Butler Research - Friends confirmed tonight that silver market analyst Ted Butler, who exposed and became the scourge of silver market manipulation for almost three decades, died Saturday. Butler lived in Florida and wrote about silver market manipulation since 1996. In 2009 he formed Butler Research LLC and began publishing a subscription newsletter. He often scolded the U.S. […]

Butler Research - Two of the oldest commodities known to man, gold and silver, share a history dating back thousands of years. The role of gold has changed little through the passage of time. The same cannot be said for silver. In fact, it is the remarkable transformation in the usage of silver that has set the stage […]

Butler Research - The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s Quarterly OTC Derivatives report covers the over-the-ccounter derivatives positions of the U.S. banks. For many years, the only two banks that mattered in the precious metals category were JPMorgan and Citibank. About three years ago, Bank of America burst onto the scene, as a giant new participant […]

Butler Research - It’s hard to overlook the tremendous price volatility that occurred on 4/12, when both gold and silver established new recent price highs, only to fall precipitously by the close of trading. At the time of the sharp selloff, the only market open was the COMEX, with markets in London, China and everywhere else closed. Therefore, […]

Butler Research - JPMorgan took over Bear Stearns in 2008, inheriting Bear’s massive short position in COMEX silver (and gold). There was a formal investigation by the CFTC’s Enforcement Division that began as a result of my request to readers to write to the CFTC about the massive short position held by JPMorgan. 5 years later, the investigation […]

Butler Research - Physical conditions in silver, appear white-hot bullish. New silver import data from India indicates more than 70 million ounces were imported into that country in February. This is a number so large it raises questions about why silver didn’t rally more. If an amount of any other commodity equal to a full month’s world production […]

Butler Research - The long-awaited response from the CFTC to my congressman’s office about my concerns of the possible double-counting of publicly reported silver inventories, originally sent to the agency in mid-November was received by me Friday morning, March 1. To refresh you with the issue, I asked the CFTC (along with the S.E.C.) to make clear whether […]

Butler Research - We have now reached the point in silver (and gold) where it is difficult for me to see how prices don’t quickly explode. Everything I look at, from a physical supply/demand perspective to the paper positioning set up on the COMEX, tells me we are at the point where only an upward price surge makes […]

Butler Research - There has been no reply from the CFTC for 13 weeks to a question I posed through my congressman’s office about double-counting of silver inventories. However, two days ago my congressman’s office told me that the agency intends to respond although the office couldn’t say when. As a result, I still expect a response, although […]

Butler Research - A recent development in COMEX silver futures positioning has been unusual enough that I didn’t detect it at first, because it has been somewhat gradual. Over the past five reporting weeks, from the COT report as of Dec 19, 2023 to the most recent report as of January 23, 2024, the number of long traders […]

Butler Research - There is a shocking level of undervaluation for silver compared to gold, even though the ratio had widened out to more than 91 to 1. Considering that there is a pronounced and deepening physical shortage in silver, the silver/gold price ratio should be closer to 9 to 1. That would put silver prices around $225 […]

Butler Research - Considering that JPMorgan has just come off a three-year deferred criminal prosecution agreement with the Justice Department for price manipulation (spoofing) in silver, the customers that JPM is accepting delivery for on the Dec. and Jan. contracts would most likely be users as opposed to speculators. That’s because it would be much harder to accuse […]

Butler Research - At year’s end, silver was more undervalued relative to gold than at any year in history. I’d hate to think about how much more undervalued silver could get if it weren’t already in a widely documented physical shortage, the first ever such shortage. The only explanation for the greatest price disparity in history is the […]

Butler Research - It seems to me that the forces at play in silver, both working for and against sharply higher prices, show no signs of letting up. However, common sense and logic dictate that such diametrically-opposed forces point to an eventual end to the stalemate – with the only real question being when. Since these opposing forces […]

Butler Research - Over the past three years, the growing physical shortage in silver (more demand than supply) has resulted in a dramatic reduction in recorded world inventories. Each week, I highlight the shrinkage in the two largest stockpiles of recorded silver inventories, the COMEX warehouses and in SLV, the largest silver ETF. Together, these two stockpiles represent […]

Butler Research - This article was written on Wednesday, December 6, 2023. Of course, I’m referring to the wild price ride in gold and silver from Fridays near all-time price high in gold, to Sunday evening’s initial blast to the upside of as much as $60, to a selloff of $120 and to where gold closed trading yesterday […]

Butler Research - Recently, the Silver Institute updated its annual review on silver that it originally published in April. The report indicated a reduction in total supply (mine production plus recycling) and an increase in industrial demand. The new report indicates total silver supply for 2023 as being 23 million ounces less than originally reported, largely due to […]

Butler Research - One of the key data points in silver is the level and change in recorded bullion inventories, primarily in the COMEX warehouses and the silver ETFs. Particularly over the past few years, any number of daily commentaries have sprung up, slicing and dicing the inventory data, with special emphasis on the COMEX warehouse data, as […]

Butler Research - Cook: Is the public’s interest and knowledge about silver picking up? Butler: I’d say yes, overall, but I am still of the opinion that most still don’t fully grasp how silver has been manipulated and suppressed in price for 40 years – and this is the absolute key to why someone should buy and hold […]

Butler Research - In every investment asset, a key factor in determining the price is the amount of investment buying, either potentially or already existing versus the amount of the asset itself that exists to be invested in. Expressed differently, price is determined by total market capitalization  (the total current amount of what the asset is worth), plus […]

Butler Research - Last week’s new short position report indicated a moderate increase in the short position on SLV, the big silver ETF, of 2.4 million shares to just under 19.8 million shares (18 million ounces). This increase came at a time of rising prices (as did a similar rise in the shorted shares in GLD, the big […]

Butler Research - It has now been three months since I claimed a “Code Red” market emergency in COMEX silver. I based that claim on two things: an increase in the short position of SLV, the big silver ETF, to 29 million shares; and an increase in the new Commitments of Traders report of just over 24,000 contracts […]

Butler Research - This week, a subscriber asked me to summarize the facts supporting my claim that silver is in a pronounced wholesale physical shortage. For one thing, there was the persistent, large physical turnover of silver in the COMEX warehouses for more than 12 years. This movement has now come to include the silver ETFs. This turnover […]

Butler Research - After 40 years of silver price manipulation and suppression on the COMEX, the physical market has experienced a lack of production growth and enhanced demand brought about by too-low silver prices. According to the immutable law of supply and demand, silver is now in a deepening physical shortage in which sharply higher prices are both […]

Butler Research - I have contended for the past near-40 years, that silver has been manipulated and suppressed in price by means of excessive short selling on the COMEX, mostly by commercial traders which happen to be mostly banks. As a result of this decades-long price suppression, the law of supply and demand has become artificially distorted. The […]