ECON Silver Squeeze Hits London Part Two

Doomer Doug

TB Fanatic
I will add another post about Robin Hood's corruption in the recent "Silver Short Squeeze," but this one is about the ONGOING critical shortage of Silver, and why the LONG TERM SILVER PLAY IS STILL IN MOTION. Bottom line is "they" ain't got enough PHYSICAL SILVER and it looks, according to this essay, that is starting to seep out again. I will also note that SILVER ONE OZS ARE PUSHING $28 AGAIN. I posted this separate from the original one because I couldn't find it, :D and they are discussing future impacts.


#SilverSqueeze Hits London As SLV Warns Of Limited Available Silver
Tyler Durden's Photo

BY TYLER DURDEN
SUNDAY, FEB 14, 2021 - 18:44
Submitted by Ronan Manly, BullionStar.com

Less than a week ago in ‘Houston, we have a Problem”: 85% of Silver in London already held by ETFs’, we explained how with the emergence of the #SilverSqueeze, the silver-backed ETFs which claim to hold their silver in London, now account for 85% of all the silver claimed to be stored in the London LBMA vaults (over 28,000 tonnes of the LBMA total of 33,609 tonnes). This, for anyone who can out 2 and 2 together, does not leave very much available silver in London for silver ETFs or for anyone else, especially the largest silver ETF in the market the giant iShares Silver Trust (SLV), which let’s not forget has the infamous JP Morgan as custodian.

That SLV has seen massive dollar inflows in late January and early February with corresponding jumps in claimed silver holdings is now widely known, but is worth repeating here, for what’s about to come next.

3,416.11 Tonnes of Silver?

The intense market interest in the iShares Silver Trust (SLV) started on 28January when a huge volume of 152 million shares traded on NYSE Arca. Again on Friday 29January, SLV traded a massive volume of 113 million shares. This led to an increase in SLV ‘Shares Outstanding’ on Friday 29 January of 37 million shares, and a same day claim by JP Morgan, the SLV custodian, that it had increased the silver held in the SLV by 37.67 million ozs (1,171 tonnes), all claimed to be sourced in the LBMA vaults in London.

On Monday 01 February, an even larger 280 million SLV shares traded on NYSE, and by end of day SLV shares outstanding jumped by 20 million. On that day SLV claimed to add another 15.376 million ounces of silver (478.25 tonnes) within the LBMA vaults in London, about three-quarters of the value of the new SLV shares created on that day.

On Tuesday 2 February, with SLV trading still elevated on NYSE, the iShares Silver Trust created a massive 61,350,000 new SLV shares, bringing the SLV shares outstanding to 729.1 million. On the same day, JP Morgan and Blackrock claimed to have added a huge 56.783 million ozs of silver (1,766 tonnes) to the SLV (again all in London), an incredible amount by any measure, but still short of reflecting the total of 118.45 million total of new shares that had been created between Friday and Tuesday (which led them to adjust down shares outstanding by 8.6 million on Wednesday 3 February).

Over this time, you can see a nearly one for one relationship between the change in number of SLV shares outstanding and the amount of silver ounces claimed to be added to SLV.
Between Friday 29 January and Wednesday 3 February inclusive, SLV shares outstanding increased by a net 109.85 million. Over the 3-day period from Friday 29 January to Tuesday 2 February, SLV claimed to have added an incredible 109.83 million ozs of silver (3,416.11 tonnes), with holdings of silver bars rising from 567.52 million ozs of silver to 677.35 million ounces (from 17,651.77 tonnes to 21,067.88 tonnes).

According to the SLV daily bar lists, this extra 3,416.11 tonnes of silver added to SLV between 29 January and 2 February was in the form of 113,501 Good Delivery silver bars (the bars weighing approx. 1000 oz each). Again, according to the SLV bar list, these bars were added in five London vaults which SLV uses, namely Brinks vault in Premier Park London (45.5%), Loomis London vault (27.7%), Brinks Unit 7 vault Radius Park London (15.5%), Malca Amit London vault (6.0%) and JP Morgan’s own London vault (a measly 5.3%).

