this is from ed steer, who says the signs of a silver shortage may be spreading to good delivery silver:

I got an e-mail from Ted Butler yesterday which is worth sharing. It has to do with backwardation in the silver price. We're not there yet, but the events of the last several days indicate that we seem to be heading in that direction. Here's the e-mail, where I'm paraphrasing a bit..."Based on the settlement prices just posted (yesterday afternoon at the close of regular business on the Comex...around 1:30 Eastern time), the silver spreads have tightened noticeably over the last few days. Last week the Dec/Mar silver spread was about 4.5 cents. On Monday it was 3.8 cents, and is now down to 1.4 cents today (now yesterday). There is some tightening on gold spreads, but not as pronounced as silver."

In a subsequent telephone conversation, Ted mentioned that it's the bad guys (JPM/HSBC) that control the spreads...and this narrowing will not go unnoticed by traders who follow these sorts of things. Ted explained to me that backwardation is synonymous with a shortage of good delivery silver...i.e. 1,000 ounce bars. IF we end up in backwardation (which is what this recent data suggests is about to happen), then nobody will be able to deny that there is a shortage.

http://caseyresearch.com/displayDrp....