This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
ScotiaMocatta Sells Out Of Silver Bars
And an appropriate story to end 2010 with: ScotiaMocatta, one the world's biggest bullion banks, is now sold out of all silver bars.
Carry on
h/t Omega3ala
- 33147 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -



Maybe they should buy more from JPM. I heard they own lots of "silver".
Let's not confuse the manufacturing capacity to make retail bars like 100oz with the idea of a bullion bank "running out" of silver. When the latter actually happens, there will be a backwardation that will be obvious from outer space.
Don't get me wrong, I am very bullish about the monetary metals, and wouldn't be surprised to see silver +100% in 2011 (or +15%) but to say they are running out now is misleading. Strong demand, absolutely. Bullish yes, of course. But let's not hyperbolize.
This is not hyperbole... it is really happening. You have not been watching closely enough. I have;
It appears that we will hit backwardation in even 12 mo. forwards soon;
http://forums.silverseek.com/showthread.php?23212-Silver-Backwardation
Today, the Sprott Silver Trust, PSLV, hit it's highest premium to NAV ever, over 15% - this is a very strong indicator to me since PSLV is pretty much the only means right now to INSTANTLY get your hands on (via your brokerage acct) allocated, audited, London Good Delivery Silver bars in a vault in Canada. Or you can try your luck with getting Comex delivery. PSLV is actually going to become a more meaningful price discovery mechanism than Comex if Comex does not either reform or go bust.
There is no question in my mind that Silver is dramatically undervalued, and that the extent of the supply vs demand imbalance has been covered up by the likes of JPM and their paper ponzi SLV.
"it's not a shortage, just a delay"
Calling Johnny Nadler....
That's Nadless to you, sonny. See his latest post on Kitco. It's a fizzer, again.
Here is the report GATA picked up on what happens when you try to take the physical silver Scotia Bank is supposed to "have it in store" for you. Organic take silver / crash banksters movement, I'd say.
Scotiabank gives long abuse to cancer victim trying to reclaim her silverhttp://gata.org/node/8837
I wasn't feeling suicidal enough today, so I read the article. I liked the closing line: "If she wanted to buy crack cocaine with that silver, or sleep with it at her side, that's her call, because it belongs to her, not the bank. The bully-boy functionaries might want to find a comfort level around that notion."
Thank you for the link. I have bought scotiabank metals in the past, but no more. While I always take possession, it is necessary for people to understand that bankers are criminals- plain and simple.
You took the words right out of my mouth BAy
We got plenty of silver, mucha, but the guy in the mail room quit so we have nobody to mail it out, and we haven't been able to replace him with a new mail room clerk. And then they say we have an unemployment problem in this country, yeah
that 15% premium for PSLV also means Sprott is about to do a massive follow-on offering! For some reason, stupid investors never learn - see PHYS.
Sprott may be a great way for a lot of people who can only by stock exchange listed securities and want metal. But it is not the only way.
Sprott has a brilliant model, I bet they can make a LOT more money letting the premium rise and then selling more units than they can from managing the assets.
"Sprott may be a great way for a lot of people who can only by stock exchange listed securities and want metal. But it is not the only way."
What are some of the other ways? Thanks.
http://silverbulliontrust.com/
Anyone have any feedback about silverbulliontrust.com's gold closed-end fund GTU or Central Gold Trust. It is a companion fund to CEF or Central Fund of Canada. It looks like they hold physical gold in trust in Canada. Thanks.
you might check jesse's cafe's archives for precious metals funds. he's an astute observer and chart reader.
Easily one of the best blogs.
Jesse's Cafe Americain:
http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/
Have you even bothered to read the prospectus? Basically its _very_ unlikely they'll ever be able to do an offering because they can not undercut existing shares. Please do not comment on what you do not understand.
PSLV is actually going to become a more meaningful price discovery mechanism than Comex if Comex does not either reform or go bust.
That might have been one of its intended purposes....
Can PSLV, or any PM etf for that matter, be considered "allocated"? It seems like they have the bars, but you don't have any one of these bars specifically "allocated" to you. That would make it unallocated.
Allocated IF you can foot the bill for the 400oz requirements,.(PSLV) and the HIT on the Prem if you want to take delivery( I believe BV is 20% of your total value).
Perth is the only one I know that has allocated, and unallocated.And is owned by the Western Govt of Austrailia.