In fact, according to the bar lists, SLV only started tapping into silver in the Brinks Premier park vault on Monday 1 February, and only started tapping to silver held in the Loomis London vault on Tuesday 2 February. Which to some people may look like a case of desperation or maybe even panic.

SLV silver holdings over the 6 months from August 2020 to February 2021. Source: www.GoldChartsRUs.com

Unable to Acquire Sufficient Silver

Adding 3,416.11 tonnes of silver to SLV between 29 January and 2 February is not something that JP Morgan can easily claim to do again. KABBBBBBBBBOOBOOMMMMMMMMM!


Which is why it’s particularly interesting that on Wednesday 3 February, right after claiming to add 3416 tonnes of silver to SLV by frantically tapping the LBMA vaults in London, the iShares Silver Trust prospectus was changed, and the following wording added: MORE KABBBBOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!
The demand for silver may temporarily exceed available supply that is acceptable for delivery to the Trust, which may adversely affect an investment in the Shares.
To the extent that demand for silver exceeds the available supply at that time, Authorized Participants may not be able to readily acquire sufficient amounts of silver necessary for the creation of a Basket.
Baskets may be created only by Authorized Participants, and are only issued in exchange for an amount of silver determined by the Trustee that meets the specifications described below under “Description of the Shares and the Trust Agreement— Deposit of Silver; Issuance of Baskets” on each day that NYSE Arca is open for regular trading. Market speculation in silver could result in increased requests for the issuance of Baskets.
It is possible that Authorized Participants may be unable to acquire sufficient silver that is acceptable for delivery to the Trust for the issuance of new Baskets due to a limited then-available supply coupled with a surge in demand for the Shares.
In such circumstances, the Trust may suspend or restrict the issuance of Baskets
. Such occurrence may lead to further volatility in Share price and deviations, which may be significant, in the market price of the Shares relative to the NAV.”
That the prospectus change was first drafted on Wednesday 3 February is clear by looking at prospectus pdf filename which is ‘p-ishares-silver-trust-prospectus-3-feb.pdf’ and the pdf title ‘Microsoft Word - slv20210203_s3asr_v1.docx’, which was authored by someone called ‘nick’. While the draft started in Word, the final version was saved as a pdf on 5 February.
SLV Prospectus amendment draft created on Wednesday 3 February
The final pdf date is the same day, 5 February, that the amended prospectus was quietly uploaded to the SEC Edgar website here with an effective date of 8 February. The previous version of the SLV prospectus was from 14 January
SLV informs SEC of its amended prospectus, 5 February
Below you can see the changes in the new 8 February version of the SLV prospectus compared to the 14 January version.
SLV Prospectus" Left Hand Side - 14 January version, Right Hand Side New February version
BullionStar picked up on the fact that there was a new prospectus with the suspicious 3 February date, and then a twitter user (h/t Roelzns) compared the two prospectus versions to pinpoint the amended text
iShares Silver Trust (SLV) published a new Prospectus dated 08 February 2021. From the link on its website, this is a document saved as "slv20210203_s3asr_v1.docx", with a date of 03 February, the day after massive 3 day inflows into SLV. Suspicious timing on updated prospectus!
— BullionStar (@BullionStar) February 13, 2021
In addition to the paragraph above about silver demand exceeding available silver supply, the SLV prospectus also added into two further paragraghs under the first, one of which ominously predicting volatile share price movements that could be uncorrelated to the silver price:
Risks Related to the Shares
A sudden increase in demand for Shares that temporarily exceeds supply may result in price volatility of the Shares.
A significant change in the sentiment of investors towards silver may occur. Investors may purchase Shares to speculate on the price of silver or to hedge existing silver exposure. Speculation on the price of silver may involve long and short exposures. To the extent that the aggregate short exposure exceeds the number of Shares available for purchase, investors with short exposure may have to pay a premium to repurchase Shares for delivery to Share lenders.
In turn, those repurchases may dramatically increase the price of the Shares until additional Shares are issued through the creation process. This could lead to volatile price movements in Shares that are not directly correlated to the price of silver."

