The COT provides us with the weekly open interest held by various categories of silver futures market participants, and thus gives us clues as to how these participants reacted in response to these margin increases and ensuing volatility. We present the following table showing net open interest for the various categories, converted into silver ounces, which we obtained from the COT report for selected dates.
First, note how in the three weeks following the margin hikes, the speculative12 net long position dropped from 212.7 million ounces to 170.1 million. This very clearly indicates that the speculative longs, when faced with rising margin requirements and losses to capital, did close out a substantial amount of their long positions. The commercials who were short those 212.7 million ounces appear to have been taking every opportunity to cover their own positions. Rather than shorting further into the ensuing weakness, the commercials covered approximately 42.6 million ounces in the three week period.
Another piece of information gleaned from the COT data is that despite what many commentators were hailing as a bubble caused by excessive speculation in the futures markets, the net speculative long positions had in fact been dropping over time. Even during the April run up preceding the five margin hikes, the net speculative long position actually decreased by 23%.
That commercial short position deserves further mention. What is unique and of interest to many silver market observers is not only the size of the short position on the Comex, which is dominated by those "commercials", but also the concentration of the short interest. We provide the percentage of the total open interest held by the four largest short sellers on a net basis in the table above. Note that the net position of the four largest equates to 29% of the total open interest as of May 17th. Further we would also note that the concentrated short interest of the big four, though still quite high has actually dropped substantially over the past year coinciding with the signing of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act and the resultant public discourse on position limits. Comments from CFTC commissioner Bart Chilton acknowledging the "repeated attempts to influence prices in the silver markets," and that, "violations to the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) have taken place in silver markets and that any such violation of the law in this regard should be prosecuted," perhaps have also had an impact on the behavior of silver market participants.13 And though the CFTC’s investigation into the silver futures and options market remains open after three years, we remain hopeful that its findings will further serve the interests of the investing public who rightly expect a fair and transparent silver market void of manipulative forces.
Could the drop in open interest and the reduction of the concentration in the commercial short open interest be perceived as an indication that those top four short-sellers are positioning for the inevitable imposition of position limits rules? Perhaps, and if so, it would follow that likely the short sellers seized the opportunity to further reduce their "liabilities" by buying up contracts in early May at a 30% discount.
Let there be no mistake, we view the current setup as extremely bullish. In our view, whatever froth and excess was present in the paper markets has likely been shaken out in the recent selloff. The remaining longs do not seem willing to part with their silver at these prices. These are the strong hands with longer time horizons that are likely not overly leveraged or are willing and able to withstand substantial volatility. Moreover, perhaps the "game" on the paper silver markets which has been meticulously documented over decades by Ted Butler14 and others, will soon be coming to an end.
What is perhaps most important is that despite what has recently transpired in the paper silver markets, the robust demand fundamentals for silver have not changed in our view. For confirmation of this, look no further than the physical silver market (i.e. the real silver market) which is providing us with evidence almost daily of a sustained bull market for physical silver. The US Mint recently stated that, "demand for American Silver Eagle Coins remains at unprecedented high levels."15 Likewise for the Perth Mint16, the Austrian Mint17, and the Royal Canadian Mint18 as well. The Chinese, who were net exporters of silver only four years ago, imported 300% more silver in 2010 than 2009 and such large quantities of imports are expected to continue19. Last year, Indian silver imports increased nearly six-fold, and this year consumption is expected to rise nearly 43% according to the Bombay Bullion Association20. In Utah, silver (along with gold, of course) will now be accepted in weight value as legal tender21. According to Hugo Salinas-Price, a prominent Mexican billionaire, there is now "very strong support for the monetization of silver" in the Mexican congress22. We suspect the Europeans are likely to account for an increasing amount of silver purchases going forward as well. In fact, we just can’t imagine a better outlook for silver fundamentals. This really makes us question who could be short such massive quantities of silver and why? Particularly in those leveraged paper silver markets, where as we demonstrated, only a fraction of the outstanding notional ounces are actually available in physical quantity.
We have a very tough time understanding those bearish arguments against silver. We look at the real silver market, and based on the supply and demand data coming from the real, physical markets for silver, the fundamentals are only getting stronger. And yet there exists another silver market, which as we’ve shown, is not very connected to the physical realm at all. And though silver investors have for decades suffered the tyranny of a rigged paper monopoly over silver price discovery, it appears to us that the tides are turning. In the age of QE to infinity, investors are being more scrupulous with their capital and as such they are demanding physical silver in quantity. With more and more dollars flowing into the silver markets and a finite supply of physical to meet that demand, the theoretical losses for the paper silver short-sellers are near infinite. And with such a skewed and obvious risk/reward payoff vastly favoring the longs, we pose the following question. Who is most at risk in the silver markets: the buyers of a scarce and real asset that serves a growing multitude of purposes, or the sellers, who are short a quantity of silver which may very well not even be obtainable at anywhere near current prices? Let the Seller Beware!
To view this article in pdf please click here.
For more information about Sprott Asset Management’s views on silver and its silver bullion funds, please visit www.sprott.com.
Footnotes:
1 Bloomberg
2 http://www.cmegroup.com/trading/metals/files/MoMU-April2011.pdf
3 http://www.lbma.org.uk/pages/index.cfm?page_id=51&title=clearing_-_most_recent_figures
4 http://www.sge.sh/publish/sgeen/sge_price/sge_price_daily/index.htm5 Source: Bloomberg, CME Group, LBMA, Shanghai Gold Exchange. Figure also includes trading of Comex silver options which had registered a record open interest in the month of April.
6 Andrew Kaip, David Haughton and John Hayes. "A New Paradigm for Silver: Demand is Expected to Outstrip Production Growth," BMO Capital Markets. April 3, 2011, p. 35. Note: "Non-investment" demand includes industrial, silverware, and photographic demand
7 http://www.cmegroup.com/trading/metals/files/MoMU-April2011.pdf
8 http://www.cmegroup.com/clearing/risk-management/files/SI_2009_to_may_2011.pdf
9 Bloomberg
10 A trader can always post more than the required amount of margin in his account.
11 http://www.cmegroup.com/clearing/risk-management/files/SI_2009_to_may_2011.pdf
12 For explanatory notes including definitions for each category of trader listed on the COT, please visit: http://www.cftc.gov/MarketReports/
CommitmentsofTraders/ExplanatoryNotes/index.htm
13 http://www.cftc.gov/pressroom/speechestestimony/chiltonstatement102610.html
14 For further information please visit http://www.butlerresearch.com/archive-free.asp
15 http://www.usmint.gov/pressroom/?action=press_release&id=1251
16 http://www.perthmintbullion.com/blog/blog/11-02-23/Sales_Record_For_2011_1oz_Silver_Kookaburra.aspx
17 http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-13/silver-boom-continues-at-austrian-mint-gold-demand-retreats-on-price.html
18 http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/7f316ac4-3acc-11e0-9c1a-00144feabdc0.html?ftcamp=rss#axzz1Nvybz2Te
19 Andrew Kaip, David Haughton and John Hayes. "A New Paradigm for Silver: Demand is Expected to Outstrip Production Growth," BMO Capital Markets. April 3, 2011, p. 17
20 http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/e64ca6b2-65e5-11e0-9d40-00144feab49a.html#axzz1OijZiJ4o
21 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/30/us/30gold.html
22 http://www.kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/Broadcast/Entries/2011/5/18_Hugo_Salinas_Price.html
