#silversqueeze

The Majority of Above-Ground Stocks are Essentially Unavailable to the Market Regardless of Price Incentives​

(Washington, D.C. – February 19, 2025) Silver is a rare, precious metal with a high intrinsic value. This fact helps explain its historical role as money and its continuing relevance as an investment asset. Since the industrial age, silver has become increasingly important as a commodity, its unique characteristics making it essential for many industrial applications, including leading clean energy uses.

Silver’s scarcity and value means there has always been a powerful incentive to safe keep and hoard the metal in its purer and weightier forms, such as coins, bars, silverware, and, to a lesser extent, jewelry. For other fabricated products, the silver content may also have some inherent value related to the precious metal content. Together, these various forms of silver constitute the above-ground stocks of precious metal.

To examine the relationship between the level of and changes in Above-Ground stocks and the silver price, the Silver Institute commissioned a new Market Trend Report, “Price Sensitivity of Above-Ground Silver Stocks,” produced by Precious Metals Insights.

The Report contends that no correlation exists between the overall level of Above-Ground stocks and the silver price.

Some of the key conclusions from this Report are summarized below:

• There is no correlation between the overall level of Above-Ground stocks and the silver price;
• Annual changes in total Above-Ground stocks and the silver price are likewise uncorrelated;
• In contrast, movements in bullion stocks have an impact on the silver price and vice versa.
• The vast majority of Above-Ground stocks are “immobile,” with only small net additions to or subtractions from stocks on an annual basis;
• Increases in bullion stocks are often positively correlated with the price, as investment demand grows when silver prices increase, which still stimulates higher prices;
• Multi-year drawdowns in bullion stocks have tended to occur in bear markets for silver and have exacerbated these. However, these drawdowns have typically set silver up for more substantial rallies as investors have rebuilt their bullion holdings; and
• Above-Ground stocks of fabricated products are less price-sensitive than those of bullion. Only specific subsets of silver fabrication demand show a sensitivity to the price, such as jewelry and silverware.

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New Report Analyzes the Complexity of Above-Ground Silver Stocks | The Silver Institute

silverinstitute.org

... silver’s physical flows and structural deficit could make it the long-term winner, according to TD Securities’ senior commodity strategist Daniel Ghali.
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“Silver has a really unique story,” he said. “We're heading into its fifth consecutive year of a structural deficit. That deficit is really unprecedented in terms of the magnitude of the supply-demand imbalance that's been created by the demand boom, which has ultimately been associated with increased solar capacity around the world.”

“Now the setup in silver is different because we're actually transitioning away from a demand boom and into a liquidity crisis,” Ghali said. “The pull of metal from London into the U.S. has been so dramatic that it's draining the world's largest bullion vaulting system to such an extent that it's actually disturbing day-to-day trading activity in physical markets.”

“London is trading extremely tight,” he added. “We think it can get even tighter, and ultimately flat prices in silver need to rise in order to incentivize metal to come back into London from unconventional sources.”
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Josh Philip Phair (Scottsdale Mint CEO) said:

VIBE SHIFT ALERT:

There is a fairly big shift in physical precious metals in the USA happening as we speak.

A lot of that melt material coming from retail has dried up. GONE. Now the retail public is starting to buy again.

For the better part of the last 16 months retail has been selling, and the Buying has been mainly Banks/Central Banks.

Starting next week there may be some big changes in availability/premiums of both Gold & Silver, etc.

I've talked about scenarios if "all parties" start clamoring for metal at the same time...

(No hype, just sharing what I'm seeing right now)

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Going back to JP Morgan’s sale … that 5,950 contracts (29.8 million oz) exceeded my guess which was based on silver moved into registered at JP Morgan’s vault over the last week (14.7 million oz). However, this tidies up a loose end. Back in Aug 24/25 2023 there was a large move of 14.3 million oz into registered at JP Morgan’s vault. Days later JP Morgan issued delivery notices on 5 million oz leaving an unexplained 9.7 million oz lingering in registered.

In fact, to explain the presence of 29.8 million oz I need to sum ALL the silver additions into JP Morgan’s registered vault from then until now. Apparently that unsold silver from August 2023 was just sold. My guess is that JP Morgan, once again, sold all or most of its silver at comex.

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, last time that happened a sharp rally ensued.
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The London Silver Squeeze Tightens! Getting Dangerous!​

pmbug said:

The Korea Times

Get the latest on what's happening in Korea from the nation's top English-language media outlet.

www.koreatimes.co.kr

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Grok said:

• Research suggests the free float of vaulted silver in COMEX and LBMA vaults likely dropped to around 15-20 million ounces in 1980 during the Hunt brothers' buying spree, based on historical reports.
• The exact figure is uncertain due to limited data, with estimates varying between 10-25 million ounces, reflecting the complexity of tracking historical commodity inventories.

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Voodoo said:

Lol, silver while heavy isn't as dense and they already played that game. ...

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Semper Vigilantes said:

No, not way off at all.

If PSLV demand increases a lot, they need to create new shares, which also forces the trust to go out and buy new London Good Delivery bars.

So by shorting it, you can reduce the amount of London bars the trust would have had to buy.

The shorts basically prevent the trust from getting the new cash inflows that would trigger buying of new metal by the trust by standing in front of longs in the secondary market.

Reeks of desperation!

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... Robert Gottlieb, who joined JP Morgan’s precious metals desk in 2008 from Bear Sterns ...