Humorously, the third new paragraph inserted into the SLV prospectus explains that the silver price, which don't forget is a paper price set by the dominance of bullion bank trading on COMEX and LBMA London, is subject to extreme fluctuations which are unrelated to physical silver demand and supply, but alas there is no mention of the years long silver price manipulations that JP Morgan and other LBMA cronies have been recently prosecuted for:
The trading price of the Shares has recently been, and could potentially continue to be, volatile.
The trading price of the Shares has been highly volatile and could continue to be subject to wide fluctuations in response to various factors. The silver market in general has experienced extreme price and volume fluctuations that have often been unrelated or disproportionate to factors such as silver's uses in jewelry, technology, and industrial applications, or cost and production levels in major silver-producing countries such as China, Mexico, and Peru. In particular, supply chain disruptions resulting from the COVID-19 outbreak and investor speculation have significantly contributed to recent price and volume fluctuations.”
If the short squeeze on GameStop caused fireworks among a few hedge funds on Wall Street, we hate to think what a short squeeze on the global silver supply will look like as hedge funds wake up to the possibility that SLV "cannot acquire sufficient silver acceptable for delivery to the Trust".
 

Southside

Has No Life - Lives on TB
DD,

Thanks for a great article. We in the silver community have been waiting for the "Great Short Squeeze" in silver for years. Looks like it might be time. It will become obvious when manufacturers have to idle lines waiting for material. Probably not that far off.

Oh, and let me add, Long and Strong! Stack 'em to the sky!

Southside
 

The Snack Artist

Membership Revoked
Last time the silver short squeeze got talked up I mentioned the fact that as we get closer to expiration of the Feb options, we will get a nice rally if not a huge one. All is good when you don't have to deliver. Then when you do, and there is none, does the price moonshot.

Think about oil trading negative recently on expiration. People paying a penny for a barrel of oil lost about 40 bucks a barrel. There was nowhere to put it. Now with silver, there is nowhere to get physical and we're coming to the end of the month. Hold tight.

"volatile share price movements that could be uncorrelated to the silver price" Translation; we're about to take it in the shorts - JPM

chart.gif

Notice the short squeeze at expiration last month. This is going to happen every month.
 
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Donghe Surfer

Veteran Member
On a local site, I see silver rounds offered (to sell, meaning you can buy them) at just over $32. American silver eagles to buy (meaning you will sell to the dealer, who will buy them from you) at just over $30.
Another site also selling silver rounds at just over $32. Same site selling ASEs at over $38.
So, that stupid futures prices (now live) of silver just under $28 means zip, zero. The market above showing it much higher.
 

20Gauge

TB Fanatic
On a local site, I see silver rounds offered (to sell, meaning you can buy them) at just over $32. American silver eagles to buy (meaning you will sell to the dealer, who will buy them from you) at just over $30.
Another site also selling silver rounds at just over $32. Same site selling ASEs at over $38.
So, that stupid futures prices (now live) of silver just under $28 means zip, zero. The market above showing it much higher.
Everything seems to have stabilized for the moment.

Even Game Stop stock price is over $52 per share. I expected it to be back to $1 already
 

Doomer Doug

TB Fanatic
Well, as I pointed out the spot price is the bottom price, which DOES NOT include the premium. If you buy physical silver, at a coin shop, you will pay between 10 to 30 PERCENT PREMIUM, for ALL of 2020, and now 2021.

Which is one reason the short is so brutal. If you have to provide one ounce of physical silver to a broker in London it will cost you spot plus 20 percent at least.

The other thing is the COMEX, unless I am mistaken, deals in 400 oz bars, or at least 100 oz. You don't go into the London exchange with a plastic stack of 20 ozs. :hof:

They need not only "silver," but the RIGHT KIND OF SILVER.

Finally, you would think the Federales Reserve has not issued any stimulus at all the last year or so. And here Yellen is, and the lot of them, DUMPING TRILLIONS of paper money into the "system." like 2 $F#$%^^ TRILLION in the last several weeks and it will have no INFLATIONARY IMPACT AT ALL.

