The Last Great Silver Buy - Ted Butler

by Ted Butler, SilverSeek:

In the annals of silver in the modern age, there have been two well-known instances of very large investor accumulations of the metal. First came the purchase by the Hunt Brothers and their associates in early 1980, followed by the purchase by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, 17 years later. The Hunts were said to control around 100 million ounces of actual metal (plus another 100 million ounces in long paper futures contracts), while Berkshire held as many as 129 million ounces.

Now there is compelling evidence of a third great investment accumulation of physical silver by none other than JPMorgan, one of the most powerful and connected banks in the world. This accumulation can be dated from the price peak of April 2011, after silver began what is now a near seven-year price decline. From zero in April 2011, the amount of silver in the JPMorgan COMEX warehouse has increased to 120 million ounces. Just about every ounce moved into the JPMorgan COMEX warehouse over the past 7 years has come from futures deliveries stopped (taken) by JPM in its own name. JPMorgan took delivery of 14 million ounces in December and so far, 13 million ounces have remained in the warehouses from which the metal was delivered. So this means that JPMorgan now holds more than 133 million ounces of silver in COMEX warehouses, or more than was held by the Hunt Bros or by Berkshire Hathaway at their peaks. There was a lot more silver in the world in 1980 and 1998 than there is today, meaning that JPMorgan’s accumulation is much more of an accomplishment than previous silver acquisitions.

JPMorgan’s COMEX warehouse silver holdings are only the tip of the iceberg. Beneath the surface, the true extent of JPMorgan’s physical silver accumulation is nothing short of mind-boggling. All told, including the verifiable 133 million ounces held in its own and other COMEX warehouses, JPMorgan holds at least 675 million ounces of actual silver. Simply put, JPMorgan has acquired six times as much metal as bought by the Hunts or Berkshire Hathaway. How is it possible that JPMorgan, could acquire such a massive quantity of physical silver, with no general awareness that it was doing so? More importantly, how did they do it while silver prices steadily declined over the entire time of JPM’s accumulation?

Common sense would dictate that such a large acquisition as JPM’s 675 million ounces (nearly 45% of the 1.5 billion ounces of silver bullion in the form of industry standard 1,000 ounces bars in the world), could not be bought by any entity without driving prices sharply higher. So how could JPMorgan do so without it being noticed and without driving prices sharply higher? The answer is that in addition to being the biggest physical silver accumulator in history, JPMorgan has simultaneously been the largest short seller in COMEX silver futures for the entire time since it acquired Bear Stearns in early 2008. JPMorgan has pulled off something that couldn’t possibly be replicated not just in silver but in any other world commodity. Never again will any one entity be able to accumulate 45% of the world’s supply of a commodity. JPMorgan’s accumulation is more bullish for silver than any other single consideration by a factor of 1,000.

How legitimate is it that a large financial entity could sell short massive quantities of paper derivatives contracts which result in lower prices, and then use those lower prices to accumulate silver on the cheap? It couldn’t possibly be legitimate and that makes JPMorgan a market crook and manipulator. It also makes the federal regulator, the CFTC, and the self-regulating CME Group, incompetent, corrupt, or both. This takes a special kind of market manipulator, one most likely operating under some type of agreement with the regulators.

As I have explained in past articles, 150 million ounces of silver was acquired by JPMorgan through buying 100 million Silver Eagles from the U.S. Mint, plus another 50 million Silver Maple Leafs from the Royal Canadian Mint. All these coins were melted into industry standard 1,000 ounce bars since as there’s no way anyone to unload 150 million Silver Eagles and Maple Leafs. In 2013 record sales of these silver coins conflicted strongly with reports from retail dealers of weak demand. By process of elimination, if it wasn’t the guy on the street buying all these coins, it had to be someone big. Based upon a variety of other supporting evidence that JPMorgan was the absolute king of the silver market, the most plausible explanation was that JPMorgan was Mr. Big when it came to buying Eagles and Maple Leafs. JPMorgan’s cessation in buying these coins a year or so ago is the only explanation for why sales then fell off a cliff. JPM controlled the price at which the mints sold and JPMorgan bought. It was a particularly clever and deceitful means by which JPM acquired 150 million ounces of silver at give-away prices.

At the exact time that silver topped out in April of 2011, JPMorgan opened its COMEX silver warehouse and began its epic accumulation of silver. Another almost impossible to explain phenomenon started then and continues to this day – an unusually large and persistent physical movement of silver brought into and taken out from the COMEX silver warehouses. Over the past near 7 years, there has been an average weekly movement of around 4.5 million ounces of physical silver turning over in the COMEX silver warehouses, far higher than ever before. In total, some 1.4 billion ounces of physical silver were moved in and out of the COMEX warehouses. This physical movement of silver in the COMEX warehouses is highly unique to silver, as no other commodity has seen any unusual turnover in exchange-approved warehouse inventories – just COMEX silver. I believe this unusual turnover was created by JPMorgan gobbling up all available silver in industry standard 1,000 ounce bars. JPM has been able to “skim off” 150 to 200 million ounces, which when combined with the 150 million ounces that JPM accumulated in mint-issued coins, brings to 300 to 350 million ounces of the 550 million ounces JPMorgan holds outside its COMEX warehouse holdings.

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