While the Comex utilizes highly leveraged paper contracts to control the price of silver, physical metal continues to be drained out of the Shanghai Futures Exchange.  In just one week, total inventory has declined by another 24%.
At the beginning of August, there were 148 metric tons of silver on warrant at the Shanghai Futures Exchange.  In just three weeks, 29% of the total inventory was removed.
The majority of this decline took place last week when 22 metric tons were withdrawn on Friday alone.

 

 

From the SRSRocco Report:

As I mentioned in a earlier article, the Comex is more of a paper trading exchange in which the majority of contracts are settled in cash.  However, the opposite is the case with the Shanghai Futures Exchange as the majority of contracts are settled with physical metal.

 

Shanghai Silver Stocks JUL-AUG 2014 NEW

Also, we can see that since the beginning of July, 131 metric tons, or 56% of total silver stocks were removed from the Shanghai Futures Exchange.   At this trend, it would only take a few more months to totally wipe out the remaining inventory.

I’ve received emails from some of my readers asking me “What does the continued draw-down of silver at the Shanghai Futures Exchange mean?”  Unfortunately, I don’t trade silver in the futures markets, so I don’t really understand the dynamics behind the Asian markets.

ry to London precious metal trader, Andrew Maquire.  As many of you all know, Andrew was one of the key players who assisted two JP Morgan whistle blowers to contact Bart Chilton at the CFTC about silver manipulation.

Nothing really came of the silver investigation, but that is no surprise.  Regardless, it would be interesting to see what he has to say about the continued removal of physical silver from the Shanghai Futures Exchange.  If, I receive a reply, I will publish it in an update.

A FEW WORDS ON PHYSICAL SILVER INVESTING

Lately, I have noticed on my site and elsewhere there is an increasing percentage of DISILLUSIONED precious metals investors.  WSo, I recently contacted Turd at TFmetalsReport to see if he might forward my inquihile I can empathize with investors being frustrated that the price of silver has gone nowhere but lower over the past several years…. it doesn’t mean silver is a lousy investment.

I purchased my first ounce of silver at $4.52 an ounce back in 2002.  That price is nearly 5 times less than the current price.  Of course the prices of everything increased since 2002, such as the price of a barrel of Brent sweet crude oil which was only $25.

Brent crude is currently trading at $102 a barrel.  Which means it’s now 4 times higher than its 2002 price of $25.  If you bought silver in 2002, you protected yourself from the ravages of inflation as well as the collapse in the value of the U.S.Dollar.

In 2002, the U.S. Dollar Index reached 120… today it’s trading at 82.