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Why in the world has JP Morgan accumulated more than 55 million ounces of physical silver?

Submitted by IWB, on April 27th, 2015

Why in the world has JP Morgan accumulated more than 55 million ounces of physical silver?
http://www.infowars.com/why-is-jp-mor…
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/article…

The Real Bunker Hunt Story - What IF Today JP Morgan was Actually BUYING Physical Silver? *video*

We 1st pub. this in March of 2012

Now, what would happen today if the Hunt family were replaced by the banksters, namely JPM? The CFTC, SEC & COMEX were crooked in 1980, and aren't they even more so today?

Why couldn't the crooks actually be strategically on the long side for physical. They have the corrupted regulators in their pockets, so why not execute a similar strategy from the long side? Couldn't their large short positions be implemented to suppress the price for themselves, and acquiring it from miners directly or middle agents? Just another element that our silver gurus have been neglecting...in my view.

In fact, having driven the mining stocks down to absurd levels the conspirators could buy all the controlling equity in every gold/silver mine in the world for a few billion dollars of their taxpayer-supplied money!!

So, then, without the general public joining in the physical buying frenzy, why the repeated delivery delays of modest amounts. You might want to Google:  "physical silver bullion delivery delays"

In relation to this postulate, watch: Silver Fakewardation - *video*

Is JP Morgan Shorting Paper Metals While Acquiring Massive Physical Stockpiles?

*Updated

Manipulation explained, or pure disinformation orchestrated  to pre-emptively manage the fallout of the coming JP Morgan silver manipulation scandal?

What’s Wrong With Silver?

Posted on March 25, 2015 by Gary Christenson

Which silver?  Paper silver or real silver?

Silver prices are largely set on the COMEX futures – paper silver.  

A company can post the margin and sell short thousands of contracts with no actual metal available thereby creating artificial supply.  The reverse occurs when some company buys thousands of contracts.  It is a paper game, but unfortunately it has tremendous influence on the price of real silver.

What’s wrong with paper silver?  Paper silver has been aggressively sold and that pushes prices down – just the opposite of what occurred between 2009 and April 2011.  What is wrong with paper silver is … probably nothing.  Buyers and sellers do their thing, sometimes in fractions of a second, and they define a price for paper.

What’s wrong with physical silver?  The usual – the paper markets set the price for the physical markets and drive prices to unsustainable highs and lows.  We are currently at the low end of the cycle.

How do we know the price is low and due to turn up?  Of course we have no guarantee (my crystal ball is being repaired) but we can look at the demand and charts.  Steve St. Angelo publishes excellent analysis on physical supply and demand for silver.  Read his many articles, but a summary is:  silver supply is weak and global investment demand is strong, especially at these prices.

The silver to gold ratio shows a clear pattern for the past 44 years.  When silver prices are low so is the ratio, and when the ratio is high, look out below.  Silver moves higher faster than gold and crashes more quickly, hence the volatility in the ratio.  Examine the (smoothed) chart for the past 10 years as an example.  The ratio is now quite low and so is the price of silver.  History shows that exponentially increasing debt creates exponential increases in consumer prices, currency in circulation, and gold prices.  Debt will increase – this is as certain as tomorrow’s sunrise – and gold prices will also increase, albeit erratically.


Other analysts suggest gold and silver have not reached their final lows.  They may be correct in the short-term (not my take), but in the long-term, prices for both metals will go substantially higher.  

Examine the monthly log scale chart of silver.

Note the massive correction in prices, and the deeply oversold (monthly) condition of the RSI (Relative Strength Indicator) and the TDI.  Prices have been ready to turn up for several months.  Prices may not rally this week but they will soon.  Stacking silver is good insurance.

What could go wrong with our political and financial systems that might assist silver prices?

The US recently sent 3,000 troops and 750 tanks and other military vehicles to Latvia on the Russian border.

“Russia Starts Nationwide Show of Force:”  45,000 Russian troops plus war planes and submarines are performing military drills.

Over 20 central banks have reduced interest rates in the past few months.  They are not reducing interest rates because their economies are strong.  Hint:  more QE.

Great Britain joined the Chinese backed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, clearly in opposition to US interests.  Germany, France and Italy did the same.  US influence is declining and Chinese and Russian military and economic influence is rising.  

How long will the dollar be the ONLY reserve currency in the world?  When those excess dollars flood back to the US, after they are no longer needed elsewhere, how much inflation will that create for the U.S.?

Economic wars and hot military wars increase debt and commodity prices.  Gold and silver will see another rally, probably one that surprises almost everyone.

Gary Christenson
The Deviant Investor

Must Listen! Silver Coins as Money - Ask The Expert – Hugo Salinas Price!

