Silver ETFs

By that, I mean the normal supply and demand forces no longer make sense.

After looking over all the figures, it seems as if something broke in the U.S. Silver Market this year. By that, we mean the normal supply and demand forces no longer make sense.

Yes, it’s true that the propping up of the markets by the Fed and Central Banks has gone on longer than we realized, the unraveling of the World’s Greatest Financial Ponzi Scheme is still on its way.

Following our detailing the Comex gold futures to deliverable physical gold ratio that is now north of 200:1, several correspondents noted that "they are probably bluffing...based on JPMorgan's previous lies, the real number is likely significantly higher than 200:1." History tells us that all Ponzi schemes and market interventions fail, and it appears we are on the cusp of a massive failure in the scheme to cover up the truth about the precious metals market.

Silver demand keeps increasing ... silver prices keep falling ... hmmm

A common argument that has been made to explain the precipitous decline of the price of precious metals in 2013 (in spite of the significat demand for the physical bullion) is of investors’ disenchantment with gold and silver, which had been piling up in exchange traded products as a way for investors to gain exposure to the metals. However if redemptions are a symptom of investors' disenchantment with precious metals as an investment, shouldn't silver have suffered the same dramatic redemptions fate as gold? Indeed it should have, but we think the reason silver ETFs were not raided like gold was that Central Banks do not have a silver supply problem, they have a gold problem...

With December's "fat finger" in US Treasury Futures proved as nothing but an HFT algo gone wild, Nanex has turned its deep-thought to the recent halt in gold futures markets. Their conclusion, this was not the result of a fat finger, but rather the work of a high frequency trading algorithm that would pause, and (probably) test the market before continuing. A fat finger would not have had such distinguishing features.

Gold prices fell sharply again just prior to European markets opening, in aggressive selling which saw gold quickly fall from $1,355/oz to $1,343/oz at 0754 GMT. Support at $1,360/oz was breached overnight and gold should now test support at $1,320/oz.

_{This was clearly seen in 1980 when silver rose from $6.08/oz on January 2nd 1979 to $50/oz on January 21st 1980 or more than eight fold in less than 13 months (see chart).}

Given silver’s volatility, dollar, pound or euro cost averaging into position remains prudent. Similarly, when prices have had a parabolic gain - dollar, pound or euro cost averaging out of a position will be prudent as it will be nigh impossible to time the top.

The fundamentals of the platinum and palladium markets are beginning to receive market attention and not before time. The positive supply demand dynamics are leading to increased investment demand as seen in the ETF data and Chinese demand rising again due to both industrial and jewellery demand.

The spectre of stagflation threatens the UK economy due to concerns that sterling weakness will contribute to even higher inflation amid very weak economic growth and the likelihood of a recession – likely a severe one.

Markets are pricing in a jump in inflation as inflation expectations, as measured by the difference between nominal and inflation-linked bond yields, ticked up to near 3.3% yesterday.

Recent poor economic data and the appalling UK fiscal position are rightly leading to concerns of stagflation as was seen in the 1970s. Conditions that make owning gold and silver vitally important to own in order to protect and grow wealth.

It may feel like I'm out of touch with the precious metals markets to broach the subject of a mania today, but I think the table is being set now for a huge move into gold and silver. There are, however, very valid reasons to reasonably expect a mania in our sector. For one thing, manias have occurred many times before, but the main issue is that a mania in gold and gold stocks is the likely result of the absolute balloon in government debt, deficit spending, and money printing. Saying all that profligacy will go away without inflationary consequences seems naïve or foolish. Inflation may not attract investors to gold and silver as much as force them to it. Now, one could make the argument that any rush into gold and silver will be muted if no one has any savings, especially given that demographers say a quarter of the developed world will soon be retired. But even if individuals are wiped out, the world's money supply isn't getting any smaller, and all that cash has to go somewhere. I wanted to look at cash levels among various investor groups to get a feel for what's out there, as well as how money supply compares to our industry. Data from some institutional investors are hard to come by, but below is a sliver of information about available cash levels. I compared the cash and short-term investments of S&P 500 corporations, along with M1, to gold and silver ETFs, coins, and equities. While the picture might be what you'd expect, the contrast is still rather striking.

Explaining why and how the global monetary system is failing, why it is too late to stop, what will come next, and why the crisis is only financial – not commercial.

Sprott strategist John Embry has never been a fan of the existing financial system. Today, he makes that once again quite clear in this interview with Egon von Grayerz' Matterhorn Asset Management in which he says: "I think that the current financial system, as we know it, will be totally destroyed, probably sooner rather than later. The next system will require gold backing to have any legitimacy. This has happened many times in history." Needless to say, he proceeds to explain why a monetary system based on gold, one in which one, gasp, lives according to one's means, is better. Logically, he also explains why the status quo, whose insolvent welfare world has nearly a third of a quadrillion in the form of unfunded future liabilities, will never let this happen. Much more inside.

During our research into the inventory lists of the iShares SLV and London-based ETFS physical silver funds, we discovered multiple anomalies which cannot be easily dismissed. These included the presence of internal duplicates, rough internal duplicates, weight duplicates, statistical clustering, and cross-reference duplicates. Taken together, these anomalies are cause for concern, and we suggest that more capable teams conduct further research into these issues, as they effect price discovery within the precious metals market, as these ETF shares are being used for settlement and possibly pricesuppression on the COMEX.

If these problems are caused by accounting errors, they are disturbing and perhaps profoundly incompetent, and we suggest both these funds should have their senior management replaced.

In our opinions, the only way for all of these anomalies to occur together as noted in this paper, is via systemic fraud or gross accounting error bordering on jaw-dropping incompetence.