Hello:
I'm posting this article by GATA contributor/collaborator Frank
Veneroso. He persistently sustains we are in a commodities
bubble
(except, maybe, for gold), the prices of which will revert to their
means. This view is diametrically
opposed to others, such as Adam
Hamilton, who believe we are in a true demand-driven commodities
bull,
driven especially by China's voracious appetite.
In another paper I will post, Veneroso states:
"When the hedge fund mania for metals abates — which it will, for they
are traders, in the end — silver is likely to crash, and it may visit
once again the sub
$5.00 zone for an extended period. Even if the gold price holds."
I'd like to hear cafe members' take on this. Real demand, or a bubble?
Best,
Arg.
Veneroso’s View 1 March 16, 2006
Blanco Research, L.L.C. For the week of March 1, 2006
Long-Term Look: 256 Years Of Commodity
Prices
Commodities:
The Long View
March 16, 2006
1.) Look at this chart. In the last two-and-a-half centuries there have
been only nine big moves in commodity
prices.
2.) They have almost all been associated with war-related inflations in
the general price level. They have been due more to such inflation than
to an increase it the relative price of goods.
3.) They have always reverted to the mean in real [i.e., inflation-adjusted] terms. And usually
with alarming speed, as they tend to spike.
4.) The rise in commodity prices this time has been as large in nominal [i.e., "money of the day"] percentage terms
as any single cycle move.
5.) But it has had no discernable impetus from war-related inflation.
It is anomalous in that it is a persistent rise in real terms.
6.) We are either in a new
“Chindia Era” or investment
and speculative flows are responsible.
7.) I argue the latter. Financial
flows have created historically
unprecedented “overshooting”.
8.) History suggests we will
mean-revert...and quickly...from this
spike top.
My Case for a Speculative Bubble
in Commodities...Revisited
I have made this point again and again: the current
cyclical bull move in commodities is, in percentage terms, the largest
amplitude and longest duration super cycle bull move in commodities in
a half century. It is as large or larger in real terms as any in
history over a single “cycle”.
There have been very few cyclical bull moves in commodities that can
even compare — at most perhaps nine over a period of 250 years. Almost
all of them have been associated with wartime inflations. That makes
the current cyclical bull move in commodities anomalous indeed.
In nominal terms, this cyclical bull move exceeds, in percentage [nominal, evidently] terms,
the move from 1968 to 1974
and the subsequent move from 1976
to 1981. To be sure, the entire move from 1968 to 1981 exceeds
that of this cycle — but the time period involved was twice as long.
Also, there was a huge increase in the general price level from 1968 to
1981. Then almost all indices of general price inflation increased by
almost three times. So most of that overall increase in commodity
prices was due to inflation in the general level of prices and not to
the relative price of commodities.
By contrast, inflation has been minimal since late 1999 [??], making the increase in
the real price of commodities in this cycle greater than that of the
1968-1981 super cycle.
If you look across this chart, you’ll see that most of the big moves of
commodities were due to inflations related to wars. That was true for
the bull move at the time of the Vietnamese War from 1968 to the
mid-1970s. It was true of the increase in commodity prices from 1939 to
1951 — a period that spanned the Second World War and the Korean War.
The bull market in commodities that ended in 1920 resulted from the
monetary issuance associated with the First World War. Again, the bull
move that ended in 1864 was associated with the inflation of the Civil
War. And the moves that ended in 1815 and in 1781 were associated
with the War of 1812, the Napoleonic Wars, and the aftermath of the
United States’ Revolutionary War.
What this look back at history tells us is that price spikes in
commodities have always been due in some way or other to the onset of
generally inflationary conditions, usually as a result of wartime
finance or its aftermath. Inflation adjusted or real commodity prices
simply do not have long and lasting bull markets.
Let us apply that historical lesson to today’s quite extraordinary
commodity price boom. In real or inflation adjusted terms it has been
huge and persistent. That makes it different
from any commodity bull market in history.
Some argue that this totally unique dynamic in commodity prices is due
to the dawn of a new era of resource scarcity and a unique economic
event — the “Chindia Boom”. Others like myself, attribute it to a
bubble created by institutional and hedge fund speculation.
