On September 30, Feds daily securities lending hit $52.826 billion. I checked the past records,and the daily lending never topped $50 billion in the last year. I doubt it ever has. http://www.321gold.com/fed/temp_bank_res.html
This is like being in a deep ocean submersible vessel and a crack develops in the window. It has not failed yet, but is showing signs of overstress.
Today is September 8, and coincidentially, the US Federal debt first hit $20 trillion on September 8, 2017. On August 18, 2026, the debt first crossed $40 trillion. So in 8.945 years, the debt doubled. That is an annual increase of 8.06%. This is likely the true rate of inflation.
In stocks, bonds, IRA, investment real estate, etc, at my income, the combined fed, state, and local tax on investment gains is about 40%. So I get to keep 60%. Just to maintain purchasing power, I need an annual return of 8.06/0.60 = 13.43%. Other than hard / real assets, it is a losing game for most. Once the public figures this out, its stock market crash and hyperinflation. Some investors figured this out a few years ago and are the cause of unaffordable housing.
According to the treasury data, in the last 2 business days, the Federal debt DROPPED (reduced) by $102 billion from 7/30 to 8/3. Now estimated taxes are due on 1/15. 4/15, 6/15 and 9/15 of each year, so its not that. Maybe all the corporations pay their taxes on the 1st day of August, but I doubt it.
Did anyone else read that the US intervention to save the yen would be $100 billion? Is it possible the US just printed $100 billion and bought the Yen or Japan bonds? The US would then count the Yen as an asset and it would improve the balance sheet for the feds, but be inflationary for us serfs.
One the one hand, I am tempted to call Bessant and his crew stupid, but on the other hand, there really is no way out of our financial woes, other than slashing SS, Medicare and Military. That's not going to happen.
Of the 853 silver contract deliveries this month, 593 of the contracts were issued by the HSBC Commercial account. Thats almost 3 million oz. This is shown on the year to date under delivery notices, They used to list the silver transactions right after gold, but now they put it last on the report after Aluminum, Gold, Copper, Platinum, and Palladium. https://www.cmegroup.com/solutions/clearing/operations-and-deliveries/nymex-delivery-notices.html
Apparently they are hoping no one reads the report long enough to get to the silver numbers. Another development is that the report lists zero deliveries from JP Morgan commercial. JPM/C has been the main physical silver supplier month after month for decades.
Pasted above are the silver prices and volumes for Monday. What is strange is the price for the physical purchases (August) had a volume of 90 contracts and the open, low, high and closing price was $57.80 for all categories. Very strange. One explanation would be a single seller (HSBC?) put a block of silver contracts for sale and the market one by one chipped away thru the block.
JP Morgan commercial account has bought a lot more silver than they have sold (issued) this month. Normally they sell more than they buy and the last time it bought more than it sold was January 2026 and there was not nearly the magnitude of excess buying that has happened this month.
I would think this may be purchases by the US government for critical metal stock piling
Since the beginning of the covid drama in April, 2020, the CRB commodity index is up over 300% (4 fold). For all the people that are earning 4 times what they made in 2020, congrats. I am making maybe 25% more, mostly because I am working harder.
I think silver bottomed in 2020 at about $12.50, so its up about 350%. Silver is just doing what most other commodities are doing. They are using inflation to steal from savers and investors. Buy silver.
From 6/17 to 7/17, the US federal debt shot up by $298 billion and is now $39.582 trillion. https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/datasets/debt-to-the-penny/debt-to-the-penny
Think about that. It is almost $10 billion per day. The US treasury supposedly has 261.5 million ounces of gold. In just one month, they debased the dollar to the tune of over $1100 per ounce of gold. The US has over 160 million people in the workforce, but if government workers and part time workers are removed, there are only 108 million full time workers in the private workforce. To balance the budget, they would need to raise taxes by $90 per worker per day = $2700 per month = $32,400 per year. That is about $16/hour of work on top of what they already take.
Purchased a mixed roll of 90% franklins and walkers at my LCS today. Paid $40 x face. There were a few other customers there and the owner was busy buying coins from a senior couple that was attempting to frame every coin they wanted to sell as a nuismatic.
