Howdy folks,
Silver continues to shine relative to all else, particularly gold. YTD, gold is up ~55% while silver is up ~74%. Geez, silver was up almost 5% Wednesday and another 6% today. Silver is crushing due to a lack of supply in the face of enormous demand for physical bullion. This is putting pressure on both the COMEX and particularly LME (London). You see there are two distinct markets in precious metals - paper and physical. Silver has been in severe backwardation for quite a while now with demand for physical bullion outstripping the paper trade. Historically, most paper contracts are simply rolled over when due, but now folks are actually demanding the real metal. 'How dare you! ' December is a delivery month and there is a severe shortage of actual silver bullion available to fulfill the contracts.
Some 70% of new silver comes as a byproduct of other mining such as lead, zinc and copper. This makes it very hard to scale up production in the short run. In addition, silver has enormous industrial demand - solar, EVs, circuitry, photography, medicine, reflective uses, etc. That puts a huge floor under the price.
https://silverinstitute.org/silver-in-industry/On the demand side, you have the debasement trade and that's happening with the Central and Sovereign banks and folks that don't care for the smell of things.
Rather than default, I suspect both exchanges are going to be willing to pay most any price for bullion. This should manifest itself over the next few weeks. We'll see.
I'm just a old momentum investor who has been stacking silver for going on 70 years. This is my 3rd bull market and I'm right now I'm in a constant state of multiple orgasms. Hell, I can't even stand up in mixed company.
For paper metals, I trust Sprott and do NOT trust the basic bullion ETFs such as SLV. Nope, nope, nope. While physical possession is ideal, most of us augment that with paper bullion and miners.
Right now I'm riding SLVR, SGDJ, PSLV, CEF, SILJ. Note that most of these are miners. I particularly like the juniors and penny stocks. Nose bleed stuff for sure . . . but WTF we only live once.
and so it goes,
peace,
rono
Comments
Edit/Add: Gold:Silver chart (E.O.D.) https://schrts.co/pNJHhiAh
OJ
And I’m old enough to remember the Hunt brothers.
LOL!
5%+ return per day is a substitute for little blue pills.
It might be an apocryphal story that the Hunt Brothers attempted corner ended with an influx of silverware and tea and coffee settings..
Has anyone tried to corner a market since them?
but some of these would have been so early as to be considered wrong?
i think the same is said for gold:oil, where people are currently considered wrong on oil.
The ratio now is 75, and the last major turning point was 73, so a change in gold:silver relationship may not be that far away.
Of course, there are wild price targets for both gold and silver, but that may be far into the future. Traders have to worry about short-term.
The GSR is the oldest known market metric and still watched by many. Here's the history.
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/080316/historical-guide-goldsilver-ratio.asp
That said, the easiest way to play it, is to purchase PMs in whatever ratio exists. If it's 105 to 1, you buy 1 ounce of gold and 105 ounces of silver. Coming down to 75 to 1, you buy 1 gold and 75 silver. Personally, I think it's been distorted by the advent of bullion ETFs.
As an aside, the conspiracy peeps are saying that the power outage at the CME was contrived because they were losing control of the silver market and had to try and regain control.
The problem with two distinct markets - paper and street, it has always raised the specter of market manipulation. Feh. I read Livermore. ANYONE who has any sort of control over a market is ALWAYS going to exploit it to their advantage. I don't see it as any different from the casinos and their house advantage. Deal with it or don't play.
The big issue is fiat currencies are starting to implode due to politicians overprinting. Why do you think Trump is calling for lower interest rates and wanting to take control of the Federal reserve. 'Lower the rates and print more money and everything will be wonderful.' Fine, but watch the inflation go nuts. See, they don't have many alternatives to debasing the currency. I read they were going to have to debase it by 75% over the next decade. Oh, and while I dislike Trump, the democrats are no different. The big problem is that every other country in the world is doing the same damn thing. And that leads to the collapse of all fiat currencies sooner or later.
and so it goes,
peace,
rono
Funny you should mention selling your pre-1964 silver coins. You might have a bit of a problem in the short run. The shortage of physical silver bullion to back their paper promises in London has created a huge profit opportunity for anyone able to ship it in 1000 oz bars of .999 pure. Your 1964 quarter is worth a little over $9.00 in melt value. Ah, but the refiners don't have time to purify it to .999. Ergo, many are refusing to purchase it for that reason. Now, please don't be alarmed, as this too will pass and the value is still there. It's just the problem in London is world-wide in scope and they're well and truly screwed and desperate of bullion. Oh, and as an aside, the premiums on 90% silver are almost nil making it the very best buy for the long run.
