Silver: The Shortage Story Splits in Two
🔹Physical silver shortage hits London, and it’s getting serious.
🔹Lease rates in London have exploded to 39%, a full-blown panic signal.
🔹If banks can’t find the metal, they’ll be forced to buy back futures or deliver actual silver - both actions that could ignite a violent price surge.
In India, the crunch is different.
🔹It’s not a hedging blow-up, it’s a demand–supply squeeze.
🔹Imports are restricted till Mar’26. Silver ETFs trade at premiums. Jewelers and refiners are running low on stock. Dealers are rationing deliveries.
So globally, we’re watching:
🔹London’s paper silver crisis
🔹India’s physical scarcity + policy bottleneck
🔹Different causes, same consequence - tightness in physical silver that can reprice the entire market.
Note that producers slow-walk or with-hold supply if they are not forced to sell or contract out production in order to pay expenses. Look at the massive paydown of debt going on by miners. This means they don't need to sell right away, and can HOLD for better future sale or contract price. It is now in a "fatal" feedback loop as miners become debt free and can NOT SELL until we hit $75-80 for some portion of their production. This will kill all the massive shorts like Bank of America...fatal price for them is now just below $80/oz, imo.
Definitely something odd going on with mints running out or stopping production in October (just a bit early). This usually doesn't happen until November for their production revamp for the next year from what I understand. So something definitely happening, AND the "dire situation" on the mint side of things is likely being exaggerated a bit.