#silversqueeze

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David Jensen said:
... The constancy of the level of the vault silver float while silver prices and now even the the 1-year silver lease rate (Figure 2) has surged indicates that large part of this silver float is privately held and merely located in London vaults - there appears to be very little liquid silver in London available to market.
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jensendavid.substack.com

How Much Silver Is Liquid and Really Available To Market As A 'Free Float'

The Market Speaks Of Gross Shortage
jensendavid.substack.com jensendavid.substack.com
 


Solve Nettug said:
Oz of silver in SLV bar list not equal to information page – update.

The last 3+ weeks I have been tracking the silver held in the SLV according to their info page and compared it to the SLV bar list. Every day there was a small difference.

Now they have come up with an explanation of this on their web page: “Tonnes in Trust and Ounces in Trust quoted on this webpage are based on trade date activity on the as of date. Tonnes in Trust and Ounces in Trust quoted on the bar list are based on accounting data on the as of date. There may be small variances due to trade activity.”

At the same time, I see they have removed the oz in the trust in the info page (see picture), so it is now only available in the SLV bar list!

Also, I don’t buy their explanation; If the reason was like they say, you would expect the difference to be more than 1 bar (1000oz) most days. It is not; the difference is less than 1 bar (1000oz) 16 out of 17 days.

The probability is extremely low, close to impossible. I don’t know the implications of this, but I will repeat that my impression is lack of control.
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Voodoo said:
Rafi helps break this down and dispels the "because of tariffs and ETF's myth". That's the shit they want you to believe.
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Rafi missed the boat on the silver tariff issue. I explained it clearly here (looks like I forgot to cross-post to the forum here previously :oops: ):
pmbug said:
Silver bullion is likely exempt from USA tariffs.

I dug deeper into the silver tariff issue (see tweet quoted below for background). The CBP letter of July 31 explained that gold bullion bars - cast or extruded with stamps indicating purity and weight - were not classified under 7108.12.10 (bullion and dore), but rather 7108.13.55 (Rectangular or near rectangular shapes, containing 99.5 percent or more by weight of gold and not otherwise marked or decorated than with weight, purity, or other identifying information).

I found the page in the Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) that lists silver classifications. Silver has comparable classification codes to the gold codes: 7106.91.10 (bullion and dore) and 7106.92.10 (Rectangular or near rectangular shapes, containing 99.5 percent or more by weight of silver and not otherwise marked or decorated than with weight, purity, or other identifying information)

It seems logical to me that silver bullion bars that are cast or extruded with stamps indicating purity and weight - such as 1,000 ozt London Good Delivery silver bars used by the LBMA and COMEX and the basis for physically settling EFP trades - would be classified under 7106.92.10 given the CBP's guidance in the July 31 letter.

Curiously, the HTS lists 7106.92.10 rate as "Free". I did not see this code listed in the Article II exempt list provided with the most recent Executive Order, so it's not clear to me when this classification code was set to free, but it looks like it isn't going to be an issue for the COMEX~LBMA EFP trade.
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On the ETF issue - It's a matter of perspective and Rafi is looking at a window of time encompassing a year or more to make his point when the issue is more acute - occurring within the last few weeks. I broke down what has happened with SLV here:

pmbug

Post in thread '#silversqueeze'

pmbug said:
Is SLV is the canary in the silver mine?

On August 14, the Saudi central bank's 13F filing disclosed that they had invested in SLV to the tune of 932,000 shares / $30.58MM. This may have sparked additional institutional investment interest in SLV.

On August 18, SLV added a massive 9,172,079 troy ounces (285.2 metric tons) to their vaulted stock. When SLV adds, it really just takes ownership of silver bars already in LBMA vaults, reducing LBMA free float vault stock.

By Sep 2 (from Aug 18), SLV vault stock has run down ~2.5MM troy ounces (~77.75 metric tons) and then...
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This isn't ETF demand. That helps the riggers and it HAS been much higher in the past. I think that can be stated as fact.

To me this is very different. This is people with big money who need/want the real stuff. And they are starting to find it's just not that easy to get. I also wonder how much of the real stuff has been siphoned from the bankers by China/India. I mean in the form of selling all the dore directly to refiners in China.
 
China is sucking up the metals in South America. One of the reasons they are building a port there. I think they are sucking as many resources out of SA as they can.

The other day Yankee stacking did a 2 hr show with SD bullion and they were saying there was someone trying to source 100 million in metals. Also saying there really is no shortage at the retail level RN. It's coming in fast enough to meet demand. One other thing they mentioned was the refiners were not taking anymore to refine. They are stuffed to the gills already. One of the reasons you can get deals at spot for some things like 90%. You can also get 100 oz and kilos at below spot.
 
COMEX vaults apparently having no problem adding new stock. They have averaged net inflow of over 1.8MM ozt over the last 3 days. I suspect refineries are sending them most of the scrap they are recasting into LGD bars.

Regarding my last comment - I didn't mean to imply that ETF demand was driving the bus. If you read my "canary in the silver mine" post, you should get the context. The ETF demand picked up in the last few weeks and it has visibly squeezed London's liquid free float stock of LGD silver.
 
This really looks like someone big, probably in the US, is methodically bidding for as much metal as they possibly can get. I mean this is Buffet sized buying. That's why they are methodically coming in and buying up contracts In the delivery month and why its been so consistent. This would also be a reason for the Comex prices to be bid higher than the London spot price (hence the EFP spread increasing). Anyway they did it again yesterday on silver. OI expanded in Sep contract.

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