Rather expensive for Allocated yearly fees,outside them, I know of no other I would even start to trust.
If you do not have possession,you do not own it.(IMHO)
Because it is subject to seizure any time, and that time is likely less than 24 mos away.(again,IMHO)
Thanks for adding some sanity to this discussion.
My dealer (Metalor, Switzerland) has plenty of kilo bars for sale.
Apmex and bullion direct are running out of REAL silver as well.
http://www.bulliondirect.com/catalog/selectProducts.do?cat=Bullion_Silve...
how can they run out of paper silver?! lol
Since paper silver is primarily a byproduct of mining paper copper and paper gold, any cutback in mining of those paper metals could easily lead to a shortage of paper silver.
Or it might be discovered that SLV doesn't have the paper silver it claims to hold.
well done.
Since paper silver is primarily a byproduct of mining paper copper and paper gold, any cutback in mining of those paper metals could easily lead to a shortage of paper silver.
Or even paper cuts. Ow!
I heard paper silver was better.
Oh yeah, they just discovered yet another hugely prosperous paper silver mine, though its hard to get to, as it's mixed in with paper copper and paper tungsten.
yep. the "JPM Organ" has their mitts in lots of paper natural resources.
next up: SLV runs out of silver. :)
I have both SLV and CEF and a little SSRI.
I got killed in fall of 2008 owning SSRI. fool me once.. so my fingers are crossed.
I hope you mean PSLV......SLV isn't audited and I seriously doubt they have the silver to back their paper. Be careful with SLV....
PS: CEF is an excellent choice.
Silly, silly boy.
SLV doesn't need to be audited. The JP Morgue is the custodian. You know...what do they call them...Oh that's right...an SRO...Self Regulating Organization.
It isn't as if they don't keep accounts. Every time the JJP Morgue wants to drive down the market price a little, it accurately records a debit against the bullion "borrowed" from the SLV vault and sold into the market.
If you look in the SLV prospectus, you will probably find that they can "fractioanally-reserve-out"...say...99% of the bullion.
From the SLV prospective:
"Funds that invest primarily in equity securities and non-equity-related instruments of the precious metals market. This can include investments in the mining, exploration, or distribution of gold and other precious metals. Funds may also hold bullion."
The physical is clearly an afterthought. You are exposed to price exposures, the the physical itself.
I don't know what prospectus you are looking at but it is not the current prospectus of SLV. SLV's prospectus makes it clear that it only owns silver bullion, not equity securities or other instruments.
http://prospectus-express.newriver.com/PNET/summary.asp?clientid=amtd&fundid=46428Q109
Yes, and also has a clause that you can settled in cash and not silver. Because they use fractional reserves...so not everyone gets their silver. What was the admitted ratio? 100 claims to 1 ounce of real silver.
Well, if anyone bought SLV in the belief that in the event of Armageddon a silver fairy would show up at their house with the metal then they bought the wrong asset. The part about fractional reserves and 100 to 1 ratio is fiction, you made it up. There is no credible evidence that SLV owns anything other than 100% of the silver its financial statements say it owns.
Nope. The 100 - 1 ratio was testimony at the CFTC hearings in March, 2010. It was reported here on Zero Hedge:
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/former-goldman-commodities-research-analyst-confirms-lmba-otc-gold-market-paper-gold-ponzi
Using the testimony of a clueless Jeffrey Christian, formerly a staffer at the Commodities Research Group in the Goldman Sachs Investment Research Department and now head and founder of theCPM Group, Douglas confirms that the "LBMA trades over 100 times the amount of gold it actually has to back the trades."
Bankers have used fractional reserves for centuries...and always go under when the bank run occurs. It'll happen here too. (And they said Gold, but it applies to Silver as well).
The terms of that prospectus are terrifying: "assets are primarily silver" without specifying what "primarily" means or what the balance consists of.
"If certain events occur [what events?] at any time, the trustee will have to terminate the trust." "Upon termination of the trust, the trustee will sell silver in the amount necessary to cover all expenses of liquidation, and to pay any outstanding liabilities of the trust. The remaining silver will be distributed among investors surrendering iShares."
"There may be situations where an Authorized Participant is unable to redeem a basket of shares." No kidding? Like what? This is not my idea of a way to hedge the Bernanke Put with silver.
thanks.
