[](https://x.com/KarelMercx)Key takeaway from Wednesday's close: there is enough silver for those who want delivery in March and April, but the most important point remains that not a single gram of silver seems able to find its way to COMEX.  
  
Today I added two extra columns.  
  
The first is the lease rate. Under normal circumstances, 1-month silver lease rates trade around 0%. Sometimes slightly above zero if the lender wants to earn something, sometimes slightly below zero if someone has too much inventory. Anything above 0.5% already signals stress.  
  
The average lease rate was +0.04% in 2023 and -0.18% in 2024. Today it stands at +1.6%.  
  
The second is the swap rate. A lease means you lend out silver and receive a fee. A swap means you temporarily exchange your silver for cash. Cash earns interest and does not require storage or insurance, while silver does. In practice, a silver swap is mainly a way to temporarily turn silver into cash, so the swap rate normally tracks money market rates.  
  
Under normal conditions, the silver swap trades slightly above the cash rate, because the owner of the silver also wants to earn a return. After subtracting the interest rate, the result should therefore be slightly positive.  
  
But right now the swap is deeply negative. That means market participants are willing to pay to secure access to physical silver today, while only returning that silver to its rightful owner a year from now.  
  
On paper, this looks like free arbitrage: buy silver today, do a swap, and deliver silver back in a year. The fact that this is not happening at scale tells you exactly where the stress is: the market does not trust that physical silver will be easy to source one year from now.  
  
In other words, the problem is not money. The problem is certainty of delivery.  
  
That is a very strong signal of real stress and real scarcity in the physical silver market.  
  
The average swap rate was +0.27% in 2023 and -0.39% in 2024. Today it is -2.8%.  
  
Are you finding these daily silver updates useful? Your feedback is always very welcome.  
  
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Date: Trading day of the snapshot.  
  
Registered Silver (oz): Silver in COMEX vaults that is warrant-issued and available for delivery against futures.  
  
March Open Interest (oz): Open interest in the March contract converted to ounces (contracts × 5,000 oz).  
  
Implied Deficit (oz): March open interest (oz) minus registered silver (oz).  
  
Daily OI Reduction (oz): The day-over-day decline in March open interest (in ounces).  
  
Days to Clear Deficit: Implied deficit divided by Daily OI Reduction. A rough estimate of how many trading days it would take for the deficit to disappear if the current roll pace continues.  
  
Deficit Clears By: The calendar date implied by “Days to Clear Deficit” (projected forward from the current date).  
  
March Future: Settlement/close price of the March silver futures contract.  
  
May Future: Settlement/close price of the May silver futures contract.  
  
March–May Spread: March price minus May price.  
  
SOFR carry %: The annualized financing rate (SOFR) used to estimate the interest component of carry between March and May.  
  
Storage & Insurance: Estimated storage + insurance cost for holding silver from March to May, expressed in $ per oz.  
  
Carry Adjusted Basis May Future ($): Total estimated carry cost between March and May (financing + storage/insurance), expressed in $ per oz.  
  
Backwardation / Contango: A carry-adjusted signal. It compares the March–May spread to total carry. If this flips from contango to backwardation, the market is effectively saying: “I don’t care what the paper price is. I need physical silver. And I need it now.”

  
Link to source: [https://x.com/KarelMercx/status/2026916321007481075?s=20](https://x.com/KarelMercx/status/2026916321007481075?s=20) 

Silver backing futures keeps falling and is now down to 86.3M oz. Today I added silver lease rates and swap rates to the table.  X post by Karel Mercx
@KarelMercx. 
“The market is effectively saying: “I don’t care what the paper price is. I need physical silver. And I need it now.” “

Silver backing futures keeps falling and is now down to 86.3M oz. Today I added silver lease rates and swap rates to the table. X post by Karel Mercx @KarelMercx. “The market is effectively saying: “I don’t care what the paper price is. I need physical silver. And I need it now.” “