Ted Butler: JP Morgan Is FULLY PREPARED For A DRAMATIC LIFTOFF In The Silver Price
SilverDoctors.com
March 8, 2018
“I’m not kidding when I say that JPMorgan’s massive physical position is the single most bullish factor I’ve run across in silver in all my studies…”
by Ted Butler via SilverSeek
To be sure, there are many who reject, out of hand, my allegation that JPMorgan has accumulated a massive amount of physical silver over the past seven years, amounting to 700 million ounces or more. That’s completely understandable, since I can’t document and point out all 700 million oz and few have taken the time to review the basis of my claim. It doesn’t matter that I first picked up on JPMorgan’s quest to acquire physical silver four years ago, by which time it had already accumulated 300 million oz and have been monitoring and reporting on it ever since – if I can’t show every ounce belonging to JPM, some will remain skeptical.
Heck, there are still some who doubt that the 135 million oz of silver that JPMorgan has moved into its own COMEX warehouse since 2011 belong to the bank, despite most of the silver being brought in as a result of JPMorgan taking delivery of that metal in its own name in futures contract deliveries. In this case, even seeing is still disbelieving. And please remember, it is in JPMorgan’s best interest that its physical metal ownership remain largely unknown, so the bank can’t be expected to confirm its holdings.
The highly visible 135 million oz of silver that JPMorgan holds in its own COMEX warehouse is more silver than ever owned by any private entity in history, eclipsing the amounts held by the Hunt Bros in 1980 or Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway in 1998. To those who wonder how JPMorgan could buy the most silver ever without driving prices higher (as was the case with the Hunt Bros and Buffett), look no further than the fact that JPMorgan was also the largest paper short seller in COMEX silver futures over the entire seven years of its physical accumulation.
Yes, I still believe Buffett came to sell short paper COMEX silver contracts after he acquired physical silver (that’s how he came to lose his metal in 2006); the big difference with JPMorgan is that the bank was the biggest paper short seller on the COMEX both before and during its epic accumulation of physical silver. Not only does this answer the question of why prices didn’t rise despite JPMorgan buying so much actual silver over the past seven years, it also presents the clearest evidence of commodity market price manipulation, a matter I will avoid today, even though it remains the overarching issue.
The issue today is the motivation behind JPMorgan’s epic accumulation of actual metal. To those who will remain unconvinced of the physical accumulation, this will matter little; but among those who accept that JPMorgan owns anywhere from 135 million to more than 700 million oz of silver (in the form of industry standard 1000 oz bars), I’ve detected differences of opinion as to JPM’s motivation for the accumulation.
My opinion, as I’ve consistently maintained, is that JPMorgan first began acquiring physical silver as the one surefire solution of covering its massive paper short position without driving prices sharply higher. Then, after acquiring enough physical metal to neutralize its dominant paper short position early on (by 2012), JPMorgan continued to accumulate hundreds of millions of physical ounces of metal with the sole intent of someday selling that silver at as high a price as possible.
Just to be clear, I don’t think JPMorgan envisioned in 2011 that it would amass the largest stockpile of silver in history at artificial low prices; no one could be that prescient. But JPM’s decision to buy physical metal as the solution to covering its otherwise impossible to cover massive paper short position was nothing less than a stroke of manipulative genius. And JPMorgan was smart enough to realize that once it had effectively covered its paper short position, any additional physical ounces acquired could be sold at a great profit someday.
But even among those who accept that JPMorgan has amassed epic amounts of physical metal, not all agree with my take on the motivation behind the accumulation. Many feel that the main motivation for JPMorgan accumulating physical silver is not to profit by someday by selling at a very high price, but instead to use the physical metal to prolong and extend the manipulation for as long as possible. Invariably, those feeling this way also sense this is related to JPMorgan acting on behalf of the US Government for various reasons, ranging from the US insuring it has adequate supplies of this vital material to keeping the price contained so as not to set off a price disruption in gold and broader financial markets.
I think I do understand why many feel this way and it revolves around the natural fatigue that sets in after years of truly rotten price performance and the very natural tendency to extrapolate current price levels into the future. And just to be objective, let me admit that any single entity holding a large physical position could be considered potentially bearish, since the possibility of sale clearly exists. But the same could be said of the massive physical accumulations of gold by Russia, China, India and elsewhere, where the possibility of sale also exists. But let me deal with the most popular alternative version that has been advanced for the silver manipulation continuing, namely, it is orchestrated by the US Government.
My immediate reaction to JPMorgan running the silver market as a front for the USG is who exactly in the government is running the show? Certainly not anyone I’ve observed over the past half-century of my adult life. And presently, the USG is more dysfunctional than any time in memory (if not in the history of the republic). But my list of reasons for seriously doubting the US Government is behind the manipulation doesn’t stop there. We did run up in silver to $50 fairly quickly in 2011 and I don’t recall any financial market upheaval or even much reaction in gold which rose around $100 (less than 10%) as silver climbed 250%. If silver’s price rise didn’t affect other markets back then, why would it in the future?
The Rest…HERE