“In earlier papers on this commodity cycle, I believe I demonstrated that the
Chindia Boom has not created a super cycle in industrial commodity
demand.”
As to a new era of resource scarcity, perhaps a case can be made for oil.
(The peak oil thesis).
And something of a scarcity case has always applied for gold. But I find it hard
to make a comparable case for other commodities: supply responses may
be lagging demand right now, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t on the
way.
The odds are that this commodity boom is all about financial investment
and speculation. I have argued that pension and endowment fund
investment is overstated and that hedge fund speculation is understated.
In the end, for all such investors and speculators, past trends drive
current positions. Rising relative prices of commodities will — and, in
fact, already are — driving these markets into surpluses. [Hamilton & others say this
takes 5-10 years.]
When obvious supply excesses finally change the price trend, the
investment and speculative flows will reverse.
Unless the supply side of oil is different this time from the supply
side of all commodities in all of the history of the industrialized
era, as long as generalized price inflation remains low, commodity
prices will mean-revert. History tells us we should see once again the
nominal commodity prices of the late 1990s. It tells us that commodity
prices spike, even when there has been a significant rise in the
overall level of all prices — which has not been this time. And history
tells us that when commodity prices mean-revert, it should happen very
quickly.
Quite a quandary. On the one
hand, there are those predicting silver
will hit 30, 50, 80, even $100/oz. On the other, here's Veneroso
talking about it crashing back down to sub $5.00 levels. What to do?
--------------------------------------
The Lesser Bubble (To Base Metals)
I know. I am a broken record. A Cassandra on commodities for too long
and now too wrong.
Well, here it goes again. Same story, except this time it is silver.
April 19, 2006
Introduction
The recent explosion in the price of silver, amidst all the hype about
metals and the silver ETF, has led me to review the fundamental
background for silver. I’ve ignored silver for a long time for a very
simple reason. In the early
1990s, I was a strident silver bull. I did a study on the silver
market for Penoles at the very beginning of the decade. My conclusion
was that the official statistics – compiled by Jeffrey Christian at the
time – understated growth in silver demand in Asia. That implied the
silver market was in a much larger deficit than the official
statistics portrayed.
Shortly thereafter Ted Green of GFMS (http://www.gfmsmining.com/)
looked into silver demand in the
course of his annual survey work on gold demand. He confirmed that
global silver demand and its growth, was, in fact, was higher than
portrayed in the official statistics. Shortly thereafter, GFMS began to
compile statistics on global silver supply/demand. This new data showed
a market deficit of somewhere
between 100 to 150 million ounces on total supply/demand of somewhat
less than 800 million ounces. In addition, there were government sales
of close to 20 million ounces. So the
total deficit between fabrication demand, on the one hand, and mine and
scrap supply, on the other hand, was as much as 170 million ounces.
It seemed to me at the time that a market deficit of more than 20% of
supply/demand was unsustainable. At some point, the liquidation of
private and official above ground stocks would abate and the price of
silver would rise.
But the price of silver did not appreciably rise. In 1995 a prop desk I
knew accumulated approximately 200 million ounces of silver, which it
removed from the Comex and other depositories.
To my great surprise this huge purchase did not have an appreciable
positive impact on the price of silver. That made me worry that
something was wrong with the silver statistics.
(This large purchase was subsequently liquidated). Two years later,
Warren Buffet purchased approximately 150 million ounces of silver. The
announcement of his silver purchase caused a spike in the price of
silver, but it was brief and transitory. The silver price soon fell
back to its prior sub $5.00
level. By now I concluded that
something must surely be the matter with the official silver statistics.
If the silver market was truly in a sustained large deficit, and with
sizable private purchases
like this, the silver price should by now have exploded. It did not.
The odds were that the data was seriously flawed and the silver market
had not been in the large physical deficit that I had earlier thought.
Consequently,
I ceased paying much attention to the silver data.
Gold & Silver: A Tale Of Two
Equilibrium Prices
The recent
explosion in the silver price has drawn me back to a supply/demand
analysis of silver. What I have found is that, whatever the supply/demand balance in silver
was a decade ago, it has
greatly deteriorated. From all I can tell, developments over the
last decade have been very bearish for silver.