Hold Silver to hedge the Fed's INFLATION ORGY OF RAW SILVER SEX. :D Unfortunately, the silver ozs ain't reproducing no matter how much silver sex Yellen et al want them to make

I will also add Biden is hyper inflationary, and we all know where THAT GOES NOW DON'T WE? hmmmm?

So far much of the froth is in bitcoin, which may be another Dutch 1700 Tulip mania. We shall see. I just think that when you pour that much paper money from the Federales it will have some kind of impact when it is not backed by REAL ASSETS. For sure the foreigners ain't stupid and they want the good stuff.
 

Donghe Surfer

Veteran Member
Google "St. Louis Fed M1 Velocity of Money". Should be first top link.
There'll be a chart. Only WHEN, again, only WHEN, that line spikes vertically, will any kind of Weimar hyperinflation scenerio occur. Yes, prices are higher at grocery store, but the velocity of money (how quickly it spins around the economy) has been in a free-fall for since 2008, the crisis.
 

20Gauge

TB Fanatic
Well, as I pointed out the spot price is the bottom price, which DOES NOT include the premium. If you buy physical silver, at a coin shop, you will pay between 10 to 30 PERCENT PREMIUM, for ALL of 2020, and now 2021.

Which is one reason the short is so brutal. If you have to provide one ounce of physical silver to a broker in London it will cost you spot plus 20 percent at least.

The other thing is the COMEX, unless I am mistaken, deals in 400 oz bars, or at least 100 oz. You don't go into the London exchange with a plastic stack of 20 ozs. :hof:

They need not only "silver," but the RIGHT KIND OF SILVER.

Finally, you would think the Federales Reserve has not issued any stimulus at all the last year or so. And here Yellen is, and the lot of them, DUMPING TRILLIONS of paper money into the "system." like 2 $F#$%^^ TRILLION in the last several weeks and it will have no INFLATIONARY IMPACT AT ALL.

Hold Silver to hedge the Fed's INFLATION ORGY OF RAW SILVER SEX. :D Unfortunately, the silver ozs ain't reproducing no matter how much silver sex Yellen et al want them to make

I will also add Biden is hyper inflationary, and we all know where THAT GOES NOW DON'T WE? hmmmm?

So far much of the froth is in bitcoin, which may be another Dutch 1700 Tulip mania. We shall see. I just think that when you pour that much paper money from the Federales it will have some kind of impact when it is not backed by REAL ASSETS. For sure the foreigners ain't stupid and they want the good stuff.
Agreed. I will attempt to purchase some silver locally tomorrow. Last week it was30 percent premium
 

Doomer Doug

TB Fanatic
Agreed. I will attempt to purchase some silver locally tomorrow. Last week it was30 percent premium
the interesting thing is how much a SELLER will get of that 30 percent premium. If I were selling, which I am not, there is NO WAY I would settle for spot only, which means the US buyer is going to have to go what I call "third world wrangle." which is something Americans don't like to do. And the foreigners laugh at us when they quote us a huge price, and then, like oxen, we just meekly accept it. :D
 

West

Senior
If I was some kind of long term PMs bug, I wouldn't be that anxious about stacking much more silver right now. And looking forward to 40 then 30 to one silver to gold ratio.
 

DazedandConfused

Veteran Member
Physical silver is getting hard to find in my AO. I put out a word of mouth at work letting the guys know I was wanting to buy junk silver. Scored two Silver eagles today for 30bucks each. Suppose to deliver tonight, guy sent me a pic and they look to be proofs in sealed plastic cases.. fingers crossed. :D
 

The Snack Artist

Membership Revoked
The spot chart is just so much bs. It should reflect what you have to pay. If I could take delivery on Feb 28 or March 1st at $27.80, I would buy all I could right now and mortgage the house on top of that. What bullshit. No one can get slvr at this price. Who do they think they're kidding? Can someone clue me in as to why the mkt price isn't reflected?
 

