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The Silver Short Squeeze (“aka the Silver Crunch”)

January 31, 2021 By Cedric Liem 1 Comment

Table of Contents
[Show][Hide]
  1. What is a Short Squeeze?
  2. How a Short Squeeze Happens?
  3. How to Carry Out a Short Sale?
  4. The Silver Short Squeeze
  5. r/wallstreetbets Silver Short Squeeze Thread
    1. What was the Motive? Divide and Conquer?
    2. More Info on SLV and Why NOT to Buy It
    3. What May Happen if the Silver Squeeze Carries Out Successfully?
  6. Why I’m Writing this Article
  7. Is there Silver Market Manipulation?
    1. Gold price manipulation is real; JPMorgan’s spoofing case explained
    2. Three JPM metals traders charged with market manipulation, ‘spoofing’
    3. JP Morgan & Silver: The Price Management Scheme Continues – Ed Steer
    4. Stroud Says Manipulation an Issue in Silver Market
    5. More Resources About the Metals Manipulation
      1. JP Morgan
      2. Bank of Nova Scotia
      3. Deutsche Bank
  8. Why Buy Physical Silver?
  9. How to Carry Out the Silver Short Squeeze?
    1. What Investments to Buy?
    2. Can We Short Squeeze Silver Buying Silver Coins?
    3. Calculations for Carrying Out the Silver Market Short Squeeze
    4. Where to Buy these Investments?
      1. Independent Dealers
      2. Bullion Banks
  10. Silver Promotional Materials
    1. Twitter Cover Photo
    2. LinkedIn Cover Photo
    3. Contests

What is a Short Squeeze?

A short squeeze is when speculators have to buy back an investment at a higher price because they sold their investment without owning it hoping to buy it back at a lower price. When you sell an investment without owning it, it’s called a short sale. The people who carry out a short sale are called short sellers.

How a Short Squeeze Happens?

A short squeeze happens when a short sellers are forced to buy their investment at a higher price than they sold it for because the investment went up in price instead of down.

For example, I sell 100 shares of General Motors at $50 without owning it. So, I get $5000 dollars credited to my account.

I also have to deposit a minimum amount of money into my account because I’m borrowing the stock from my brokerage.

Then, GM goes up to $60.

So, the minimum amount in my account is re-calculated and I have to add more money because I only put the minimum amount.

But, I don’t have any money to add to my account and I can’t afford to buy back GM shares at the higher price.

The brokerage will then buy back GM shares at whatever price they can and charge you for it. They will also charge me interest for borrowing the stock.

At this point, I was short squeezed.

How to Carry Out a Short Sale?

Speculators can sell an investment they don’t own by borrowing it from their brokerage. This is called a short sale.

Because you don’t own the investment and you’re borrowing it, it is considered a leveraged investment and it has margin requirements.

Margin requirments means you have to have a certain amount of money in your account based on the market price of the investment you are shorting.

In the case of shorting, your margin requirements increase when the investment price increases.

So, when the price increases, your margin requirements is re-calculated and compared to your current account value.

If your account is short, then you get a margin call and you have to add money to your account.

The Silver Short Squeeze

A silver short squeeze is just a short squeeze on some silver investment.

r/wallstreetbets Silver Short Squeeze Thread

wallstreetbets silver short squeeze

Here is the link to the Silver Short Squeeze Reddit group thread.

The silver short squeeze is something that was popularized on a Reddit thread on Jan 27, 2021.

It’s important to note that many silverbugs and insiders hoped for this to happen years before this Reddit thread.

This thread however became so popular and was featured across all the major news networks, that it appeared that the silver short squeeze was started by the Reddit group in that thread.

Similar to Gamestop, there was a thread on Reddit (“Main Street Investors”) that ranted about the silver market being the most manipulated market of them all and run by “Wall Street Investors”.

He claimed that if we short squeezed silver we could push it to $1000 from $25. He used an outlandish number to get everyone excited. Mind you, although $1000 is outlandish, triple digit silver is not out of reach according to many experts.

So, this became another Main Street vs Wall Street issue like Gamestop.

Redditors want to get back at Wall Street for their market manipulation.

This is where it gets interesting.

On Feb. 1, 2021, another thread indicated that the original silver short squeeze thread was fake.

We should be compiling links of sources claiming WSB is for silver from wallstreetbets

When I looked back at the thread, the original post that started the thread was deleted by moderators. I’m sure a lot more was deleted as I recall that there were over 9 million Redditors in the r/wallstreetbets group and as of Feb. 1, 2021, there were 8.2 million . That’s a lot of accounts removed.