I suggest you read the FINE print on ALL the funds...........you will likely decide to NOT put your FRN's there.
Everything is geared to their advantage.NOT the customers.
"The terms of that prospectus are terrifying:"
power to the people Bitchez!
Wow. Wow. Wow. Strange, amazing days, indeed.
We are on the cusp of another big UP leg in the pms. I've been all over it for about a week now. Sorry I don't get to post here as frequently as I used to. The tf blog is taking a lot of time. To all here at ZH, the #1, hands down, best financial site on the web, Happy New Year!!!
http://tfmetalsreport.blogspot.com/2010/12/once-in-lifetime.html
It is a great day in America when a kid named Turd gets his own blog, hny to all the Turds if the world any to ALL the ZH'ers even liberal sodomy!!
I've been reading your blog daily for the last week or so. Never posted a comment (don't want to register for any of the options you list), but am enjoying your posts.
Turd - enjoying your site. Keep up the good work ... like those charts!
Hey TF thanks for everything...this is for you and anyone that doesn't have a clue yet:
http://www.hulu.com/watch/12203/saturday-night-live-celebrity-jeopardy--...
Burt never looked so good! Thanks for the walk down memory lane.
TF. Happy New Year and congratulations on the success of your new site. I was wondering if you could devote some time to answering readers questions? Tentative name of column "Ask Turd".
Turd Droppings
I guess the truth really is disgusting.
You can't handle the Turd!
When turds are outlawed, the only outlaw will be The Turd.
Mr.Turd,
Yes, your presence here is missed greatly, and your Blog is Fantastico Pandemonium!!.(that meaning Rat On).
Your calls have been almost 100% dead on, are you sure you do not have ESP to the BM's line?.LOL
Happy New Year to you and Yours!!!.
Be safe!
I just called them. It's a typo - they meant "FAR OUT"...they'll be updating the website soon....
Guess its too early to sell mine.
Instant, you have a mine to sell?
Good for you. Happy new year. Can I be your friend?
;-)
ORI
check out the difference in premiums.
http://silvergoldbull.com/s/1oz-canadian-gold-maple-leaf-coin.html?___SID=U
Sorry that I bought them all guys...
So then they are Not Bullion bankers anymore right? Poor foresight...
I'm sure Jon Nadler will somehow find this to be just another sign of the imminent and perpetual crash in the precious metals, as investors flee to all things paper and Ponzi --- like his "pooled" precious metals unallocated accounts at Kitco.
Old school marketing bait. Nothing sells like perceived scarcity. There's plenty more silver to be got. The nexus of Chile and NW Argentina is brimming with the stuff and they've been mining it there since 1540.
They must have an infinite supply.............just like Saudi petro-minerals
Alternately, nothing creates the impression of surplus like a perceived drop in demand. I can see it now; in February the US mint will be telling us how Silver coin sales 'dropped off sharply' near the end of 2010, conveniently 'forgetting' to mention that they suspended sales.
But like you said, your world is brimming with silver, mine start ups are a 1967 dime a dozen, they take less than a week to start producing dore bars, and a unicorn will shit rainbows on your face if you rub his horn long enough.
(Warning: to remain in this state of complete and utter dupedom, you must never, EVER take off your Cirque du Soleil coloured glasses).
Well, now that the money is starting to flee the bond market and into equities it only makes sense that they would hog on into the metals with at least part of their haul,... and yes, technically silver is ready to rock and I expect it will.
All Silver bars sold out on bullionbypost as well.
http://www.bullionbypost.co.uk/silver-bars/
My favorite dealer Gainesville Coins still has silver bars in all types of sizes. I am stunned ScotiaMocatta is asking USD $1,600 for a Gold Maple.
I'd be even more stunned if someone is stupid enough to pay it!
Ditto on GainesvilleCoins. I've used then several times in 2010 and recommended them to clients as well. BTW, their bag-o-junk silver is a bargain at $.20 over spot. I like junk better than bars...a lot easier to transact business with a handfull of dimes rather than a block and a hacksaw http://www.gainesvillecoins.com/products/156131/%281%2c000Face%29Bagof90...
Gainsville Coin has Gold Eagles for $1478.30
Silver Eagles (their choice of dates) for $34.21
1 oz Silver Pandas (China) for $38.26
...as of now.
