The Comical COMEX Silver

So lets do some math.  For context, in 2013 there was 820m oz of silver mined.  That’s the real stuff.  In the ‘paper’ futures market there is currently close to that very same figure, 820m oz of open interest yet with only 176 m oz in total sitting in COMEX.  So the total contractual obligations equal world mine supply and there is less than a quarter available.  

For the next delivery month of July there is nearly 350m oz of open interest yet right now there’s only about 60m oz of silver registered for delivery.  So we have a situation that if all the July silver longs stood for delivery they would outstrip supply immediately available by 6 times or theoretically available by 2 times. 

There is no other market in the world so ‘comically’ out of whack and it highlights the merits of holding the real thing, real silver bullion…We’ll talk tomorrow about new developments in the other ‘paper’ market, ETFs…