the board apparently. The February contract is at ~$62.01 and the March contract is $61.78. The March contract is at a $0.23/ozt discount to the February contract. It looks like backwardation is back in the Indian futures market. Is this an anomaly as contracts roll over or is the market expressing a new equilibrium?

SLV

SLV shares available to borrow started and ended the day at 10M shares with little variation (or activty for that matter) throughout the day (again - 3rd day in a row). The borrow fee rose slightly from 0.90% to 0.99% as of this morning. All seems well in SLV land - no APs appear to be raiding their vault stock at the moment.

Blackrock reported adding another 4.8M shares and JPM reported adding another 4.2M ozt (129.9 metric tons) to the vault stock. SLV's vault stock gains are the LBMA's free float losses.

SLV (and presumably the other ETFs holding vault stock in LBMA vaults) appear to be eating a healthy chunk of the LBMA's free float this week. The LBMA is supposed to release their monthly vault stock report tomorrow. I wonder if it will make more sense than last month's report (which did not make sense).

PSLV

PSLV reports adding zero new units to the trust and just a small adjustment on the vault stock as they often do the day after adding a clean/even number of ozt. I think they still need to add another ~350K ozt to the vault per the units added recently.
 
🚨 Yesterday (12-4) in silver

Yesterday silver spot tread water at ~$57. Let's look below the surface...

COMEX

After two days of quiet reports, the COMEX silver stock report for Wednesday (COMEX reports activity for the previous working day) was very busy with 1.3M ozt (40.2 metric tons) withdrawn primarily from JPM (~602K ozt) and Brinks (~600K ozt). There was also 1.8M ozt (55.7 metric tons) deposited in HSBC (1.2M ozt) and CNT (600K ozt).

It strikes me as curious that over the last few days a lot of the movements in any given vault whether received/deposited or withdrawn are lots of (or multiples of) ~600K ozt. Does that correspond to a pallet or truck load? I don't know, but it has been very consistent for the last few days.

1.1M ozt (35.4 metric tons) were moved from registered to eligible in the Asahi (252K ozt), CNT (533K ozt) and Loomis (353K ozt) vaults.

After turning positive yesterday, the EFP spread has returned to a strongly negative range at -$0.64 for the front month of December as of this morning. It was +$0.10 yesterday during the trading day. It will be worth watching to see if the EFP spread turns positive again during market trading hours in the USA and see saws back to negative at night (and positive in the day and so forth).

India

As of the moment I checked this morning while composing this report (the numbers seem to be fluctuating/moving a lot), the MCX February contract was at ~$63.21 and the March contract was $62.97. The March contract was at a $0.24/ozt discount to the February contract (it was a $0.23/ozt discount yesterday when I checked). It looks like the backwardation in the Indian futures market held steady from yesterday. Looks like India wants physical silver ASAP again.

SLV

SLV shares available to borrow started and ended the day at 10M shares with little variation (or activty for that matter) throughout the day (again - 4th day in a row). The borrow fee fell slightly from 0.99% to 0.96% as of this morning. All seems well in SLV land - no APs appear to be raiding their vault stock at the moment.

Blackrock reported adding another 3.4M shares and JPM reported adding another 3.1M ozt (95.9 metric tons) to the vault stock. JPM has added a massive 15.5M ozt (483.9 metric tons) to the SLV vault stock so far this week. SLV's vault stock gains are the LBMA's free float losses.

The LBMA is supposed to release their monthly vault stock report later today. I wonder if it will make more sense than last month's report (which did not make sense).

PSLV

PSLV reports adding zero new units to the trust and 200K ozt (6.2 metric tons) to the vault stock. I think they still need to add another ~150K ozt to the vault per the units added recently.
 
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