41 METRIC TONS OF SILVER WITHDRAWN FROM THE SHANGHAI FUTURES EXCHANGE

In the past week, the Shanghai Futures Exchange suffered another large withdrawal of silver from its warehouse stocks.

The Shanghai Futures Exchange has had another 41 metric tons (1.3 million oz) of silver withdrawn since April 10th.

Silver inventories have declined to their lowest levels since the exchange started building its silver stocks in August, 2012.

From The SRSRocco Report:

In my article, Large Decline Of Shanghai & Comex Silver Stocks, I reported that inventories at both exchanges fell significantly since the beginning of March. According to the most recent data, the Shanghai Futures Exchange had another 41 metric tons (1.3 million oz) of silver withdrawn as well as a million oz removed from the Comex since April 10th.

(Note: figures are in Kilograms)

Here we can see that the silver stocks at the Shanghai Futures Exchange declined from 372 metric tons on April 10th, to 331 metric tons of Friday, April 18th. This was an 11% decline in total stocks in just 8 days.

Moreover, the Comex saw its silver inventories fall from 177.7 million oz to 176.7 million oz during the same time period.

I took the weekly data from the Shanghai Futures Exchange (SHFE) and made the graph below. Silver inventories at the SHFE peaked at 575 metric tons at the beginning of March (same time as the Comex), and declined 224 metric tons (42%) to reach an all-time low of 331 metric tons on Friday, April 18th.

The total withdrawal of silver from both exchanges since the beginning of March:

Shanghai Futures Exchange = -7.8 million oz (244 metric tons)

Comes Inventories = -6.7 million oz (208 metric tons)

In less than two months, a total of 14.5 million oz (452 metric tons) of silver were removed from both exchanges. The interesting thing to focus on here, is the difference in percentage of withdrawals at the two warehouses. While the Comex experienced a 4% decline of its inventories, the SHFE lost 42% of its total warehouse stocks.

Even more interesting… SHFE silver warehouse stocks are down a stunning 70% since their Peak of 1,123 metric tons, one year ago.

You see, after the big take-down in the precious metals last year, the SHFE silver stocks fell to a low of 385 metric tons by mid November. Over the past 4 months, the SHFE continued to build its silver inventories reaching 575 metric tons on Feb 28th (shown above).

For some reason, silver continues to be drained from both exchanges….coincidentally this is taking place at the same time the top banks are exiting the commodity trading business. On March 19th, JP Morgan announced:

JPMorgan sells physical commodities unit to Mercuria for $3.5 billion

and just out today:

Barclays to wind down commodities trading

Of course, these two banks are going to hold onto their precious metals trading activity… because how would the Fed continue to manipulate the paper price of gold and silver without the aid of these fine institutions.

Furthermore, ever since Deutsche Bank announced that it was exiting its participation in price-fixing of gold and silver on Jan 17th, there have been a rash of mysterious banker deaths and suicides.

Something very fishy and foul is taking place at the top banking institutions. Unfortunately all we can do is speculate, but I would imagine things are about to get a great deal more interesting as time goes by.

Got your gold and silver?