Chris Cassidy (@christophercassidy)

The machinations yesterday in BlackRock's $SLV - the rapid rise in ounces and shares in the trust while share price cratered, made me wonder again about the amount of stress there must be on the silver market and its relationship to that ETF. In November, I posted how, for the first time in many years, SLV withdrew silver from their NYC vault, instead of their normal practice of using their London vault(s) for additions or subtractions. The 103 million ounces stored in NYC remained rock steady for years until November 20 when 3 million oz were removed. This has been followed up though by two more 3 million oz withdrawals from NYC (with simultaneous 3 million oz additions to the SLV vault in London) on December 16th & January 16th. You have to ask yourself why a silver reserve in NY remained untouched for so long but now seems to be readily and regularly tapped at the same time that the London market has been undergoing stress for obtaining physical silver. The NYC SLV vault is now down to 94 million ounces. As a confirmation of a long-held belief that the NYC SLV vault ounces are indeed counted in the JPM Comex vault eligible pile, I noted that two separate ~3.25 million ounce withdrawals from the Comex occurred on the two days surrounding the December 16th and January 16th SLV vault withdrawals (see King of Queens meme below for a visual representation on how the LBMA and Comex both lay claim to SLV silver ounces) As I wasn't tracking SLV vault totals, I obtained that info from @pmbug & @mypreciousilver on twitter. @pmbug has an explanation for what he believes is happening with these NYC SLV vault withdrawals. (snapshot below)