Przemyslaw Radomski: Silver's most volatile week exposed widening gap between paper and physical

By Przemyslaw Radomski Kitco News, Montreal Wednesday, March 25, 2026 Silver flash-crashed 44% from its January high in a single week. What the price chart didn't show was happening inside the delivery system. Silver hit $121.67 on January 29. By the intraday low on March 19, it was trading at $66–68 -- a 44–46% decline from the all-time high, compressed into less than eight weeks. If you positioned in silver throughout 2025 and watched that number, I understand the discomfort. ... Dispatch continues below ... ... ADVERTISEMENT ... Buy, Sell, or Store Precious Metals with Money Metals Exchange Money Metals Exchange, a national bullion dealer recently named "Best Overall" by Investopedia.com -- https://www.moneymetals.com/news/2021/02/01/best-overall-precious-metals-dealer-002213 -- is a great low-cost source for precious metals coins, rounds, and bars. Money Metals also pays handsomely when you wish to sell your precious metals. Shop online with Money Metals Exchange here -- https://www.moneymetals.com/buy -- or by calling 1-800-800-1865. Meanwhile, Money Metals Depository will store your precious metals in a segregated account at low cost: https://www.moneymetals.com/depository But there is a version of this week's events that the price chart simply cannot show.  The price chart shows paper contracts repricing in response to a hawkish Federal Reserve hold, a Strait of Hormuz disruption, and a dollar surge. What it does not show is what was happening simultaneously inside the Comex physical delivery system, in Turkish vaults, and in Micron's Q2 earnings call.  Those three data points -- each confirmed, each independent of the others -- describe a physical market that got tighter during the same week the paper price collapsed. ... On March 19 -- the same session that silver flash-crashed to its intraday low -- the CME's own publicly available Metals Issues and Stops MTD Report recorded a striking concentration inside the Comex delivery system. According to analysis derived from that primary document and independently confirmed by two separate Substack researchers, the CME's house account (the clearinghouse itself) absorbed 114 of 138 delivery notices on March 19. That is 82% of a single day's entire delivery flow going through one account: the exchange itself, rather than independent counterparties. To put that number in context: Through March 20, approximately 43.4 million ounces had already been delivered in the March 2026 Comex contract -- one of the largest delivery months on record -- against a registered pool of 79.20 million ounces. The delivery cycle was historic in scale. The 82% house account concentration occurred at its most stressed point. There are two legitimate ways to read this.  The more routine reading: The clearing house acted as a temporary counterparty in the normal management of an unusually compressed cycle, absorbing notices that would subsequently be rematched.  The more significant reading: The shorts could not deliver, and the exchange stepped in to prevent visible settlement failure.  The CME has not commented publicly, and the data alone cannot distinguish between the two. What is not in dispute is that an 82% concentration on the most volatile session of the year is rare -- and directionally consistent with the delivery stress that prior issues have been documenting for months. The paper price and the physical delivery system moved in opposite directions on March 19. Paper sold off sharply. Physical delivery demand did not ease. A paper price crash and a record delivery cycle running simultaneously, on the same day, is the kind of divergence that the delivery data makes visible even when the price chart does not. ... ... For the remainder of the analysis: https://www.kitco.com/opinion/2026-03-25/silvers-most-volatile-week-exposed-widening-gap-between-paper-and-physical * * * Support GATA by purchasing Stuart Englert's "Rigged" "Rigged" is a concise explanation of government's currency market rigging policy and extensively credits GATA's work exposing it. Ten percent of sales proceeds are contributed to GATA. Buy a copy for $14.99 through Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Rigged-Exposing-Largest-Financial%20-History/dp/1651405204/ref=sr_1_fkmr1_2?keywords=rugged+stuart+englert&qid=1579708888&sr=8-2-fkmr1 * * * Help keep GATA going: GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at: http://www.gata.org To contribute to GATA, please visit: http://www.gata.org/node/16 Donations of $500 or more will entitle the donor to a 1-ounce silver round commemorating GATA's work: https://www.gata.org/sites/default/files/GATA-silver-round-front.png