Sunday, April 2, 2017

Silver Demand - Poor March Figures

In March the demand for silver eased a little bit:

in millions of silver ounces:

The largest private holder of silver bullion, the iShares Silver Trust (SLV), reported an outflow of silver from its vaults amounting to 1.6 million ounces. 

Interestingly, the Shanghai Futures Exchange, which in 2015 started aggressive accumulation of silver, decreased its stakes in March (by 4.3 million ounces).

On the other hand, JP Morgan was still accumulating silver in March and added 0.7 million ounces.


Summarizing - the physical demand for silver retreated in March.

Similarly to the physical market, the paper demand did the same. Big speculators cut their net long positions in silver futures by 4.7 thousand contracts (attributable to 23.5 million ounces of silver). However, the net long position held by these traders still stands at a very elevated level (the green circle):


What now? Normally I would say that silver prices are poised to correct but the problem is that the gold market is in a totally different situation. Here the speculators are rather pessimistic about gold prices and it is the gold market that is a leading indicator in the precious metals sector.



No comments:

Post a Comment