I think the owner is underwater on lots of silver he bought when prices were higher. At the time, he had told me the refiners were only offering spot minus $6 to him, so he held a lot of it hoping to sell it back to new buyers. Then the price crashed.
Per today's silver COT report, there are now 34 commercial long firms and 36 short firms. First of all, there are normally over 40 firms short, and 2nd, there are now almost as many firms long as short, which is exceptionally rare. For comparison, attached are today's COT and one from 3 years ago. The report from 3 years ago had 27 firms long and 45 short.
It may be time to buy.
https://silverseek.com/article/cot-silver-report-july-17-2026
https://silverseek.com/article/cot-silver-report-july-14-2023
This website lists 6.8k members on Silver Degen and 14k on Wallstreet Silver. That's 20,800 active members combined. There are at least 208,000,000 adults in the US, let alone other countries. So we are 1 out of 10,000 following silver or 0.01%. The majority is clueless about real money and protecting themselves from inflation.
India has raised import tariffs on gold and silver from the previous 6% to now 15%. Importers now also need government approval to import silver. Governments are all about free markets until the people realize their fiat money is trash. India first, Europe also, so likely coming to the US eventually. India is a great buyer of silver, so this is a significant negative development. The US debt is basically the titanic though, so this just changes the timeline.
https://gulfbusiness.com/en/2026/news/india-tightens-silver-import-rules-mandates-prior-approval/
Wells Fargo house took delivery of over 5 million ounces of silver today. The last time Warren bought silver was when he bought 130 million oz in the mid 90's. The bankers had Clinton's goons file all kinds of fraud charges against Warren's insurance company and next thing you know, Warren sold the silver and all charges were dropped.
What the heck is Bank of America doing? They were holding all 727 of the unissued silver May contracts and delivered them all on the last day of the contract / today?
I know this has been a frequent topic, but the shorts might really be in trouble this time. As of the Comex close yesterday (Thursday), there were still 744 of the May 26 silver contracts waiting for delivery. ZERO contracts were delivered yesterday (the 21st) and 3 were delivered today. That leaves 741 contracts to be delivered by end of day next Friday. That's 4 business days.
They now need to deliver 185 contracts per day for the next 4 days = 3,705,000 ounces total. The investing slogan "the trend is your friend" cuts both ways and it does not look good for the shorts.
Kevin Warsh was sworn in as the Fed chair today. Can't have gold and silver steal the show from fake money on the day they hand control to the new wizard of Oz.
Comex May Silver Open Interest 5/19 = 884 contracts
Delivered metal 5/20 = 37 contracts
Estimated remaining interest 5/20 (not reported yet) = 847 contracts
Remaining delivery days for May Silver Contract = 6
Required daily delivery rate assuming no new purchases = 141 per day = 705,000 ounces/day
I think there are some naked shorts playing musical chairs. I remember Ditch believed there was a naked short that got bailed out from someone who actually had physical a couple of years ago to prevent a silver default or price melt up. Those days may be over.
The daily silver price has been ugly the last week, but my take on the Comex silver volume and delivery numbers is that the boys may be in trouble. Yesterday, there were 123 deliveries, yet the May open interest went up by 57 contracts. That means that 180 new May contracts looking for delivery were added yesterday. That's an even 900,000 ounces. To make matters worse for the shorts, a measly 16 contracts of physical were delivered today. There are now 1,010 May contracts still waiting for delivery. The last delivery day for May is the 29th. With the 3 day weekend, thats 8 more business days. They are going to need to step up the delivery rate to 126 per day, and thats assuming no additional contracts are bought. It could get interesting.
A tractor trailer of silver is about 600.000 troy ounces = 120 contracts per truck. They need at least a truck per day for 8 days straight
Perhaps getting China to sell some of their silver stockpile was part of the Trump meeting give and take. Like, the US stops giving Taiwan weapons if China dumps 100 million ounces of real silver, or at least resumes silver exports?
There was 7 months of backwardation in silver at the open last Friday. 5 months worth for the low price and 1 month for the last price.
The settle price is not the last price. It is a weighted average for market makers to value their holdings to market. Sounds fishy to me. Average is average so why call it a "weighted" average?