In a nutshell, what have I concluded? A comparison with the gold market
is pertinent. The gold
market remains in a significant supply/demand deficit (where deficit is
defined as the difference between fabrication demand and bar hoarding
outside Europe and North America, on the one hand, and mine and scrap supply, on the
other). [This is an unusual
notion!] I define the commodity
equilibrium price of gold as the price that
would prevail
if there was no liquidation or accumulation of above ground stocks by
either private investors in the developed world or official entities.
In the Gold Book in 1998, I estimated that this commodity equilibrium
price was on the order of $600 an ounce. I expected that the demand
trend in gold would be stronger than the mine supply trend over the
coming decade. [1998-2008]
Therefore, in nominal terms, this commodity equilibrium price for gold
would rise to perhaps $700 or $800 by the middle of the current decade.
I believe something like that has, in fact, occurred, since the gold
price last year averaged in the mid $400s, even though it was greatly
depressed below its commodity equilibrium by still-persisting large
scale official selling.
The silver market stands in
striking contrast. The silver market was no doubt in a very
substantial deficit (as defined above) in the early to mid 1990s. This
deficit may not have been 170 million ounces annually, but it was no
doubt substantial. This implied that silver’s commodity price
equilibrium was well above the average price of about $5.00 an ounce
that prevailed at thetime.
In
complete contrast to gold, there has apparently been a huge adverse
swing in the silver market balance since the mid 1990s. The official
GFMS data may be very flawed as to the level of both supply and demand.
But, its tracking of the changes over time in the supply/demand
components is probably not that bad. These changes show a cumulative
swing from deficit to surplus of perhaps 150 million ounces over the
course of less than a decade. During this period the real price of
silver did not rise. A decade ago, a $5.00 silver price prevailed only
because of an extremely large liquidation of above ground stocks. By
2004, a $6.00-plus nominal price (equal to close to a $5.00 real price
in 1995 prices) prevailed with perhaps no liquidation of above ground
stocks.
Why has this occurred? Above all because the trend in global
fabrication demand for silver has been extremely weak. This includes
demands from the rapidly growing Indian sub-continent.
At the same time, the supply trend has been typical of industrial metals,
averaging perhaps 3% per annum.
The corollary of the above is that silver’s commodity price equilibrium
has fallen significantly in nominal terms over the last decade and has
fallen even more in real terms.
The contrast between gold and silver is striking. If anything, gold’s
real commodity equilibrium price has risen. Stagnant mine supply has
helped. Silver’s has fallen
dramatically. Gold is cheap at $600 and will work higher as the
liquidation of the above ground official hoard ebbs. Silver is
now expensive. If one assumes no liquidation of above ground stocks, its commodity equilibrium price is probably
close to $6.00 and may be falling.
Gold
Versus Silver: A Historical Perspective
From the long perspective of history, this divergence in the
“equilibrium” prices of gold and silver is nothing new.
When Isaac Newton was the Master of the Mint in England, the ratio of
the price of gold to the price of silver was five or six to one, if my
memory is correct. By the 19th century the ratio of the price of gold to
the price of silver in monetary coinage was 16 to one. In
the late 1960s in the US, the price of gold was fixed at $35 an ounce
and the price of silver at $1.29 an ounce, for a ratio of 27 to one.
Three decades later in the 1990s, the price ratio between these two
metals was closer to 70 to one.
If the above conclusion is correct, gold’s commodity equilibrium price
is probably now $700 or $800 an ounce. Silver’s commodity equilibrium
price is perhaps $6.00 an ounce. This would imply a widening in this
ratio to well over 100 to one.
Why is this the case? In my 1998 Gold Book I showed that, based on the
best historical data available, the real price of gold has remained
roughly unchanged over the last two centuries. This is in sharp
contrast to the real prices of other commodities, which have declined
in real terms by about 2% or 3% per annum.
