Further to my post on Gold ETFs, below are the figures for silver.
| ETF/Custodial Facility | Silver Ounces as at July 2009 | % share of Total Privately Held |
| ishares | 283,831,312 | 20.3% |
| Central Fund/Trust of Canada | 59,648,793 | 4.3% |
| Zurcher Kantonalbank | 52,343,842 | 3.7% |
| ETF Securities | 19,133,459 | 1.4% |
| GoldMoney | 16,234,617 | 1.2% |
| Bullion Management Group | 5,444,685 | 0.4% |
| Claymore | 2,235,000 | 0.2% |
| e-Gold | 85,244 | 0.0% |
| Silver "Products" Sub-total | 438,956,951 | 31.4% |
| COMEX | 118,227,405 | 8.4% |
| TOCOM | 250,778 | 0.0% |
| Total Other Privately Held | 842,564,866 | 60.2% |
| Total Privately Held | 1,400,000,000 | 100.0% |
Compared to gold, the silver ETFs provide more transparency, which is another way of saying there is less privately held silver stock compared to gold.
Bron, off-topic, could you please take a look at this blog post about Bundesbank gold leases:
ReplyDeletehttp://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/2009/08/gordon-browns-bottom-and-sale-of.html
Thanks.
I am not surprised to see central bank holdings held with other banks nor that some of those holdings have been lent out. Some central banks are upfront about it, others mix physical metal & leased metal and just report one "asset" line.
ReplyDeleteDuring normal markets getting a return on your gold probably didn't seem too risky to a central bankers. However they are likely now reconsidering their "counterparty exposure" and whether the bank to whom they lent the metal has the balance sheet to withstand any losses (from the people they onlent the metal to).
Thanks. I understand and agree. We're entering into a new era of hair-trigger rush to the exits. Another big bank failure is all it would take to blow up the fiats.
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