Hfcomms

EN66iq
Spot price is what the producer or miner is being paid. To get that raw silver through all the various steps to retail at every step along the way a premium is being added. The refiner or smelter is adding a cost, the trucking is adding a cost, the various mints making coins, bars or stamping blanks are adding a cost and then when it gets to a dealer they are adding a percentage along the way to make a profit.

Kind of similar to looking at a futures contract for a bushel of wheat and if you don’t think about it much you might wonder why bread in the store is so expensive. At each step along the way everyone has to make $.
 

West

Senior
Spot price is what the producer or miner is being paid. To get that raw silver through all the various steps to retail at every step along the way a premium is being added. The refiner or smelter is adding a cost, the trucking is adding a cost, the various mints making coins, bars or stamping blanks are adding a cost and then when it gets to a dealer they are adding a percentage along the way to make a profit.

Kind of similar to looking at a futures contract for a bushel of wheat and if you don’t think about it much you might wonder why bread in the store is so expensive. At each step along the way everyone has to make $.

And the government's want their cut.

The big picture/elephant is again mandated payroll liabilities and liabilities in general.

I'm really surprised that all PMs don't have $100 premiums per ounce! Just to cover liabilities, thank you mr government and lawyers....same same since many bureaucrats are lawyers or went to law schools/or PHDs in related fields and have cushy keystone jobs in our behemoth bureaucratic/environmental to the extreme FUBAR system!
 

Dozdoats

On TB every waking moment
Spot is the propaganda price, but it is what's officially reported. Again, count your ounces, not the FRN$ price.
 

20Gauge

TB Fanatic
Went out to lunch today to see if I can buy any silver.

Nope none to get anywhere in town.

Just not there.

I did ask the price of 90% silver dollars, $34 per. They usually have a $3 margin, so say it is now running $31 per 90% silver dollar.

Note I just posted this on another thread.
 

West

Senior
I muse don't count your ounces, just stack and try to forget about it, that way when it goes down, you don't know exactly how much you lost in fiat.

:D
 

Nich1

Veteran Member
OTOH, if silver is "going to the moon," which I wouldn't doubt, buying now at $38 (including premium) doesn't sound too bad. As the price goes up, the premium will either stay the same or go up, as well. People wanting to buy may find that at this time, silver is "still cheap." But, my mind is not always as sharp as I wish it were. :-)
 

hiwall

Has No Life - Lives on TB
Rolls of silver eagles on ebay are $722 or $36.10 each with free shipping. Plus you can use your credit card to give you 1-1/2% cash back.
I am waiting to see if it drops more.
 

The Snack Artist

Membership Revoked
Spot price is what the producer or miner is being paid. To get that raw silver through all the various steps to retail at every step along the way a premium is being added. The refiner or smelter is adding a cost, the trucking is adding a cost, the various mints making coins, bars or stamping blanks are adding a cost and then when it gets to a dealer they are adding a percentage along the way to make a profit.

Kind of similar to looking at a futures contract for a bushel of wheat and if you don’t think about it much you might wonder why bread in the store is so expensive. At each step along the way everyone has to make $.
Thank you.
 

Bad Hand

Veteran Member
I made and sold tipis one half of the price in gold and sliver the rest in cash. I would sell for gold or silver but not cash.
 

miscount

Contributing Member
One of the true prices of silver is what it goes for on E-Bay. The true price today will have a premium over spot that reflect how scarce the metal is now at todays spot price to purchase, Sometimes you will wait 2=3 weeks for delivery from major venders selling pm. E-Bay is the fastest delivery after face to face or a local coin stores.
 

Sicario

The Executor
One of the true prices of silver is what it goes for on E-Bay. The true price today will have a premium over spot that reflect how scarce the metal is now at todays spot price to purchase, Sometimes you will wait 2=3 weeks for delivery from major venders selling pm. E-Bay is the fastest delivery after face to face or a local coin stores.
I won't buy on EBay. You just never know if what you will receive will be genuine or fake.
 
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