Gold appears unique in that, for a constant real gold price, its
non-monetary demands have grown as rapidly or slightly more rapidly
than global income. In the jargon of the economist, we say that gold
has an income elasticity greater than unity or, in other terms, a
rising intensity of use. At the same time, for a constant real price,
primary gold mine supply grew less rapidly than global income. Given
these two ex ante trends, one would have expected a rising real gold
price over those two centuries. But two centuries ago half of all gold
demand was for monetary uses. By the 1990s the monetary stock was
being dis-hoarded — in other words, monetary demands
were now negative. It was the swing in
gold’s role as money that kept the real gold price from rising.
By contrast, there has been an exact propensity for primary supplies of
other commodities to grow more rapidly than global income.
Technological change and the discovery of new lands have resulted in a
rapid outward shift of commodity supply schedules. Consequently, it has
taken a declining real price to curb supplies and encourage demands and
bring these markets into balance.
These latter commodity dynamics have applied in spades to the base metals. Most silver
production occurs as a byproduct from the production of base metals and
gold. In effect, its output as a result of base metals production has
made it more readily available. Its supply side has been less stingy
than that of gold. This has contributed in part to its declining real
price and the decline in its price relative to a stable real gold
price I am less familiar with the historical dynamics of silver
demand. But the stagnation in silver fabrication demand over the last
decade suggests that something quite adverse to silver’s demand
dynamics now prevails.
Of course, the most striking thing about the above supply/demand
balances is the swing in the market from a large GFMS deficit in the
mid-1990s to a surplus by 2004. Implied net disinvestment refers to
private stock liquidation, which is GFMS’s measure of the deficit.
Implied net investment is their term for the market’s surplus. GFMS
includes official sales as part of supply, putting it “above”
the balance of deficit or surplus.
To my mind,
official sector sales are a stock liquidation comparable to
private dis-hoarding. So I would prefer to add the net government
transaction to implied net
disinvestment or investment
to get the true market balance. In doing so, the market’s deficit
peaked at close to 170 million
ounces in the mid 1990s. By 2004, treating net government sales as part
of the market balance,
the silver market remained in a small deficit. The swing in the balance
was on the order of
150 million ounces. Such a swing was adverse and huge.
What contributed to this adverse swing? Above all, it was the
stagnation in fabrication
demand. Fabrication
demand in 2004 was actually below the level of
1997. It was up only
slightly from the average level of the mid-1990s.
This is truly remarkable. It is hard to find a metal in which
fabrication demand has shown
only negligible growth in a period of almost a decade — at least when
the real price is stable
and therefore is not rationing demand. Most metals exhibit demand
growth under stable price
conditions of about 3% per annum. Even lead — the commodity with the
slowest trend growth
in demand — did better than silver over this period. Why the weak
demand trend? People point to
the eclipse of the use of silver in
photography.
To be sure, in the last several years, photographic demands have
fallen. But this decline
alone doesn’t tell the whole story.
The Indian Weather Vane
Perhaps more striking is the virtual stagnation in demand for silver in
jewelry and silverware.
We must remember that part of this demand is attributable to India,
whose economic
boom has been widely viewed as especially positive for precious metals.
Why, then, did it not
lift global demand for silver jewelry and silverware?
Some of the stagnation in global jewelry and silverware demands has
reflected changing
tastes in the West. For example, in many developed countries there is
less giving of silverware
as wedding gifts. But apparently there has also been surprisingly
little growth in Indian demand
for silverware and silver jewelry.
Here we may be seeing the signs of a dramatic change in tastes,
as the
Indian economy and
society modernize. There is a striking and possibly relevant precedent
in the case of gold. If one
goes back to the GFMS data on gold demand in the emerging Far Eastern
economies in the
1980s, one sees that bar hoarding was a very large portion of total
aggregate gold demand in
countries like Thailand or Hong Kong. As their societies grew
wealthier, more sophisticated,
and more modern, gold bar hoarding fell off sharply and is now often
negligible. At the same
time, rising incomes stoked demand for gold and adornment jewelry and,
on balance, overall
demand for gold remained stable or rising. But it lagged the growth in
incomes owing to the
disappearing role of gold bars as a savings medium.
