Sunday, February 6, 2011
Saturday afternoon, this article, Near Zero Contango in Comex Silver Futures, came to my attention in which the author noted that silver was in zero contango throughout all silver contracts. I have verified that this is correct. This means that silver is in very short supply at the spot price as investors are not willing to sell their metal at spot and buy a futures contract for fear that they will not get the physical metal. This is the first time this has ever happened in silver. The bankers have tried to bid up the prices on silver at the further out months at the comex, trying to keep the facade that silver is in proper contango and ample supplies of silver are with us. This is not true as we now know that silver is in short supply as I have indicated to you on many occasions. Adrian Douglas has also presented another paper on silver today. For seven years, gold and silver have traded in perfect uniformity. If gold goes up by 1% then silver will rise somewhere around 1%. Douglas has now concluded that the shackles have been removed and silver is now on its own. Douglas also noted that silver is basically in complete backwardation or no contango.
I have highlighted both commentaries for you and this is probably the most important development in silver for the past 20 years. JPMorgan and friends are in deep trouble.
Here are both of these commentaries and I urge you to study them in detail.
Harvey
Saturday, February 05, 2011
Near Zero Contango in COMEX Silver Futures
HOUSTON -- We are in the process of pouring over the data from this week, and just below is something we are going to be hearing a lot more about in the coming days and weeks. As of Friday, February 4, 2011, there was near zero contango in the COMEX silver futures market.
More in a moment, but first, here is this week’s closing table.
Note the very strong outperformance of silver to gold this week. There is likely a very good reason for it.
No Contango in Silver
Contango, where the spot price of a commodity is lower than the following futures contracts, is the normal condition in the precious metals futures markets. Contango is a sign that a commodity is in ample or adequate supply.
Backwardation means that the cash or spot price is higher than the futures price for the same commodity. Backwardation occurs when demand for immediate delivery outstrips the market’s ability to deliver the commodity. Backwardation occurs when there are too few sellers of the physical commodity to accommodate all of the actual buyers, so a near-premium develops to compensate the sellers willing to part with metal in return for taking delivery later.
When there is zero contango, it means that there is not even one futures contract that is higher than the current spot or cash price. Zero contango and structural backwardation (where each succeeding futures contract is lower for most or the entire strip) is also known as an “inverse carry” market because the futures no longer compensate holders for the cost of carry, capital, storage and insurance relative to the spot price.
Continued…
We cannot overemphasize how unusual and rare it is to have zero contango in the silver futures strip. As of the close on Friday, the spot price for silver was $29.07. The closing price for the December 2015 futures contract was $29.02 or 5-cents less, repeat less, than today’s spot price – for delivery four years hence. The few futures contracts that were above the spot price were all within two cents of it. For all intents and purposes, silver is in a zero contango situation now. Just below is the closing strip from Friday, February 4, courtesy of InsideStocks.com.
That means that there is heavy demand for immediate delivery silver. It means that silver players are earning a premium to sell physical for delivery now and to wait for the return of their metal until the March contract, the near active contract, which is trading at 1.6-cents lower than spot (blue circle).
Full-blown backwardation has arrived in the COMEX silver futures market. Backwardation suggests that competition for whatever metal is available is heavy and most analysts consider silver backwardation to be a decidedly bullish condition.
By the way, as of Friday, there was only enough silver metal in the Registered category in COMEX depositories to accommodate 8,680 COMEX contracts (43.4 million ounces), or about 6.6% of the 130,601 contracts open as of Thursday’s tally. (Another 59 million ounces was listed as “Eligible” and some of that metal could conceivably be coaxed into the Registered category at some price. Some of the Eligible silver is likely already committed for other purposes and is merely stored in the COMEX system awaiting delivery.)
Evidence of tightness in the silver market continues to surface in other words.Full article HERE
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