The silver short squeeze thread still has over 15k comments even after the purge by moderators. So, obviously, a lot of people want this to happen even if the original post to the thread that started this whole thing was removed.

Today (2021-02-04) I discovered a new silver group was created out of this chaos: Wall Street Silver. I will be going through that to incorporate info from there as well in this article.

What was the Motive? Divide and Conquer?

We may never know. The moderators haven’t provided a reason.

It does seem that it could be a diversion as the post talked about buying NYSE:SLV.

After a lot of discussion I’ve read, the real way to carry out this silver short squeeze is to buy physical silver, not buying into SLV, even though it is a physical silver ETF. SLV is actually an investment owned by the manipulators (Citadel Securities) that crushed Gamestop. I haven’t verified this, I only read this.

PSLV has also been mentioned as a better option to SLV. And I support this. But, note that buying physical silver is still the best way to carry out the short squeeze. Regardless of the short squeeze, buying physical silver is still best for your own protection.

I see a lot of fighting and anger that Redditors are not into the SLV short squeeze. Some of them noting how pretty much every news agency was duped (and myself) into thinking that the Gamestop people have moved into this silver short squeeze.

I get it that they’re upset that this silver short squeeze is “fake”. But, it is only fake and incorrect from the standpoint of the Gamestop group. I’m not sure they realize that there were already thousands of silverbugs that knew about this silver manipulation and I think silverbugs were just excited there was another huge group that successfully squeezed Gamestop that was joining them. I know I was.

I think it’s good for them to point out the same people into Gamestop are not into SLV. And, it’s possible that silver thread split the Gamestop group up, especially those who are not really into the thread or are new to Reddit and the thread. They may have read that there was a group moving into SLV and they wanted to get into the action. We know in hindsight, it crushed Gamestop and SLV became a “pump and dump”.

Whoever is doing these things, probably the hedge funds, are master manipulators and they are splitting up the Redditors and splitting up new silverbugs and readers.

See this article that points out hedge funds lurk the r/wallstreetbets.

But, there are definitely a lot of people who want this silver short squeeze to happen, including myself.

I’ve watched talk after talk from Craig Hemke, Andy Shectman, David Morgan, Andy Maguire, and other silver experts, that silver was severely manipulated and that one day (they hoped) something would happen.

I also read a book by Chris Marcus who interviewed all silver experts above and others and has devoted all his time into investigating the manipulation in the silver market.

More Info on SLV and Why NOT to Buy It

https://new.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/lc8vgo/slv_is_not_going_to_get_squeezedslv_is_the_trojan/

What May Happen if the Silver Squeeze Carries Out Successfully?

According to the original poster, he suggested that silver can run as high as $1000 from $25. I’m not sure if he made up the number or made some educated calculation, but, either way, based on what was done to Gamestop and other stocks that r/wallstreetbets have done, it seems possible we can shoot pretty high, I’m not sure about $1000, albeit a lot harder since silver is an asset class whereas their previous successes were individual stocks.

With Gamestop, I read that hedge funds lost over $5 billion dollars!

Will someone or entities lose billions or go bankrupt. I believe they could lose billions, but, not sure about bankruptcy. I’ve been trying to get one expert to answer what would happen if the silver market could be squeezed and he hasn’t responded.

Why I’m Writing this Article

So, I’m all for this and I’m creating this article to summarize key info about the silver short squeeze and the two silver Reddit threads as there are tens of thousands of comments between the two.

In addition, not everyone is into forums. I find too many anonymous posters talk with incredible anger, act like bigshots, and just exaggerated voices depending on the moderators and group of people it attracts.

I remember one guy who talks with practically a swear word in every sentence and acts like he’s the biggest and smartest investor on the planet. I almost fell off my chair laughing when he talked about adding <$100 to his position.

I don’t want to belittle anyone investing with small amounts of money. It’s fantastic for anyone to invest their money. Everyone starts somewhere. But, when you talk like the biggest and baddest investor on the planet, please!

I’m writing this for the non-investor. And I want to point out that by joining this movement, even though there seems to be anger and chaos underscoring this movement when you read some of these forums, there is actually a more civil community that has long been following this before the Reddit threads I pointed out earlier.

And you’re actually making a prudent financial decision to buy physical silver. You can ignore this movement and know that buying silver is helping you diversify your portfolio and buy into real wealth.

Is there Silver Market Manipulation?