Apparently something like this
is happening in India with respect to
silver. The accumulation
of silverware and silver jewelry has been most associated with India’s
rural sector. But it is
not the rural sector that has powered the dramatic growth of the Indian
economy over the last
decade. Rather, it has been the modern sector encompassing computer
software, electronics, IT
services, etc. Apparently, people in this sector have less of the
traditional proclivity to accumulate
silver objects than people in the rural sector. As a consequence,
Indian demands for silver
have seriously lagged aggregate Indian incomes.
What is the outlook for silver fabrication demand? No doubt some of the
newer industrial
applications of silver will grow as fast or faster than the world
industrial economy. Silver used
in photography has already been hurt by the inroads of digital
photography. Much of the damage
from this technological change has already been done. But there
probably remains somewhat
more ahead.
Key will be Indian demand for silver in jewelry, silverware, foils for
foods, threads for traditional
textiles, etc. I cannot forecast this. [See comment below about lead/silver
in soldering.] But if the evolution of gold
demand in Far East Asia
is a precedent, ongoing modernization of Indian society and the Indian
economy should cause
Indian demands for silver to continue to lag the likely rapid future
growth in Indian incomes.
The above is all relative to a more or less constant real price for
silver. This is what prevailed
on average over the last decade and a half. But the price of silver has
now doubled. The
question arises, what will the rise in the real price of silver do to
the trend in fabrication
demand?
In the 1980s and 1990s, emerging Asian demand for gold in ounces were
quite “price sensitive”.
When the price of gold rose sharply, demands fell off sharply. There
was what I call both
a short-term price elasticity and a long-term price elasticity, which I
discussed at length in the Gold Book of 1998. In the very short run,
Asian households’ demand for gold in the form of
jewelry and bar fell sharply when the gold price rose. If the gold
price then held its gain over
time, some, but not all, of these demand came back.
The short-term price elasticity is similar to the sticker shock that
retailers in a modern economy
often experience when they raise their prices. But, after a matter of
months, consumers
become adjusted to higher prices. They resume their past pattern of
expenditures on such items
as a percent of their household budget. If the relative price of the
good rises significantly, they
will spend perhaps the same amount of their budget. But that will of
course purchase fewer
units of the good.
What makes gold jewelry different from other consumer items is that the
gold contained
comprises a very large percentage of the cost of production. If the
gold price rises, so does the
cost of the final product. Households don’t target expenditures on gold
jewelry in terms of
ounces of gold contained; they target expenditures as a share of their
incomes. If the gold price
rises sharply, so do jewelry prices. Households spend the same amount
on gold jewelry but they
spend it on items with a lower coinage. Or, a hollow core. Or they
spend on a smaller item. Less
gold in ounces is consumed.
We should expect perhaps the same pattern of price elasticity with
respect to silver jewelry
and silverware. Silver is a far less expensive material than gold.
Therefore, its value comprises
less of the total value of a consumer item than in the case of gold.
Therefore, its longer run
price
elasticity should be less.
Even though silver comprises less of the value of the final consumer
item containing it, it
still comprises a significant portion. I have read one estimate by GFMS
that silver comprises
30% of the value of an item of silver jewelry (as opposed to 60% in the
case of gold). This
should make silver jewelry and sterling silverware far more price
elastic than other consumer
items.
Running the parallel with gold further, we might expect that, on a
doubling in the silver
price, Indian households should experience sticker shock. There should
be a very sharp initial
fall off in demand.
Over time, those
demands will come
back if the silver
price stabilizes at its
new higher level,
but they will not
come all the way
back.
There has been
another feature associated
with consumer
behavior
regarding precious
metals in the emerging
Far East. When
the gold price spiked
in the past, there
was a certain amount of selling of gold jewelry — creating a form of
scrap supply. As these
societies modernized
and tastes changed, this dis-hoarding
might have become more pronounced
and more permanent.
We might expect similar behavior as a response by households in India
to the recent
sharp rise in the price of silver.
Some of this behavior appears evident in recent monthly data on Indian
silver imports. In
the first months of 2004, the silver price ran up quickly to $8.00 from
its prior $5 average level.