Hugo Salinas Price shares his views on precious metals, provides some historical background on gold and silver money, the manipulation of the precious metals markets, the inevitable collapse of the fiat money, and more…  

Click here for transcript and original posting

What is junk silver?

The idea is to first get started. Save four silver quarters a month dated before 1964.

Feb202015

Do you have a coin jug at home? Perhaps it isn’t a jug, per se, but a coffee can, glass jar, or maybe even an old fashioned piggy bank? It might be holding far more money than you realize!

If you spend much time surfing various survival/prepper message boards and other forums, you’ll no doubt run across the term “junk silver.” People want to know, “What is junk silver? And, should I buy it?”

The term refers to coins containing a high amount of actual silver, unlike most common coins minted today.

Here’s the cool part. If you have a coin jug at home, odds are you probably have at least a few junk silver coins in there. While you won’t see them every day, they do still crop up regularly.

What is junk silver?

Here in the United States, junk silver coins are basically any coin (except pennies and nickels) minted in 1964 or earlier. 

Given that half-dollars and other larger coins are somewhat rare in most of our daily lives, we’re basically talking about dimes and quarters. If a coin is categorized as junk silver, it does not have any numismatic value to collectors.

The value in junk silver is the silver itself, not the coin’s appearance.

The only silver nickels in recent history are the “wartime” ones produced in 1942-1945. Even then, they only contain about 30% silver, whereas most junk silver coins contain 90% silver.

If after looking at the mint date you still aren’t sure if the coin is silver, a silver coin sounds very different from a non-silver one when dropped on a table. The sound is hard to describe but once you’ve heard it, you’ll recognize it pretty quickly going forward.

Why do preppers focus on junk silver?

Why is it important to know about junk silver? Well, for starters, junk silver is a very easy way to get started with collecting precious metals for possible use as alternative currency, should there come some sort of economic collapse. It takes just a few seconds at the end of the day to examine the coins in your pocket before you dump them into your coin jug.

On top of that, junk silver coins are worth far more than their face value. Generally speaking, if you have $1.40 in face value of junk silver coins, you have one troy ounce of actual silver. As of this writing, an ounce of silver is going for about $18.00 or so. I use Kitco to check prices when I’m getting ready to buy.

Now, honestly, that’s not a completely true comparison as junk silver coins aren’t actually worth the full silver spot price. But, those dimes and quarters are worth a ton more than what you’d get from a candy vending machine.

At my house, we have two separate jars, one for pennies and one for all other coins. I’ll usually glance through my spare change, checking mint dates, before tossing the coins into the appropriate jar. But, because I’m human and might miss seeing a junk silver coin, we’ll have one of our children dump out the jar and check each coin before we cash in the change. Often, they’ll find one or two coins we missed. The junk silver coins are stored away under lock and key, just in case we need them someday. If nothing else, they’ll be nice for the kids to have someday.

Resources for junk silver

A Guidebook of United States Coins 2015

The Beginner’s Guide to Gold and Silver Scrap

How to Buy Gold and Silver Bullion Without Getting Scammed

Survival Mom: How to Prepare Your Family for Everyday Disasters and Worst Case Scenarios  (I include an interview with a precious metals dealer and information about buying junk silver.)

Wartime silver nickels

via survivalmom

Silver Eagles Not Best Way to Own Silver

Posted on December 18, 2014 by Pat Heller

The U.S. Mint charges $2 above the spot price when it sells regular silver American Eagle one-ounce coins to its handful of Authorized Purchasers. These APs are then responsible for the costs and logistics of picking up the coins at the West Point or San Francisco Mints. By the time most coin dealers get in a smaller supply of these coins from the larger wholesalers, retail customers could easily be paying $3-$4 per coin above the silver spot price to purchase a 500-coin box of silver Eagles.

The silver Eagle may not be the

 best way to own bulk silver

At those premiums, retail buyers would now be paying 15-20 percent or more above the intrinsic metal value of silver Eagles.


These coins have been hugely popular, with combined mintages since the series debuted in 1986 of more than 200 million coins. In absolute terms, even the lowest-mintage 1996-dated coins cannot be called rare.

It is possible to buy the old U.S. 90 percent silver dimes and quarters (and often half dollars) struck up to 1964 at a lower cost per ounce of silver content.  Privately manufactured silver rounds and ingots in sizes of 1, 10, and 100 ounces can also be acquired for a lower premium than silver Eagles.

So, are silver Eagles a good way to purchase bullion-priced silver?
There are a number of hard money writers who consider the silver Eagles to be the best option for buyers. Others, including me, consider their premiums to be too much higher than other options to recommend them. You can’t have it both ways, so whose advice is sounder?