The London Metals Exchange's problem is akin to that of fiat currencies. Nothing to keep politicians from running the printing presses day and night. It occurs very often where the paper contracts for silver exceed the amount of available bullion to back them up. This hasn't mattered in the past, because when the contracts come due, they settle the gains/losses and and roll the contracts over. The problem now is many folks are saying, 'Er, no. I think I'll take delivery of the bullion.' Ooops! They don't have it. And silver is way different from gold as the supply is so constrained. You make solar panels? Paper promises don't work.
December is a delivery month for the contracts AND you have some huge players taking delivery and neither London nor Chicago has the bullion to deliver on their paper promises.
and so it goes,
thanks for the snow,
peace,
rono
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/29/silver-hit-record-highs-in-2025-and-still-has-further-to-run.html
From back in the 70s & 80s I recall taking a pretty good cut when selling things back to dealers. Gold bullion coins, however, held their value pretty well. Should have hung on to the K-Rands I bought back then at $800 -$850. It's actually the copper in the things that makes them so beautiful.
Typical Ranges: For highly traded bullion coins like American Gold Eagles or Canadian Maple Leafs, the spread at major dealers typically ranges from 2% to 6%. For less liquid or rare coins, the spread can be significantly higher, sometimes 7% to 10% or more.
I have not checked a local dealer pricing recently. Ebay provides very good real time pricing for these items that have sold through bidding.
Couple of things. First, here's a FB post by my friend Pat Heller who founded Liberty Coin here in Lansing. It explains things much better than I, but please understand that he is a gold bug. That said, I've dealt with him for over 40 years and trust him explicitly.
"In early trading in Asian markets Monday December 1, silver has jumped above $57.
If Liberty Coin Service were open, here were the bid and ask spot prices as of a couple minutes ago at which we would be buying and selling physical precious metals:
Gold: bid spot price $4,219.25/ask spot price $4,225.75
Silver: $56.75/$57.25
Platinum: $1,661.00/$1,693.00
Palladium: $1,453.00/$1,495.00
There are huge orders totaling more than 36 million ounces called for immediate delivery of physical silver (representing 4-5% of annual worldwide silver mine output). We are not sure whether this is in the Shanghai or COMEX markets right now. A larger quantity was called for delivery in April, but exchanges had more physical silver available for delivery then. There is a heightened risk that there could be a default in silver derivative contracts if short sellers are unable to find enough physical silver to meet their delivery commitments.
Should there be defaults in the silver derivative contracts, that increases the risk this could happen with gold derivatives next, then every other kind of derivative contracts.
Derivative contracts were established in the 1970s as a means to manipulate markets and hold down gold and silver prices without the need to have physical metal to back up the manipulation. I don't mean to be alarmist, but widespread defaults on derivative contracts could ultimately lead to the collapse of the US dollar and many other world currencies.
Now is the time to make sure you own physical gold and silver in your direct custody or in segregated vault storage under your own name.
If you think you own gold or silver because you own shares of gold or silver exchange traded funds or stored in vaults with unallocated storage, you are at risk of not owning anything. As fast as you can, you should look into taking delivery of metals in unallocated storage in vaults or selling off your gold or silver ETF shares and replacing with physical metals is your direct custody or in segregated storage in precious metals vaults that are not affiliated with banks.
Remember, under current US laws, banks that suffer major losses from derivative contracts they hold are allowed to seize and keep customer cash balances. If you have accounts at banks that trade derivative contracts (which includes virtually all major banks), you should investigate transferring such accounts to credit unions or to smaller banks that don't trade derivatives for their own account.
Liberty Coin Service will open for trading Monday, December 1 at 9:30 AM Eastern."
Here also is a story from regular news
https://finance.yahoo.com/m/0cc223e6-1c4e-3385-b1a4-e78ce1d6a2f3/silver-hits-record-high-on.html
Just for the record, I am STILL scaling into my momentum play.
BTW, sorry for the faux pas posting. Sometimes, I revert to a loaded and loose Marine Sergeant on R&R in Bangkok back in '69.
and so it goes,
peace,
rono