In September 2020, JP Morgan paid a landmark $920 million settlement to resolve charges of “spoofing” – placing and cancelling fake buy or sell orders – to manipulate the silver market.
A little over five years later, JP Morgan closed out a 3.17 million oz. silver short position (633 delivery notices), conveniently right before silver shot up from $73 to over $120/oz
For over half a century, the COMEX silver futures market, along with the LBMA in the 1980s, have taken advantage of their pricing flexibility of paper futures, for which 90% on average settle in cash without any delivery. The Shanghai Futures Exchange (SFE), which began in 1993, established a model requiring physical metal be deposited for settlement against any delivery demand. Despite silver being a depleting asset, the futures markets in the west have long been geared more for speculation and hedging than actual exchange of physical asset and title.
As a result, the COMEX and LBMA have had the power to artificially keep silver prices low for its banking and institutional trading clients. This ability to bail out these large financial entities is rapidly running out of fuel, as the overwhelming demand for deliveries has halved COMEX silver inventories since October 2025 to the time of this writing. As a result, ETFs with physical silver bullion and silver mine stock holdings may very well see a bullish run in the next 24 months that may dwarf 2025’s triple digit gain.