The silver Eagles have multiple advantages where it is an exact one troy ounce of pure silver issued by a reliable entity.  It has legal tender status by having a $1 face value, which means that they can cross international borders almost everywhere around the globe without having to pay import taxes.

Do these advantages outweigh other options, where U.S. 90 percent silver coins do not come to an even ounce weight of silver per $1 of face value, or where the privately struck silver rounds and ingots are normally subject to import duties if they cross borders?

I place more emphasis on the cost per ounce of silver content, which is the main reason why I am not in favor of purchasing large quantities of silver Eagles as a way to own bulk silver. However, I realize that silver Eagles are beautiful works of art. Therefore, I don’t knock the idea of purchasing individual coins or even a roll or two to be part of a collection or to be given as gifts.

Instead, I favor lower-premium alternatives despite the popularity of silver Eagles, where my company alone has sold as many as 300,000 of these coins in a single year.

Many buyers of silver Eagles realize they are paying a higher price to acquire silver in this form versus lower premium options. A number of them have told me that they expect to be able to liquidate these coins at prices higher than what they would be paid for the rounds and ingots or U.S. 90 silver coins. If that is what really happens, then it is not such a downside risk purchasing silver Eagles today.

But – don’t count on being able to receive a payment per ounce of silver content any higher than you would be paid for the 90 percent silver Coins or rounds and ingots. Here is one example why I say this.

In late 1996, Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway purchased 129.7 million ounces of silver futures contracts due in March 1997. As the maturity date neared, Berkshire Hathaway stated that they intended to take physical delivery of all the contracts rather than simply rolling the contracts over into new paper contracts with maturity dates farther in the future.

This quantity of physical silver demand severely strained existing supplies. Before Berkshire Hathaway announced that they wanted physical delivery, the spot price of silver was about $6. At that level, we were paying the public 50 cents under spot for the private one-ounce silver rounds and ingots and 50 cents over spot for silver Eagles.

Demand for low premium silver that the refiners could melt and form into deliverable 1,000-ounce bars to fulfill Berkshire Hathaway’s contracts pushed up the silver spot price.

By March 1997, the spot price topped $7. When silver reached that level, we were still paying 50 cents per ounce under spot to purchase one-ounce silver rounds and ingots from the public. However, since the refiners had no interest in purchasing any product even at spot price (the price at which they were being paid for the 1,000-ounce bars), silver Eagles did not appreciate at all during this run-up in the spot price. When silver reached $7 per ounce, we were then paying 50 cents per ounce below the spot price to purchase silver Eagles.

In this instance, the spot price of silver rose about 14 percent. The price we were paying the public to purchase one-ounce rounds and ingots rose 18 percent. Yet, the price we were paying for silver Eagles was unchanged.
As demonstrated by this example, I don’t recommend the purchase of silver Eagles as a way to acquire a quantity of bullion-priced bulk physical silver.

Incidentally, the rumor that circulated afterwards was that Berkshire Hathaway granted an extra six months to the short-sellers of the silver contracts, but the sellers had to pay the company 50 cents per ounce for the additional time.

Patrick A. Heller was the American Numismatic Association 2012 Harry Forman Numismatic Dealer of the Year Award winner. He owns Liberty Coin Service in Lansing, Mich., and writes “Liberty’s Outlook,” a monthly newsletter on rare coins and precious metals subjects. Past newsletter issues can be viewed at http://www.libertycoinservice.com. Other commentaries are available at Coin Week (http://www.coinweek.com and http://www.coininfo.com). He also writes a bi-monthly column on collectibles for “The Greater Lansing Business Monthly” (http://www.lansingbusinessmonthly.com/articles/department-columns).His radio show “Things You ‘Know’ That Just Aren’t So, And Important News You Need To Know” can be heard at 8:45 a.m. Wednesday and Friday mornings on 1320-AM WILS in Lansing (which streams live and becomes part of the audio and text archives posted at http://www.1320wils.com).  

via numismaticnews

Silver to S&P Ratio: What It Tells Us : The Market Oracle

Nov 11, 2014 - 02:58 PM GMT
By: DeviantInvestor
 
Take the price of silver, multiply by 100, divide by the S&P 500 Index and chart it for 30 plus years.  What do we see?



Now look at the 13 years since 9-11 when the gold, silver and commodities bull markets began.

Silver to S&P Ratio (Si/SP) is currently at an 8 plus year low.

Si/SP is below its upward linear trend shown in red since 9-11.

Over the long term the ratio shows the desirability of hard assets such as silver versus the desirability of paper assets such as the S&P.

The ratio declined from 1980 to about 2001, increased to 2011, and crashed since then.

QE started in late 2008 and stimulated the S&P off it March 2009 lows. 

Most of the $Trillions in newly created Fed dollars went into the stock and bond markets, and not into the silver and gold markets.

