theo wrote:Silver is 27.50 as I start this. Common wisdom says that there needs to be a sell off sometime soon. From a chart perspective that would be a healthy, even desirable development. However, Andrew Maguire claims that the COMEX is experiencing a run on physical silver. He further states that once silver gets to $30 it might immediately gap up to $50. A $50 price (or higher) might be what is necessary to attract enough physical in order to settle all the contracts where the participants are standing for delivery. To be fair I remember a story back in 2011 about how the COMEX was secretly paying above market prices to acquire enough physical to stabilize the market.
If Maguire is right it will surely be an exciting time for PM investors, especially those who hold physical. However, a broken (perhaps fraudulent) physical market could present a number of problems for PM investors. For example, what will happen to SLV and AGQ when it is established that the paper market is rigged? Also many silver miners have operations in under-developed countries who might be tempted to either seize or at least heavily tax the mining output. Finally if the price of silver suddenly doubles or triples, physical holders may get unwanted attention from the government who might decide to "monitor" and/or regulate LCS's, not to mention criminals who also might want to note (or perhaps follow) those who buy and sell PMs. Silver is now $27.60 as I finish this.
The COMEX was offering a cash bounty of something like 20% to settle in cash instead of physical. I read this from several sources.
As far as the market being rigged, think about it this way. I've heard lots of talk about the SLV not having enough physical silver in their vault to cover the market cap of the ETF. I remember seeing an audit of the serial numbers of the 1000 ounce bars around 2009-2010ish (lengthy- the serial number list may have been something like 50 pages long) and noted silver bull Ted Butler (from Florida) was pointing out lots of discrepancies. What kind of discrepancies? Stuff like the same serial number being reported twice. Also there were bars with markings indicating they came from foreign countries that have a penchant for counterfeit bars.
So, let's just say that SLV only has 75% of the silver they should have in the vault. To me that means there is way less physical in the world than we thought, a few billion dollars less. This in and of itself could trigger a quick panic move higher. Also, Butler would be proven right after all these years and people might look back at other things he said (like recommending people take physical possession of their silver). People might also wonder about other silver ETF's and perhaps even gold ETF's. This could also create a need for people to authenticate their holdings.
It would almost certainly create very interesting times. It is really hard to guess where the peak price would be.
As far as government monitoring of activity, I'd imagine they'd go after large gold transactions way sooner than silver. I can imagine some dealers cutting deals with good customers offsite. With all the COVID activity it isn't hard to find a quiet place to do business in a pinch. On the flip side, you tend to stand out when you are the only people in a closed mall parking lot. So that part is hard to figure.
One thing I thought of is this- if someone has a bunch of brokerage accounts that contain say a million dollars or more of mining stocks and ETF's and almost all of your holdings are metals related, one can logically conclude they very well might have a bunch of physical metals as well. So they would be a potential target.
Another issue that you haven't mentioned here is that production at a number of mines worldwide is down because of the virus situation. For instance, Rob McEwen of McEwen Mining (Ticker: MUX) recently spoke about the situation. He has a mine in southern Argentina and most of the workers are in northern Argentina. With flights being canceled it is difficult for them to travel to the mine and go to work.
Former stock broker w/ ~20 yrs. at one company. Spoke with 100k+ people and traded a lot (long, short, options, margin, extended hours, etc.).
NOTE: ANY stocks I discuss, no matter how compelling, carry risk- often
substantial. If not prepared to buy it multiple times in modest amounts without going overboard (assuming nothing really wrong with the company), you need to learn more about the market and managing risk. Also, please research covered calls (options) and selling short as well.