Even though this spike was brief and transitory, Indian imports, owing
to curbed demand and
higher scrap supply, fell extremely sharply. Later in the year, the
silver price recovered. Indian
demands recovered on average, though perhaps not to the levels that
prevailed when the silver
price was lower.
That was the response of Indian silver imports to an extremely brief
spike in the silver price
to $8.50. What about the recent spike which has been sustained for
months over $8 and has
gone so much further? According to John Brimelow, who has monitored the
data for a decade
and a half on a daily basis, the price of silver in India is always at
a premium to the world price.
When silver spiked to $8.50 two years ago the Indian silver price fell
relative to the world price,
but a premium still persisted. Yet Indian imports collapsed. Now John
tells me the Indian silver
price has gone to a noticeable discount to the international price.
That suggests a possible net
export of silver from the Indian subcontinent. The above described
short-term and tong-term
elasticities must be at work in spades.
A Looming Glut
Silver is largely a by-product of base metal and gold production. Gold
mine supply has
stagnated for almost a decade. Base metal production expanded rapidly
in the late 1990s but
ground to a standstill in the early years of this decade. Overall,
silver mine supply, largely
through by-product production, has risen about 3% a year, a little more
rapidly than trend base
metal supply growth and much more rapidly than gold mine supply growth.
What is the outlook? As a by-product of gold production, one would
think the outlook
would be for slow growth. However, the decline in the output of global
gold supply stems in
large part from a severe decline in South Africa. The South African
mines produce little silver.
By contrast, there is a rapid build up of gold production going on in
Mexico. Those mines are
very silver rich, with silver often accounting for half of
output by
value. This mix shift will
result in more rapid silver production from gold mines than most people
think.
More striking is the growth of silver output from base metal mines.
Lead/zinc mines contain
a large amount of silver. Lead, normally a “slow grower”, may
experience a 15% increase
to mine output over 2005 and 2006 combined. The same might be said of
refined copper output.
And again, silver, through lagging, is not far behind.
Taking all of the above together, silver mine
output is likely to be on
a rapidly rising trend,
with well above trend gains in the
4% - 6% annual range possible. Once
again, silver mine output
growth should easily outpace growth in fabrication demand. This would
have turned the
small silver deficit (before official sales, as I define it) into a
significant surplus, even if the silver
price had not risen. This implies a faster fall in the “commodity price
equilibrium” of silver
in both real and nominal terms.
Potentially Dangerous Holes In
The Official Data
The most salient aspect of the GFMS silver data in recent years has
been the emergence of
China as a major official sector seller. This appears only at the end
of the 1990s. It continues
Veneroso’s [i.e., this
author's] View 7 April 19, 2006
into 2004, though in that year the pace of sales fell from a peak of
close to 100 million ounces
to only 40 million ounces.
GFMS cannot identify the source of much of the metals liquidation in
their balances
throughout much of the 1990s. They admit that their grasp of East Asian
official stocks and liquidation
has not been that good. It is possible that there was more liquidation
of Chinese (and
other East Asian) official stocks in the early 1990s than GFMS has
identified. That would perhaps
explain why the silver price did not explode in the 1990s despite
sustained recorded
deficits and two extremely large one-off private purchases.
What is the outlook for future official sales? Obviously, in the long
run, they will cease.
GFMS has apparently revised up their estimate of Chinese official
holdings. They expect those
sales to abate, but they should persist over the intermediate run,
though at lower rates than prevailed
at the turn of the decade.
However, the prospect for such sales remains clouded because of the
size of silver stocks
outside the familiar depositories. GFMS notes that, over history 40
billion, ounces of silver have
been mined. That is equal to 60 times annual mine supply. The ratio is
a little less, but comparable
to, that of gold. Of course, as silver is a less valuable metal, more
of the above ground accumulation
over history has been lost. But there is still a lot of silver out
there. As GFMS notes, a
mere 1% of that total of all silver ever mined is equal to 400 million
ounces.
What is unclear is what has happened to the silver coinage that was
such a large part of
monetary issue in countries like China. GFMS notes higher than expected
European official
sales from the melting of old coins. It is possible that the historical
legacy of coinage and silverware
held in emerging economies may work its way into official sales and
other channels for
longer than many expect. This was certainly the case with the surprise
surge in Chinese official
sales that occurred in silver at the turn of the decade.
