CME drops Silver Bond by 10%

Is 2018 the year of the silver rally? Keith Neumeyer, CEO of First Majestic Silver Corp., thinks so and expects the metal to climb eightfold over the next 3-5 years.

Therefore, yet again, with the LBMA acting as gatekeeper on who is allowed to be a direct participant in the LBMA Silver Price auction, ICE has its hands tied on meeting IOSCO’s requirement that the should be a reliable representation of interest, and there is zero chance that this silver auction will ever see the many 100s of silver trading entities taking part and zero chance that the auction will ever reflect the silver price discovery that these 100s of silver trading entities would bring to the table.

ICE Benchmark Administration expects to begin administering the benchmark and operating the auction underlying the London Bullion Market Association Silver Price from September 25, subject to regulatory approval, parent company Intercontinental Exchange said Tuesday.

The company announced in July that it had been selected as the new administrator for the LBMA Silver Price, replacing a joint effort by CME Group and Thomson Reuters which stepped down in March, less than three years after taking over.

Silver, known for being a market of extremes, is living up to its reputation this year.

Prices rallied 17 percent in the first four months of the year, only to reverse and wipe out those gains. Despite the selloff, investors are pouring money into exchange-traded funds, and assets have reached a record 21,211 metric tons, valuing the holdings at $11 billion.

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I could be whistling in the wind, but I wonder if silver’s decline over the past month has been a desperate attempt to shore up some liquidity at Noble. Although we probably will never know for sure, I take solace in the fact that if I am correct, then most likely Noble will have no more silver to sell.

Global silver mine production declined by 0.6 percent in 2016 to a total of 885.8 Moz. A large proportion of the drop was attributable to the lead/zinc and gold sectors, where production dipped by a combined 15.9 Moz. On a regional basis, Mexico registered the largest drop in production last year, followed by Australia and Argentina, yet those losses were partially offset by gains in Central and South America and Asia. Even so, Mexico was again the world’s largest silver producing country, followed by Peru, China, Chile and Russia.

Primary silver mine production grew by 1 percent to realize 30 percent of total silver mine output last year. Lead/zinc mines contributed 35 percent of 2016 by-product output, followed by copper mines at 23 percent and gold mining at 12 percent.

Silver scrap supply fell to 139.7 Moz in 2016, a level not seen since 1996, despite higher silver prices. The contraction was largely driven by lower Asian flows, due in part to lower industrial fabrication volumes. Scrap supply from the industrialized world was also muted, as partial jumps in flows from the United Kingdom and Europe in general, offset falls in North America and Japan.

London's silver price benchmark is plagued by big, unpredictable fluctuations that risk undermining its credibility and may complicate efforts by the London Bullion Market Association to find a new operator, according to a Reuters analysis of trading data and 10 industry sources.

The benchmark is used by silver producers and consumers around the world, including jewelers and electronics firms, to price their contracts in the multi-billion-dollar a day trade.

The figure generated at noon London time is intended to be a fair and accurate daily snapshot of the wider, fast-moving "spot" market. However, it has diverged widely from the spot price on a number of occasions since at least January 2016, leaving buyers and sellers with unexpected gains or losses, according to the Reuters analysis using Thomson Reuters data.