I have some of all...The Panda is a very handsome coin but not as attractive as any walking liberty coin...imo.
http://www.gainesvillecoins.com/SearchResults.aspx?new=false&mint=&year=&service=&cats=&country=CN&metal=&weight=&type=3
Depends on who you deal with. Im a physical metals broker. Not seeing any lag time on orders.
Let's go to The Hopp.
They've been out of stock off and on for the last few months.
Usually the out-of-stock product is back in stock within a week.
I have also read several first-hand accounts of customers who dared to actually visit a ScotiaMocatta branch asking to buy physical silver, and being treated with disdain, hostility, stalling and/or ignorance. That's strictly anecdotal, of course, but still revealing when it comes to a "leading dealer" in the precious metals. My suspicion is that ScotiaMocatta is more a "leading dealer" in (supposedly) PM-backed paper derivatives and (questionable) pooled and unallocated PM accounts than they are in the physical metals themselves.
I purchased a few monster boxes from ScotiaMocatta via ScotiaBank. The branch manager was curious why I needed so much silver. I just said "Oh... it's an investment for my retirement.", LOL!
They probably passed on your particulars to CSIS.
They make it very discouraging to buy physical in person at one of the Scotia Mocatta locations at BNS, you have to provide your social security number (I forget what the US equivalent is) for any amount, unlike at coin/bullion dealers in Canada where transactions under $10K are invisible if done with cash.
Why does that NOT surprise me?
They are like most HUGE operations, if your not purchasing $15k+ worth, your wasting their time.
My brother in law went to a Scotia branch in Calgary to buy a few silver maples. He was treated poorly and they demanded 2 forms of picture ID. They did not get his business. We went to a coin shop and was able to get what he needed without fuss.
I buy my gold at the local Royal Bank of Canada branch. London Morning Gold Fix price + $60 oz for bars or coins, plus $15 delivery charge for any amount.
And for some reason they charge sales tax on coins but not on boars (which seems backwards to me) so I buy bars.
they charge sales tax on coins but not on boars
The swine!
I have visited Gainsville Coin's store several times (always wire transfer $ ahead of time) and they are very pleasant to deal with.
Funny anecdotal story; first visit to Gainsville CoinI purchased some gold at about $650 per oz...two clerks were waiting on me and one said 'Do you think gold will continue to go up?' I said 'yes'. Other clerk said 'I would rather have the dollars'. I said 'to each his own'. We all laughed. I wonder if that clerk ever purchased any gold his employer was selling?
LBME, has NO silver nor Gold...Out.
thats some high markup.. scottsdale has ads on this site now - and much cheaper. but local dealers are your best friend - you want them to around when time to sell.. whenever that is.. so make sure you do some business there
It's time to make friends with your LOCAL coin guy, make it a new years resolution.
I received an e-mail from Apmex that allows you to convert bars to rounds (with a premium). My immediate thought was "bars are running out".
Looks like they have more than 10,000 of at least a couple of varieties of 1 oz bars in stock right now.
They are out of their 5oz bars mainly but for the Sunshine mint.
They are always out of something. They have a lot of inventory at the moment--well over 100K oz of just the generic bars.
Note that my natural bias as a silver ultrabull is to the othr direction.
nw territorial mint is hawking that too
Premiums for Maples Gold/Silver also rising in the new year, up to 10% more.
Just when I wanted to spend my Xmax bonus on more damn
US Mint seems to be running short on silver blanks too:
http://catalog.usmint.gov/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CategoryDisplay?catalogId=10001&storeId=10001&categoryId=13738&langId=-1&parent_category_rn=10191&top_category=10191
No telling when production on uncirculated 2011 Silver Eagles will begin.
I drink silver all the time. I'd better get some more!
I wouldn't do that. You might turn blue. Really.
Silver is getting sucked out of circulation and into storage.
In India, bullion dealers are saying supply is tight. I buy from one of B'lore's biggest.
30.90 last I checked. Still not the hockey stick move though. Might even see a mild correction before that happens.
This IS silver's year to break free. Gold is tired, it's had a 10 year run.
tmosely and others have written many intelligent posts on reasons why.
Not a good year to trade. Too much vol.
Value investing, PM style. Good luck all around.
