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Retail sites for silver have been overwhelmed with demand for bars and coins, suggesting the frenzy that roiled commodities markets last week is spilling over into physical assets.
Dealers including Money Metals, SD Bullion, JM Bullion and Apmex said over the weekend they were unable to process orders until Asian markets opened because of unprecedented demand. Buying continued on Monday, and spot silver and futures jumped to breach $30 an ounce.
“Pretty much physical silver is almost all gone in terms of live inventory,” Tyler Wall, president and chief executive officer at SD Bullion, said in a Bloomberg TV interview. “Currently we’re seeing the premium -- the price you pay over spot to get actual physical silver in your hands -- is skyrocketing. Most stuff on our website’s at least 30% over spot and we can’t source it for much less than that right now from our wholesalers.”
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... With the developments over the last few days of investors shifting away from paper silver and taking delivery of physical silver, the whole market construct for precious metals is changing. ...
I need an approximate US$38 per troy bounce to break even ChiggYou will get there rblong2us, my break even price is $25.50.
... Is that it or is this just the opening salvo ?
With the ongoing #SilverSqueeze and huge associated dollar inflows into silver-backed Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs), it is now time to look at which of these ETFs store their silver in the LBMA vaults in London, England, and to calculate how much physical silver these combined funds store in those London vaults.
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Because out of the 1.08 billion ounces of silver (33,609 tonnes) that the LBMA claims is stored in the London vaults (as per latest LBMA data to end of December 2020), a whooping 83.3% or 28,007 tonnes (900.42 million ozs) is already accounted for by these ETFs. This is based on ETF holdings as of end of day 5 February 2021.
Add in another 22.22 million ozs (691.3 tonnes) of silver held by Bullion Vault (BV) and Gold Money (GM) in the same London vaults, and there are a massive 28,698 tonnes (or 922.65 million ozs) of silver accounted for in the combined ETFs and in the BV/GM holdings. That’s 85.4% of all the silver that the LBMA claims is in the London vaults.
ETFs / ETCs / Transparent holdings store 28,698 tonnes of Silver in LBMA London vaults, over 85% of all the silver in LBMA London. Sources – Provider websites
This leaves only 4,911 tonnes of silver from the LBMA total of 33,609 tonnes that is not already accounted for. That’s a mere 14.6% of total London vaulted silver stocks. The criticality of the situation was even more acute based on end of day data from 3 February 2021, when based on the same calculation approach, there was only 4,366.7 tonnes of silver in the LBMA vaults (13% of the total) that were not accounted for by silver ETF and other transparent silver holdings. On that day, a full 87% of all the silver in London was held the ETFs and other transparent holdings.
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Where did the 5000 tonnes figure come from ?
I have always treated the Gold Silver ratio as the best tool for judging the longer-term health of the precious metals markets. If the GSR trends up over an extended period, it is usually an omen of trouble for both gold and silver. Since the lunacy of the Covid Crash took gold and silver to Generational Buying Opportunities in miners and metals, once silver found its footing in late April 2020, the GSR has been in a powerfully bullish descent that continues to scream “New Highs” as the year unfolds.
One of the classic trademarks of a gold market gathering steam is a silver market outperforming gold, and that it has been doing without fail
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February 2021 has had 9.95 million ounces delivered through 2-18, and there are still 1.83 million ounces in open interest. Anyone still sitting in a contract this late in the month wants delivery, so we can safely assume Feb. deliveries will end above 11 million, and closer to 12 million. ...
... March is gearing up to potentially be an earth-shattering month for delivery requests that could send silver soaring. March in the previous 3 years has averaged 26.79 million ounces delivered. If this year's month of March experienced the same 422% increase in deliveries that occurred in February, that would represent ~140 million ounces delivered. Enough to completely drain the COMEX registered stocks. If typical contract roll-forward behavior persists, we are actually on track to hit around that number. The chart below shows how March is on track to finish the month with between 30-40k contracts demanding delivery (each contract represents 5,000 oz). The chart is courtesy of u/Ditch_the_DeepState who does an awesome job with these.
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March COMEX contract open interest declines to 17,000 contracts ...
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There is another asset that has been in the news recently that is over 55k in price (WSB bans mentioning it, I'm not trying to pump it, just use it for an example). There are only ~21 million of these items that will ever be mined, and they are valued for their scarcity and deflationary tendency. For every ten of these things which shall not be named there is only one 1000oz commercial silver bar, and each bar costs roughly half of what 1 of the things that shall not be named costs.
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Silver is more common than gold but spread rather thin in the earth's crust so it isn't mined directly in large quantities. It's more typically a byproduct of mining for other raw materials. The lack of dedicated silver mines means that silver today is mined at only an 8-1 ratio to gold despite naturally occurring at roughly 18.75-1 ratio. Silver is currently trading at a 66-1 ratio to gold, and gold hasn't even been rising lately. In the 2010-2011 run, we got down to a 30-1 ratio, and if people begin to worry about inflation and consider silver a monetary hedge, there's nothing stopping silver from getting to its natural ratio of 18.75-1 or even lower considering the industrial demand combined with the lower 8-1 production ratio.
These lower ratios combined with higher gold prices in the future mean that silver can realistically get above $50 in short order, possibly even above $100 and if you think the monetary system is really headed downhill, even up to the outrageous forecasts of $500+ from the likes of Patrick Karim on Twitter. Note that Patrick posts various charts all the time and his most recent forecast are $182 silver by 2023. Love your charts Patrick (give this man a follow).
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As is often the case, there is a lot of hype regarding the impact the #SilverSqueeze movement might have on the delivery process at COMEX in March. The purpose of this post is not to discourage you, but instead brace you for how the month is likely to play out.
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Surprisingly, the LBMA report acknowledges that strong inflows into silver-backed ETFs in late January and early February, if they had persisted, could have led to the LBMA London vaults running out of acceptable (good delivery) silver bars for the ETFs. ...
In a shocking retraction, the bullion bank dominated London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) has just announced that it has been overstating LBMA silver vault holdings by a massive 3,300 tonnes of silver.
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Thursday, U.K. Royal Mint reported a 540% increase in the bullion silver bar sales compared to last year.
The Royal Mint also said that its one-ounce silver Britannia 2021 coin saw sales increase 100% between March and April, compared to last year.
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Physical demand for silver took off in February this year after a group of traders, organized through social media, tried and failed to induce a short-squeeze in the marketplace. However, since then, analysts have said that silver demand remains strong, with investors looking to capitalize on the precious metals industrial demand as the global economy continues to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.
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