smiley, welcome to the sso forum. all of the silver shares were up today, some of them very strongly, so sso may have just gone along for the ride. the last figures i saw on short interest were 2.85 million, so it will be interesting to see next time if that has declined. i rarely do short-term trading, but i think this looks like a good area in which to buy on the dips.

i don't think there is an actual shortage of physical silver in that you can buy all you want on ebay, but you will have to pay up for it. the coin dealers know the current spot price is "managed" and they won't sell at that, so the spread has widened considerably.