... Gottlieb was described as controlling “the decision making for J. P. Morgan’s silver positions and took the primary role in trading JP Morgan’s silver spreads."
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pmbug said:

PSLV shorting volume headed to the moon:

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Voodoo said:

Bottom line - IF you want to own Silver go by some Shinny stuff. The ONLY other thing to try is you HAVE to put the stocks (and maybe this helps for an ETF) in YOUR name via Direct Registration System.

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Peter89 said:

... which pmbug has been quoting every day for months now, etc. ...

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Voodoo said:

There is risk either way. For large buyers I certainly think the vaulting services are a good way to get more Shinny stuff. It adds some third party risk but you are Far better off than an ETF buyer. I still consider that buying physical, its just a choice of where your store it.

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Eric Yeung said:

This Robert Gottlieb (Ex-JP Morgan Bullion Bank Executive) interview with the Silver Institute is excellent.

In this interview Robert Gottlieb confirmed the following:

1) LBMA COMEX EFP doom-loop via concentrated #Gold & #Silver shorts at the COMEX, and their corresponding #Gold & #Silver promissory notes “longs” at the LBMA.

2) The physical Silver shortage situation at the LBMA.

3) The physical #Silver Free Float drain situation at the LBMA. How it has sank to critical levels.

4) Physical Silver’s lack of Central Banks backstop

5) What Silver price does it take for more physical Silver to get into the “flow”.
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Semper Vigilantes said:

The $PSLV Short Suppression Theory

Since late 2024, intraday trading in the Sprott Physical Silver Trust (PSLV) has shown persistent anomalies — particularly high short volumes intraday that appear designed to suppress its market price relative to its Net Asset Value (NAV).

This is not typical short interest; it's transient short volume, executed and covered within the same trading day to avoid appearing on standard short interest reports.

The suspected motive? To prevent PSLV from trading at a sustained premium to NAV — a condition which, under its continuous offering structure, allows the Trust to issue new units and acquire more physical silver. As outlined in PSLV’s offering documents:

PSLV can only issue new shares when market price exceeds NAV, triggering sales of Placement Units through authorized agents.

Net proceeds from these sales must be used to purchase allocated silver bars, increasing the Trust's physical holdings.

Short volume spikes seem to occur when PSLV approaches or breaches NAV, applying just enough downward pressure to bring the price back in line or below. By doing this:

1) New share issuance is halted, preventing the Trust from buying more silver.
2) Upward price signals in the physical market are muted, as PSLV’s premium-driven demand mechanism is neutralized.

This theorized suppression is most visible when comparing volume surges in PSLV against SLV. On days where PSLV volume far exceeds historical norms — and far outpaces SLV — yet the price fails to rise above NAV, the pattern becomes stark.

Though short interest remains low, it’s the volume and timing of intraday shorting that tells the story. Combined with the structural requirements of PSLV’s offering mechanics, the theory suggests a coordinated effort to cap physical silver demand at the margin — not through direct market manipulation of silver, but by obstructing one of its cleanest price discovery tools.

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Carlo Ferlauto said:

Mario- Long time listener here. I think you need to hear the whole story. Note: This is not about picking up some ounces for ourselves. We've already done that.

Long summary, but this way it's in one place:

@SemperVigilant1 has done a great job showing how SLV and PSLV are not being traded the same. Typically, we saw SLV getting shorted during Silver Squeeze 1.0, China snag, India Snag, COVID, etc. PSLV increased slightly on those events but not a material change. This is because SLV can be shorted via options trading and PSLV cannot. The bankers were using SLV as their vehicle to abuse.

Watch interview between Chris Marcus and Rick Rule from 03 JAN 2025. Rick was running PSLV during Silver Squeeze 1.0 and he had days of $50M coming in and had to buy 1000oz bars quickly. Watch the very beginning and he gets into it.

Roll forward to now.

We can see PSLV getting shorted by a HUGE margin (unlike the past) when the share price approaches NAV. They do NOT want PSLV shifting into a premium and the Trust have to source 1000oz bars. This is a new phenomenon.

Combine this with the other Metal Shenanigans going on (2000 ton of gold flowing into USA, silver departing LBMA in record numbers, etc.) and we can see that there is a nervousness about PSLV cleaning out the stockpiles again.

In Silver Squeeze 1.0, Rick Rule cleaned out Toronto, Montreal, Chicago, New York, and finally London could help but could not do overnight as usual. They apparently can't afford for a repeat.

Silver Squeeze 2.0:
1. Prepare by making sure that none of your existing PSLV shares are available to be borrowed.
a. Contact your specific broker and ask.
b. Schwab confirmed that if you do not have a
margin balance, the shares cannot be borrowed.
c. Alternative: Place a limit order to SELL your PSLV
at the share price of $150. That's about the
equivalent of $450/oz. You can always change it

2. 31 MAR is the day. I'm buying a good chunk of PSLV. Because they keep shorting it, the share price won't be skyrocketing, but if enough of us buy, the algorithms will not be able to keep up and we'll get a Premium to NAV. We will also catch the shorts on the wrong side of their manipulation.

3. I doubt we can keep them at bay for too long, but at a minimum, we will get a great data set that can show the shorting, see where it breaks, and use that for a Phase II.

So Mario-This is about STOPPING the improper shorting.

We can't do that by cleaning out the coin shops of 1oz coins. We need to hit the 1000oz bars. That tool is PSLV since they can't use the leverage of options against us. JP Morgan has control of SLV, but Sprott made PSLV just so that folks like the Banksters would have harder time manipulating.
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