Subsequent to 2011, the S&P has charged upward while silver has crashed to about 30% of its April 2011 high.

Now examine the difference between the ratio and the linear trend shown above in red.

COMPARISONS:

Item                                           S&P                                     Silver
3 – 5 year history              Triple since lows                     Down by 70%
Recent activity                  All-time highs                         70% below all-time highs
The Fed & QE                  QE levitates the S&P              QE – not much help
Chinese purchases           Probably not                          Huge purchases
Warfare increasing            Likely to hurt S&P                   Likely to help silver
Middle-East trauma           Likely to hurt S&P                   Likely to help silver
Political turmoil                  Likely to hurt S&P                   Likely to help silver

We could go on, but it is clear to me that the S&P is near all-time highs and is at risk from declining QE, excessive valuation, increasing wartime threats, Middle-East trauma, and US political turmoil.  Silver is near a 5 year low, 70% off its highs, and likely to rise based on the same issues that could hurt the S&P.

The Si/SP ratio shows that silver is deeply oversold and far below its typical levels.  The ratio is at an 8 year low, even below the 2008 silver crash lows, and not far above 30 plus year lows.

Based on Friday’s upticks, last week may have been the turning point for silver prices and the silver to S&P ratio.  Or perhaps the S&P will continue reaching for the sky even though QE is supposedly diminishing, while silver prices drop further below the cost of production.  Both seem unlikely but we shall see.

What is clear is that silver and gold are currently selling at bargain prices and the S&P is selling at very high prices.  If the silver market has finally found a bottom then silver is – right now – an excellent investment, financial insurance, and protection for your purchasing power and savings.

For those who bought silver (and gold) at higher prices, the long-term trend is up and will eventually express itself.  Waiting for the turnaround is painful, but now is a lousy time to lose sight of the “big picture” and sell at a loss.  Instead, now is a far better time to buy.

If you bought silver at lower prices, you probably feel good knowing that your investment is currently profitable even at these post-crash levels.  Further, silver prices are highly likely to increase substantially in the next few years.

KISS!  Keep Increasing Silver Stack!  Keep It Simple – Silver!
via marketoracle

Banks Keep Billions of Taxpayer Bailout $$ For Forex Probe Fines

Why is it we just know that no senior executive will do any meaningful jail time? And, commensurately the defense of “I was only following orders” will be the appeal of their underlings. When a government supervises the ‘oversight’ of itself the people never win. Not only do the guilty skate, but they’ll use our own money for their escape! Without any political party warranting our trust, ‘lamppost justice’ is beginning to come into focus.

Remember, loyalty and obedience to any political party should not be confused as misplaced patriotism for your country. The German people learned that lesson (for a while) with their adored leader of national socialism, didn’t they.

WIN-WIN suggestion: Small business owners begin offering their products and services for physical silver coins. Offer to redeem for a 1% higher premium than larger dealers of your prospective customer’s choice! This not only gives you a method to accumulate honest money, but deprive the banking crooks of your sweat and reward. 

Give pause a moment to ponder what if this method of doing business began to take hold!? It’ll start right here, with you. Don't create a woulda-coulda-shoulda experience for yourself and find your nose pressed to the window looking in.

If this makes sense to you, please share this post with anyone you know who would benefit - buyer or seller.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Linette Lopez Nov. 7, 2014, 10:18 AM

Wall Street has been bracing for a billion-dollar currency manipulation investigation that will be over in a few weeks, says The Wall Street Journal.
In the past few weeks, it seems banks have been scrambling to prepare for whatever regulators on both sides of the pond may find after a fairly boring earnings season. Performance was average to slightly below, and the total trading rout banks expected didn't turn out to be that bad.

But then the disclosures started coming.

First Citigroup revised its earnings down to $0.88 per share from $1.07 per share to add $600 million to its legal reserves.

Then JPMorgan Chase also disclosed that US and UK regulators were conducting criminal (the Department of Justice is in there) and civil probes into its Forex trading operations. Of course, it's cooperating, but it has no idea how much it could lose in such a settlement — maybe nothing, maybe $6 billion.

Finally, on Thursday after the closing bell, Bank of America followed Citi and revised its earnings down by $400 million, adding that to its legal reserves to deal with whatever comes of the probe.

So here's what we know about the investigation: Barclays, HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland Group, UBS, Citigroup, JPMorgan, and Bank of America are all involved.

Regulators will be charging these banks with failing to stop their employees from manipulating a specific currency exchange benchmark rate. There will be transcripts of their activity (always the most interesting part).

The UK banks will take about $1.8 billion of fines for this, but regulators in the US haven't finished negotiating. The DOJ hasn't finished its civil and criminal investigations either, and those may not be done until next year.
So in the meantime, save up.

via businessinsider