There is a lot of evidence of silver market manipulation. In fact some people have alredy been fined and convicted for metals manipulation. I’ll post some videos below. As you can see, there was evidence since 2012, well before Reddit’s r/wallstreetbets silver thread, which was posted on Jan 27, 2021. And there were thousands of people interested in this silver squeeze long before the thread.

Gold price manipulation is real; JPMorgan’s spoofing case explained

Posted: Oct. 2, 2020

Time: 13:12

This video has gold in the title, but, it is about both gold and silver manipulation

Three JPM metals traders charged with market manipulation, ‘spoofing’

Posted: Sep. 16, 2019.

Time: 2:54

JP Morgan & Silver: The Price Management Scheme Continues – Ed Steer

Posted: June 11, 2018

Time: 19:05

Stroud Says Manipulation an Issue in Silver Market

Posted: Mar. 23 2012

Time: 5:02

More Resources About the Metals Manipulation

JP Morgan

CNBC – https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/29/jp-morgan-settles-spoofing-lawsuit-alleging-fraud-in-metals-trades.html

BNN – https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/jpmorgan-pays-920-million-admits-misconduct-in-spoofing-probe-1.1500967

The Economist – https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2020/10/03/jpmorgan-chase-faces-a-fine-of-920m-for-market-manipulation

US Department of Justice – https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/jpmorgan-chase-co-agrees-pay-920-million-connection-schemes-defraud-precious-metals-and-us

Financial Times – https://www.ft.com/content/f2c918c2-2659-4513-8851-cc40379d4840

Bank of Nova Scotia

BNN – https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/scotiabank-to-pay-127-4-million-to-settle-u-s-spoofing-claims-1.1482231

CBC – https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/scotiabank-spoofing-fine-1.5692117

Financial Post – https://financialpost.com/news/fp-street/scotiabank-to-pay-more-than-120-million-over-metals-market-manipulation-probe-and-swap-dealing

Deutsche Bank

Bloomberg – https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-08/deutsche-bank-said-to-reach-100-mln-deferred-prosecution-deal

The Globe and Mail – https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/international-business/article-deutsche-bank-to-pay-more-than-124-million-to-resolve-bribery-metals/

Why Buy Physical Silver?

If you don’t like that this seems like gambling or revenge, and you don’t want to be involved in that sort of thing “groupy thing”, then there is one simple, conservative, and prudent reason to buy silver: Getting into silver coins is getting into real wealth.

I would also add: Don’t buy silver to get involved in this movement, buy silver because it can help improve your financial situation. Buy silver because it’s a good investment decision.

Buying silver coins is just exchanging your fiat currency for real money and this adds to your investment portfolio, a safe-haven hard asset that helps diversify your portfolio and help protect you from inflation.

If you buy lotteries, then there is no reason you can’t buy silver coins. Buying lotteries is actually gambling. Buying silver coins is buying into real wealth.

Personally, I was already invested in silver before I even heard of the Reddit group, r/wallstreetbets silver thread. But, I’ve bought more after hearing about it.

I believe silver is going to break or come close to it’s all-time high of $50 this year (2021). There were already high estimates of silver approaching $300 long before r/wallstreetbets posted this thread.

For me, buying silver coins is the safest way to potentially doubling your money this year. Sure, there are lots of stocks that can 2x, 3x, or much more, But, so many things can happen to the stock market and individual stocks, especially at these levels.

Buying silver coins such as the Maple Leaf Silver coin or silver bullion is by far a safer investment than owning silver ETFs, in my opinion. And you don’t need to worry about stock manipulation or brokerage manipulation siding with the “bad guys” and limiting your trade like what happened with Gamestop and a few other stocks that the brokerage company did for their parent company (Citadel Securities) because they didn’t have the unfair advantage they used to. (That’s another story to explain.)

How to Carry Out the Silver Short Squeeze?

What Investments to Buy?

Ignoring the original post that suggested we buy SLV and AG, the latest post by Reddit-Interests says we should buy 3 things:

  1. Physical silver
  2. PSLV
  3. First Majestic silver stock
  4. Other silver mining stocks

I don’t understand the last 2 points. #1 is definitely the best way to carry this out based on all the videos and articles I have read.

The last two points can effect a short squeeze on particular investments, but, I can’t see how it could affect the silver market.

Can We Short Squeeze Silver Buying Silver Coins?

As I’ve gone around commenting on discussions about this silver squeeze on LinkedIn and Reddit, but, mostly LinkedIn, I’ve read comments that suggest buying physical silver is no use. We need to buy silver call options.

