Day: December 6, 2021

Silver Institute Interim Market Review

The Silver Institute recently released an interim Silver Market Review, which is basically a mid-year update. It has some interesting highlights that I want to bring to your attention.

First, the Institute expects every key area of silver demand to rise in 2021, with record overall industrial demand despite supply chain challenges. Overall demand is expected to reach 1.029 billion ounces, surpassing the billion-ounce mark for the first time since 2015.

Industrial demand is expected to be strong, thanks to a post-pandemic recovery, reaching a new high of 524Moz. Solar, the single largest demand component, should be up 13% to a new high over 110Moz, underscoring silver’s importance in green energy. Electrical and electronics should be up 10%.

Impressively, they expect physical investment demand to be up by 32%, or 263Moz. That’s up by 64Moz, or 25.5% of overall demand. Strong buying is expected to be led by the U.S. and India, whose demand is expected to triple after falling dramatically last year. They also expect silver ETFs to see another 150Moz of net purchases, after last year’s stunning 331Moz. That will add up to a total 564Moz over the past three years. At Nov. 10th, global silver ETF

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Did You Have To, Jerome?

Le sigh.

A month ago I thought things were finally sorted. The Fed made its highly telegraphed tapering move while assuring everyone they would not raise rates at least until the taper job was done by mid-next year. That created a clear runway, finally, for gold to act as an inflation hedge in a highly inflationary environment.

And for two whole weeks that is exactly what we got. Gold gained on news of inflation and, since there’s inflation news almost every day, it pushed the yellow metal up 6.5% to hit $1874 per oz. in mid-November.

Apparently, two weeks of clear sailing is all we got.

Ten days ago the gold market seemed to get whacked on news of Jerome Powell’s reappointment as chair of the Federal Reserve. As I wrote last week, I don’t think the reappointment of a dove-tending chair known for telegraphing his moves and being pushed back from tightening fairly easily was really what pressured gold; I think it was that rising COVID case counts in Europe prompting new restrictions pressured the Euro, which boosted the US dollar, which pressured gold.

OK, that was fair enough. But yesterday wasn’t fair.

In his semi-annual testimony to

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