this is from ed steer of casey research:

Here's an e-mail exchange I had with Ted Butler yesterday that you may find of interest. To set the scene, neither October nor January are traditional delivery months for silver. Maybe a small handful of buyers would call for delivery. However, in October...1,100 contracts were delivered...5.5 million ounces. As of Tuesday, there were 1,600 silver contracts delivered on the Comex in January...8 million ounces. Ted was amazed by the 1,100 contracts in October...and blown away by the 1,600 in January. From here, we pick up the e-mail exchange...

Ted: (early p.m.Wednesday) Today was the last trading day for January COMEX futures contracts. Kinda interesting in silver. After a very high total amount of deliveries of 1,600 contracts (8 million oz) for silver for the month so far, the estimated volumes suggest 500 were traded on Thursday, Will have to wait for tonight's official volume but it is a very noteworthy amount. Plus, Jan. settled at a slight premium to the Feb. contract...and even with March. It reflects tightness (along with just about every other indicator).

Ted: (late last night)...Official volume stats show 500 Jan. silver traded today.

Ed: Does that mean another 500 contracts were delivered in the January delivery month? You said that's what it meant. So now we're up to 2,100 contracts delivered...right?

Ted: Close, but not exactly. The 500 contracts traded today is likely to result in an increase in Jan. open interest. Maybe by 500, maybe less (depends on how they count the volume). That new open interest must be settled by delivery, or delivery equivalent (an EFP...or Exchange For Physical). We need a few days to know for sure. But it is very likely that Jan. will end up with 2,000 or more contracts delivered, a very significant number. Hell, 1,600 was already a significant amount.

On Tuesday I ran a graph of the current holdings of the gold ETF...GLD. Today I've got the same graph for silver, which Gene Arensberg was kind enough to provide on a moment’s notice late last night...for which I thank him. According to Gene..."So far this month, SLV has added 660.16 tonnes of new silver to its holdings. If we don’t count the first two months after its inception, this is the largest one month addition of silver metal to SLV."

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