Conclusion
By 2004 the large deficits in the silver market gave way to balance
owing to an adverse
trend in global fabrication demand against a decent trend in supply
typical of base metals markets.
These trends should persist. In particular, we should now be in a
period of accelerated
mine supply which should throw the silver market into a surplus (as I
define before official
sales) at $6.00 silver.
On the recent run up in the silver price we should see the emergence of
a large surplus.
Some components of demand are surely quite price elastic. Scrap supply
should exhibit some
elasticity. The recent fall in the Indian silver price relative to the
world price may reflect a combination
of the two. In India alone the Indian balance could shift by more than
100 million
ounces at an annual rate. At the same time, the same elasticities
should be operative outside
India.
In addition, official sales should persist. They have had a tendency to
rise into price spikes.
The same may now be occurring. If one takes into account the
accelerated trend in mine supply,
the above-ground demand and scrap elasticities and some official sales,
then the recent run up in
the silver price could easily take the silver market from a balance to
a surplus in the hundreds of
millions of ounces on an annual basis. This exceeds even the more
optimistic (and, in my opinion,
totally unrealistic) estimates of flows into the silver ETFs.
Silver
has a long history of rallying into the $10 range, ending its
rise with a parabolic
ascent. These rallies have clearly been driven by trend
following
speculative behavior in U.S. futures markets. The same is
happening
again, though amplified greatly by the metals mania
that has taken over the hedge fund world.
Somehow, on past spikes, there were offsetting surpluses that “filled
the boots” of trend-following
speculators. As a consequence these spikes always ended in crashes.
This time the speculative buying far exceeds that of past episodes.
Therefore, we must ask, will the emergence of market surplus matter
this time? At least
over the short run? It is hard
to say. We hear that one commodity hedge
fund alone may currently
be carrying a long position in copper physical, futures and
OTC
forwards of perhaps $10 billion.
That is unprecedented. It is too
large for such a market. It and
similar positions have skied
copper to unimaginable heights.
What if such firepower is turned on the smaller silver market? A $10
billion position is 800
million ounces at today’s high price. That is equal to a year’s total
supply/demand. It exceeds all
known deliverable silver in identified depositories. It is seven times
Buffet’s
position. It is equal
to the entire position of the Hunts’
at the peak $50 an ounce price
they took it to. It would
be a
multiple of a very large annualized market surplus and would dwarf
likely inflows into the ETF.
And there are a group of other hedge funds that have been acting in
concert with this one hedge
fund with so large an alleged copper position.
But in those past episodes of silver spikes and crashes the silver
market was healthier. It
was in sizeable deficit to begin with. It was not in balance or
surplus. The trend in fabrication
demand was stronger. So, in this cycle there is much potential for an
offsetting swing in the
short-term balance of a greater magnitude. Whatever the hedge funds do,
if the silver market
goes into appreciable surplus, the funds will have unprecedented
difficulty in getting out.
When the
hedge fund mania for metals abates — which it will, for they
are traders, in the
end — silver is likely to crash, and it may visit once again the sub
$5.00 zone for an extended
period. Even if the gold price holds.
Veneroso’s View 9 April 19, 2006
Well, at least he admits it in
the first paragraph, he's been too wrong
for too long. This is just like the paper he wrote about copper,
warning of its imminent collapse from $1.50. So if we extrapolate from
that formula, silver will be $25. - $30. next year.
What's the problem, Frank? Can't stand the prosperity?
-Jason
thanks for that Jason-God i've
never read anything so long winded and
depressing-i think if all those things could go wrong you would have
heard about at least a few from other analysts
He does sound like a broken
record.
People buy when others buy and it is hyped.
Silver will rise.
Copper is now 3.49.
When it was 1.50, frank called it a top.
I said, 'Why? Why not 5.00?'
Only another 1.50 to go!
Got Silver? If not, call up Frank, and ask if he has any for sale.
-Jason
I don't mean to harp on Frank, he
has been with GATA for many a year
now, but here is another thought.
In 1980, there was an estimated 10 billion ounces of silver above
ground. Much was old coinage from the previous silver standard era.