ORI
http://aadvaahan.wordpress.com
Gold is tired? Yeah, right, it only appreciated 29% against the dollar in 2010 and outperformed the S&P by about 15%. lol
Give me a 29% annualized and compounding increase in gold every year and soon I will be extremely wealthy.
Gold is tired...my azz!
Gold may get tired if Ben stops printing...but if he does the entire US Economy will look like a steaming pile of rubble.
Snidely, I meant in relation to Silver, not Fiat.
Good luck this year. We're all going to need it.
ORI
Next week SLV will have a sign 'Lent Out' nothing left, I guess we're in for serious physical shortages as people won't part with the metal almost for no price. I think we might even skip the hyperinflation phase and go straigt to barter from Friday to Monday
I don't know if anyone else here owns SLV options but for some reason the price was slashed on them after the close today. I own the $22 Jan/12 and the price was $9.05 before the close and is now sitting at $7.71.
Maybe just an error? Even SLW is nowhere near where it was when the silver price was at this level before. It traded as high as $42 (cdn) and is now only around $38. I'm selling both and getting more physical, if I can.
I think JPM gave up and bought the last of it. The central banksters are calling in
their orders.
Ofc they are not stupid they have massive physical positions, 'covered' with even more massive paper shorts, they simply depres the price so they can buy more in the end they know the government won't let the default not that their gold and silver is on US soil anyway
A number of previous silver bull runs were quashed when consensus in India was it was now time to dump physical metal. East indians have traditionally kept much of their wealth in physical silver. This bull run has bigger legs so I expect the previous high of $50 to be taken out but then I would not want to hang around for the aftermath. A pure speculative move based on no real fundamentals.
Here are your fundamentals
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/will-silver-be-worth-more-gold-perspect...
So, India is going to sell and offset all the other folks trying to escape the upcoming distruction of Fiat in the US, Eurozone, etc, etc? BS Mcarthur.
India is snarfing Silver like crazy, even at higher prices.(prices are already up there),
As soon as the mkts open Sun 5:00 CST, watch the rise,better order more now, before then.
$32+is a no brainer.
"Dump physical metal" --- and then do what with the proceeds?
Naturally and ideally, one could always buy back in at a lower price, building one's holdings in the process, but that is a gambler's racket that under current market and world financial conditions I would not want any part of myself.
I made a killing selling a safety deposit box full of silver bars to the Hunt brothers about thirty years ago, so been there done that. One thing I do know is that the grocery store wants cash not bullion so eventually every buyer becomes a seller.
Only until cash = bullion.
(I also had a few 10 oz bars of gold picked up at $335/oz which I gave recently to the nephews to cover their university bills. I imagine the admissions officer would not have been humored to receive bars.)
And I can't spend Euros in Japan, or spend wheat at the grocery store, or spend stocks anywhere. Your point?
If you need money in a hurry, you have to convert to cash. If you consider gold and silver to be money, which is the recent common BS, than I guess wheat is also.
You mean, if you need CURRENCY in a hurry.
What passes for cash today is NOT "money".
But you already know that, or are in denial of that fact, so I will leave it there.
you're wasting your keystrokes. he bought gold at $335 and sold silver to the hunt brothers.
he bought gold at $335 and sold silver to the hunt brothers
Do you suppose he sold silver to Max Keiser too?
Thirty years ago, the Fed sent interest rates up to the upper teens to break the back of inflation. Bernanke would piss his pants at interest rates going up 1 lousy percent with the implications for U.S. debt. There won't be a repeat.
I have plenty of paper money for groceries. Think I'll hold onto my silver another decade to see where this journey takes me.
I do not suffer fools well. Go away, fucko!
....great news for the silver producers aka miners....take a look at HL's cost per oz. versus the current silver price.....(I use HL just as an example).
...ok, I'll make it even easier....taken from HL's site:
"In 2009, Hecla was one of the lowest-cost primary silver producers in North America, producing a record 10.9 million ounces of silver at an average total cash cost of $1.91 per ounce."
That is why I buy the miners and not the metal.
Hope you are not too upset when .gov nationalizes the mines because the physical is the only US money left......
Better to look at the supply leaser's like Silver Wheaton - and buy it on the TSX just to be safe.
HNY!
I like SLW!
