🧵 Reflection: What if China’s negative silver premium means something else? 🐉
1️⃣
Lately, the Shanghai Gold Exchange shows both gold and silver trading below international prices.
Silver premium: −4%
Gold premium: −1%
It’s a reversal — for months China was paying above global prices for physical metal.
2️⃣
At first glance, it looks like falling demand.
But SGE isn’t a free market — it’s guided.
So what if the “discount” is deliberate?
A quiet policy choice to give domestic households a window to accumulate metals at lower prices.
3️⃣
China has done similar things before — letting citizens buy when the rest of the world was distracted.
Later, when premiums rose again, the metal was already in strong hands.
What if we’re watching the same playbook unfold, again?
🧵1/
They hurled 220,082 silver futures at the screen today.
At 5,000 oz per contract, that’s ~1,100,410,000 oz of synthetic silver in one session. 🤯
Yet price still sits around $50/oz.
Paper flood. Physical shrug.
#Silver #StackerLogic #COMEX
2/ Deliveries: 89 contracts = 445,000 oz — that’s ~0.040% of what “traded.”
Translation: the smash was almost entirely paper; hardly any real metal changed hands.
#Silver #SilverSqueeze #HardAssets
3/ Breakdown matters:
• Total volume: 220,082 contracts
• Open interest: 169,711 (+3,325 = 16.625M oz new claims)
• Dec ’25: 198,198 contracts
Block trades: 738
EFP: 1,882 (paper ↔ “physical” lane)
TAS: 1,381
Dec OI change: −1,476 → 128,281
Biggest action where liquidity lives — still mostly screen metal.
#COMEX #PreciousMetals
🧵1/
They hurled ~220,000 silver futures at the screen today.
At 5,000 oz per contract, that’s ~1.10 BILLION oz of synthetic silver in a day. 🤯
Yet price is still sitting around $50/oz. Paper flood, physical shrug.
📊 (image 1 – CME “Silver Futures: Volume & OI”)
2/ Deliveries: 89 contracts = ~445,000 oz.
That’s ~0.04% of what “traded.”
Translation: the smash was almost entirely paper; hardly any real metal changed hands.
3/ Breakdown matters:
Total volume: ~220,082 contracts
Open interest (OI): 169,711 (+3,325)
Dec ’25 (key month): ~198,198 contracts
Block trades: 738
EFP: 1,882 (paper ↔ “physical” swap lane)
TAS: 1,381
OI change: −1,476 to 128,281
Biggest action where liquidity lives — but still mostly screen metal.
1️⃣
🚨 UPDATE: Physical market dysfunction is spreading.
Multiple large North American refiners have now suspended all silver purchases due to "market shutdown" conditions overnight.
2️⃣
According to one refiner:
“No large refiners are buying right now.
Spot price exceeds futures.
Refining backlog + high demand = hedge market dysfunction.”
That’s the definition of a broken paper-to-physical link.
3️⃣
What does it mean?
Spot > Futures → Backwardation
Refiners stop buying → Processing bottleneck
Hedging fails → Paper market distortion
Physical silver is now commanding a premium — real metal > paper promises.
Morning pump to ~$50.8, now a natural cooldown — but still holding strong above $49. 💪
2️⃣ The CFD vs COMEX gap stays wide — spot around $49.8, futures near $48.2.
👉 That’s a +3% premium for real metal.
If you want silver in hand, you’re paying up.
3️⃣ That’s called backwardation — and it screams tight physical market.
Someone out there wants silver now, not next month.