Grandma's silverware contributed to that pile.
Fast forward to today, and we have a couple hundred million left. Say,
1 - 3% of the old surplus.
How long will it take to rebuild a 10 billion ounce surplus again?
Mines produce 600 - 650 M oz a year. 800 - 850 M oz are consumed by
industry. Monetary (investment) demand is rising. Where will a future
surplus come from? The blue sky? At what price will we see even our
FIRST YEAR of a surplus? Because there is NONE is sight yet!
Rest assured, silver will reach 35 - 70/oz. before we see a surplus.
-Jason
Thank you, gentlemen. I feel much
better. Quite refreshing.
Best,
Arg.
The issue
warranting caution with silver has been ( in my mind ) that 90% of
silver goes to industrial end users with the balance going to
investors/speculators . I am certain that the percentage that investors
hold is higher now than it was when I read the original statistic about
two years ago .
People are now buying silver for monetary reasons . Industrial
demand will soon be irrelevant as people buy silver to protect their
wealth from inflation .
Silver can only be considered as a bubble in the context of a
stable monetary system with little or no inflation . That is clearly
not the case . The bottom line for tangibles is how their future supply
will relate to the supply of Federal Reserve Notes .
The way things are going now makes Jason's predictions very
conservative .Industrial use is very relevant
when you look at silver as one of
the
key replacements for lead in
soldering electronic parts. Europe does
not allow lead to be used as soldering material anymore.
Topic: |
Silver bubble? - Paper
by Frank Veneroso (9 of 11), Read 89 times
|
Conf: |
Gold
& Silver |
From: |
Anonymous
|
Date: |
Wednesday, April 26,
2006 10:24 PM |
"Most assemblers are choosing tin-silver-copper
alloys (SAC) for leaded
solder replacement. On a global basis Sn96.5 Ag3.0 Cu0.5 has been the
favored solder recipe."
(quoted from http://www.emsnow.com/npps/story.cfm?ID=10669)
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Topic: Silver bubble? - Paper by Frank Veneroso (10
of 11), Read 68 times
Conf: Gold & Silver
From: George Carson safetynz@xtra.co.nz
Date: Thursday, April 27, 2006 09:20 AM
Both silver and zinc are going to be in severe shortage situation
before long.
I have studied the situation fairly closely and would not be buying so
much silver stocks unless I really believed that we are going into a
dire shortage situation.
The key drivers in my view are:
1. huge move to cell phones and mini computers and all of them have
just a little bit of silver in their manufacture.
2. Move to colloidal silver and nano technology making it possible for
silver to be used for medicinal purposes and no longer deposit in the
cells of the body.
3. Chinese industrial boom. Hey! The Chinese have recently tried the
oldest trick in the book. They come out and say that they cannot
sustain such a cracking pace. They force down the price of silver from
14.50. Then the swoop in and buy up as much as they can.
4. The Arabs are buying up silver and gold for possible setting up
dinar as the monetary base of the world.
5. For some reason, Russia is buying up huge stockpiles of gold and
this flows across into silver.
6. Warren Buffet has taken a strong position even though he may have
recently liquidated.
7. The silver ETF is going to remove much of the free radical flow in
the world.
8. Scrap merchants are now prolific and active and gathering up any
spare stuff that they can find.
9. Talk of remonetization using silver coins both in Mexico and USA.
10. Le Metropole Cafe and other chat shows.
HELLO HELLO
did I get 10 our of 10 or do you want some more doom and gloom from
Frank?
The forecasts that I have seen all indicate that the world wide
shortage of silver and zinc will continue until about 2020.
The only other possibility is that there might be a number of huge
mines found. This is what happened when last time there was a major
slump in the price of silver.
Having said that, we now have much more sophisticated means of
detecting mines even using satellites in space to find the magnetism
and then drilling follows.
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Topic: Silver bubble? - Paper by Frank Veneroso (11
of 11), Read 71 times
Conf: Gold & Silver
From: Christopher Brown brown.2583@osu.edu
Date: Thursday, April 27, 2006 09:44 AM
Frank Veneroso, meet Ted Butler...