I put on a sizeable SLW position today with the new high in SLV. I think SLW will be the blue chip silver stock for the duration of this silver bull market. With that said, the SLW is just a trade vs. my much larger physical silver position. In the end, I don't want paper anything.
we are playing monopoly baseball.
accumulating worthless paper is akin to getting players on base and advancing them.
players score when you cash out for real money.
the transition from the pixelated virtual world to the real world will be tough for most.
franklin delano romanowski bitchez!
Hecla's been a survivor of more than one death bed over the years. The acquisition of Greens Creek from Rio Tinto near Juneau is looking better every day. Like most "silver miners", the bills are actually paid by the zinc and copper revenue streams but the retail market (ie. you) will not give base metal miners much of a NAV premium whereas gold/silver miners attract the rabid and irrational hence 2 or 3 times NAV. (Think about it for a minute, a gold mine with five years of reserves left carries a 25 p/e. Just to get your money back the mine would have to run 20 years longer than the reserve base. Forget the time value of money or ROI. As a mining engineer, I was involved in the design and construction of two underground silver/lead/zinc mines in Australia in the 90's. We actually created wealth instead of transfering it.
For that, you earned my "Flagged as junk". Asshole.
Well. I'll stand by my 25.2% annual return over the past 29 years.
Hooray for you.
Your bitter and sarcastic posts reek of emotional instability. Can you logically refute mcarthur's posts? If not then you have nothing positive to contribute.
You're gonna need all of that return in FRNs to buy a Happy Meal when the paper burns...
Time to cash in the casino chips and get out of the Phillipines with metal, General.
(once again)
BTW, I'll "stand by" (or stand beside!) my 465% returns on Gold over the last 11 years.
With 95% dollar devaluation since 1971, a average 25.2% over 29y return means you are about break even for your troubles (less fees)
Congrats again.
superstar.
"Well. I'll stand by my 25.2% annual return over the past 29 years."
eeooooooooooooooo...
By 'stand by' I'm betting that you mean 'provide no evidence whatsoever'.
mcarthur said: annual return over the past 29 years.
I know you promised to return but twenty nine times is over doing it, don't you think?
Mac, blowing your own horn about the numerous activitites that you claim to have undertaken will only send red caution flags flying on this site. You are not the only person here with long experience in many fields.
I suggest you tone it down a bit. Merely a suggestion, mind you.
Happy New Year!
The overly proud find no quarter here.
I found a nickel, half a pack of matches and a green M&M.
Well then, 'twern't fer nothin'. And a Happy New Year to ya.
Same Scotia that couldn't deliver physical to investors who were storing in their vault?
Silver has leggggs.
Thanks for adding some sanity to this discussion.
My dealer (Metalor, Switzerland) has plenty of kilo bars.
It is certainly about to blow. Either everyone has gotten sucked in and will be dumping in the next few months, or armageddon is just over the hill.
But one way or another, I have the feeling metals are set to make a major move.
J6P doesn't have an ounce, and no paper PMs either
This dude is just tuning up.IMHO
As an older fart, I have to stop and slap my ass silly, when I say, it's been like this before.
Then I realize NO it has not.
The last mania Did not include China,India, Russia, and the EuRopians.( and the PacRims taking over the globe).
Almost the entire worlds political, and fiscal houses are in the shitter.
we're you people the same people buying oil 2 years ago at 145 bucks? I love that way everyone gets so bulled up on silver and perceives there to be no downside risk what so ever.... now if i just substituted SPX for the word silver.......hmmmmm
Are you one of the same people who piled into "safe" US Treasuries and UK Gilts at 2.5%? How's that workin' for ya?
Say this with me.
EUROPE IS BANKRUPT
AMERICA IS BANKRUPT
FIAT MONEY HAS MORE COUNTERPARTY RISK THAN A TIJUANA SHOWGIRL.
REPEAT OFTEN.
You forget China and Russia, etc. They have fiat systems and debt too. In fact, I would expect the death of hyperinflation in China first, then Europe, then finally the USA.
No, where not.
I was short oil at $144 and made a killing all the way down.
The clowns over at 'The Oil Drum' were the ones taken in. They kept up the chant 'peak oil is causing this run up in crude price!' Meanwhile, Iran had dozens of tankers loaded with crude sitting in the Persian Gulf awaiting offers to buy.
After getting out of my oil shorts and taking profits I promptly bought physical gold/silver...life is grand when trades go your way!
Happy New Year to all at this great site, ZH!