Just sitting here, picking the fluff out of my belly button, and wondering about silver sales. Who buys physical silver? I know we as stackers make incremental purchases of physical. We store it at home, at work, in a vault, in a hole in the bush, wherever. Some have even increased these purchases to include within their superannuation. But we are talking about 100 million ounces mined per annum going to investors. I would expect some silver ETFs would purchase a working amount of silver despite the oft quoted 200 to 1 ratio of paper to physical. I expect some other silver ETFs may hold up to 100% of silver, but can't be sure. I doubt if many portfolio funds would hold silver in lieu of gold just because of the 70+ physical limitations. As a hypothesis, if half the silver bought goes to the investment industry, this leaves 50 million ounces being bought by stackers each year. If each stacker conservatively bought 100 ounces a year, then there are only half a million stackers! Out of a population of 7.5 billion, then that is one in 15,000 or .007%. Of these half million stackers, 10,000 are on this forum! It is no wonder that we are considered eccentric by the rest of the population.
Industrial application is huge. At SBA bullion is just a side business to compliment their electrical components business, they make heaps of stuff for electrical applications. With Australian industry closing up and heading off shore they have been expanding the bullion and collectibles range in precious metals. They also do blended metals for the jewelry trade eg make 9ct -22ct gold,rose gold, white gold and 925 silver. Basically their entire business involves precious metals to some degree and in a wide range of applications.
I'm not convinced there is 17 times more stored silver than there is gold. No governments I'm aware of currently stockpile silver. Does anyone have any evidence that would support a current global stockpile of 17 times more silver than gold?
Doesn't JPM have the biggest phyz silver stack in history? Something around 6 million oz if I recall a ZH article from last year
I'm personally working towards the largest physical stack of 1oz Libertads. I am currently somewhat short of that goal but just wait till I win the next gigantuan powerball.
6 mil? Largest in history..?? http://about.ag/strategicstockpile.htm http://about.ag/data/csv/stockpiles.htm
I don't buy physical silver. Not anymore. But I'm in the UK. I have a few handfuls but, with 20% VAT and similarly sized premiums, it just doesn't make sense to me here. Physical gold will give me just about the same security, but will smaller premiums and no VAT. Meanwhile, I can 'play' the silver price and geographical diversification with allocated accounts.
