lshallperish said:
There was a 260 million ounce demand back in 2013.
U.S mint was sold out on silver eagels
2005 china used a million on solar panels and in 2013 they used 35million
If the industrial usage did not drive the price then I have no idea what did.. because it is not people like you and me that drove that price..
"ohhh it's all about supply and demand" yet what we pull out from the ground is not enough for the world...
Data proves that it wasn't industrial demand.
Data proves that it was coin & bar sales.
On top of this, remember when ETF's came into existence?
I don't know if those are people like you and me. But they are people, that bought. Some ceased to buy more, and the annual demand they caused disappeared. Mines / recyclers kept on producing, until 2013, where recycling dropped quite big.
See, in order to draw conclusions about the price, one should take ALL that affects the price into account. Not just this and that. If we would look at just the mining of 2012 versus the mining of 2013, we could claim that silver production increased. Now add recycling to it, and it jumps in the other direction much more. Gradually add further things, and gradually you find explanations.
There is another recent topic here, where I posted an analysis of 2012-2013, for the gold market. Initially, I arrived on a 50% error. Precisely. That was so weird that I could only have missed something. And indeed, I had forgotten that the spot price includes the futures market hedge. I took then all the COT reports of 2012 and 2013, and calculated the averages of these years.
Guess what: it was near exactly the missing 50%
And if you think about it, that's just normal, because a futures hedge is ment against speculators; and all the trader classes combined, should hedge as much ounces as the stockpile change of the speculators. Every 5000 ounces more bought/sold in the cash market, causes the creation of a futures contract, causing the cash price is not being driven up according to 5000, but according to 10000 ounces. This all of course isn't directly / instantly, but take the year averages and it becomes telltaling clear.
Any gaps between both, means some trading occurred 'under the radar', being entities exempted from reporting duties, alike institutionals on black pools, or maybe some inbetween top level nodes trades, enjoying the same privileges. For ex, the 2012-2013 for the silver market had a gap of 200 Moz. 200 Moz more sold than the price change explained.
Taking ALL into effect. You can list a dozen items that should push the silver price up, if there is 1 or any other number other items, with the opposite effect, everything expressed in ounces, then that side will end up as 'winner' as most influential side.