I delved a bit deeper and listened to an interview with David Morgan. He’s one of the authoritative experts on silver and he said it can happen with physcial silver, but, the demand for the physical silver has to be sustained to the point that the retail demand forces dealers to melt down commercial silver and eventually deplete the commercial silver.

There may be people out there to throw us off course because the manipulators have billions invested in here. We know Russia does this and the Chinese government does this kind of thing. They have armies of people who post on social media with legitamite profiles with lots of history to make them look legit and they make discussions and throw people off course or divide us and confuse us where they see fit.

This kind of thing happens when you can be anonymous on the forums.

So, you have to be careful.

I’d also like to mention that other experts I’ve listened to say the only way to short squeeze the silver market is to buy physical silver.

See the video below and how we can short squeeze the silver market:

Calculations for Carrying Out the Silver Market Short Squeeze

There are about 800k ounces of available silver in any one year.

There are about 200k adults in the US over the age of 21.

So, if each adult over 21 could be 4 silver coins, we would theoretically see a short squeeze in the market if people bought that much in one year.

This is similar to what was said by David Morgan in the video above.

It’s important to note that this has to happen within a time frame for it to work.

I will show proof of some of the numbers shortly.

Where to Buy these Investments?

To buy physical silver coins and bullion, it is really country dependent. So, I’ll mention what was in the thread, which is for Americans, and I’ll also add some Canadian dealers. If you’re from outside of the US and Canada, please send me a note or add to the comments. I think we need a global effort on this one. I’ll include other countries in the info below if I get some comments.

Buy some silver coins or bullion!

Independent Dealers

Note that I couldn’t definitively determine the shipping destinations of many of the dealers listed below as I couldn’t find any info in their shipping policy. So, I only said the destination is the same as the country it is based in, unless I could tell that they shipped elsewhere.

CountryShippingDealerURL
USUS,CanadaSprott Moneyhttps://www.sprottmoney.com/
USUSSchiff Goldhttps://schiffgold.com/silver-and-gold-order/
CanadaWorldwideFirst Majestichttps://store.firstmajestic.com/
USUSJM Bullionhttps://www.jmbullion.com/
CanadaCanada,USKitcohttps://online.kitco.com/silver
USUSMiles Franklinhttps://www.milesfranklin.com/purchase/silver-products.html
USUSSD Bullionhttps://sdbullion.com/
CanadaCanada,USRoyal Canadian Minthttps://www.mint.ca/store/buy/silver_coins-cat120006
USUSMoney Metalshttps://www.moneymetals.com/

Bullion Banks

Now, I know many may seem that buying from bullion banks is buying from the enemy. But, I don’t look at it like that. I think we should just accumulate silver as much as we can. Plus, I bank and have worked at some of these places and had good times. It’s a large organization, different parts can have different cultures.

Hardcore silverbugs may find this preposterous and so be it. I’m listing them because the dealers are having a hard time supplying them at the time I wrote this.

CountryShippingDealerURL
CanadaCanadaTD Bankhttps://preciousmetals.td.com/
CanadaCanadaBank of Nova Scotiahttps://www.bullionmart.ca/
CanadaCanadaRoyal Bankhttps://www.rbcds.com/en/find-a-solution/investment-programs/precious-metals-bullion-program/
CanadaCanadaBank of Montrealhttps://bmobullion.com/silver/

Silver Promotional Materials

Twitter Cover Photo

Silver Crunch Twitter background

LinkedIn Cover Photo

silver crunch - the biggest short squeeze in financial history

Contests

If you are a precious metals business and have a contest to promote, you can submit your contest at WinASweepstakes.

I’ll be updating this blog constantly by adding more dealers and any other pertinent info for carrying out this short squeeze after more research.

Please comment with your country and how much you bought (if you don’t mind) so we can get an idea of the different countries getting involved.

This is exciting stuff and I’m super excited to be part of this, especially if we can carry it out!

>>>NOTE: I cannot recommend investments. This is for informational purposes only. Do not take anything in here or anywhere on my site as advice. You can lose all your money. You should only take investment advice from qualified individuals.<<<

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: short squeeze, silver, silver short squeeze, silver squeeze, silvercrunch

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Comments

  1. Arisin says

    March 27, 2021 at 4:11 am

    I appreciate the work you have done to shed some light on the short silver squeeze.
    The idea that a like thinking group of people could collectively pool their efforts
    and carry out a particular task in the precious metals market is a great bedtime story.

    Reply

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