Retail Silver Supply Getting Cleaned Out | Andy Schectman
Summary
Retail silver supply is tightening: Silver Eagles are nearly sold out, junk silver premiums are climbing, and 100oz bars are scarce from tariff-driven import hesitation.
COMEX silver deliveries have set records for 13 straight months — December alone saw nearly 63 million ounces delivered, signaling sovereign-level accumulation rather than retail speculation.
CME margin hikes during silver rallies act as a coordinated shakeout of leveraged longs — but deep-pocketed buyers step in to absorb discounted metal and price snaps back.
JP Morgan and Citibank are taking house delivery of silver from Deutsche Bank, signaling US banks are now positioning net-long on physical rather than trusting future availability.
Geopolitical realignments — Venezuela intervention, BRICS military drills, and China's export curbs — are accelerating the drain on US silver inventories.
Alex Newman's takeaways
- Top takeaway The host references a recent conversation with Newman (Epoch Times / American Sentinel) about Trump's statement that Venezuela is just the beginning, with Cuba potentially next and other Western Hemisphere countries in scope.
- Newman's framing, as cited by the host, is that the policy aims to "liberate all the oppressed countries and eliminate these corrupt dictators in the Western hemisphere."
Andy Schectman's takeaways
- Top takeaway Schectman argues 2025 was "the year of the delivery" — December 2025 set an all-time high with about 63 million ounces of silver delivered in a single month, and the US has now seen 13-14 straight months of record deliveries, a pattern he calls fundamentally different from the 1980 and 2011 spikes because sovereign entities, central banks, and family offices are standing for delivery and US banks are now reportedly net long silver rather than short.
- He characterizes the CME/COMEX's two recent margin hikes (each roughly 30%, done in thin holiday trading) as "coordinated pickpocketing" to liquidate leveraged longs, but argues this cycle is different from 2011 because the deep-pocketed buyers (sovereigns, Tesla, Samsung, solar-panel makers) simply take the metal on the dips and the price snaps back.
- Reading from the January 5 delivery report, he highlights that Deutsche Bank issued 3.27 million ounces of silver while JP Morgan took 2.26 million ounces for a customer account and Citi took 2.16 million ounces for its house account, and frames this as the smartest, best-connected institutions prioritizing physical metal over warrants because they do not trust future availability.
- On the retail supply chain, he says Miles Franklin is "frightened" by sourcing difficulty, has almost no American Silver Eagles, sold out of the 2026 kangaroos, and that 100-ounce bars are scarce because dealers will not risk the tariff threat from Canada and Switzerland; he expects premiums to rise significantly as the public wakes up to the squeeze.
- On geopolitics, he flags China's upcoming silver export limits and reports China is about to lead the first-ever BRICS military exercise (naval drills off South Africa with Russia and Iran), arguing the message is far from routine and that Trump's warnings to Venezuela, Cuba, Colombia, and Nigeria may be aimed at BRICS countries that want to sell oil outside the dollar.
Tom Luongo's takeaways
- Top takeaway Schectman cites Luongo's "very compelling theory" that Trump is going after the European aristocrats over alleged election interference and color revolutions, expecting to expose them through commodities, the Bank of England, and the LBMA.
- Schectman ties Luongo's theory to current flows, noting (per the Economic Times) that European banks are reportedly still net short while US banks are net long, with metal coming into the US and silver now reclassified as critical.