No longer a zombie market? Is China drying the COMEX out?

[C.Martel]

This was the zombie market:

Tons of silver from US, China ease London spot market squeeze

https://www.reuters.com/world/china/tons-silver-us-china-ease-london-spot-market-squeeze-2025-10-20/

China preventing a collapse of the LBMA and later the COMEX by sending tons of silver to the West.

That was the story of 2025.

China, in late 2025, with the 2026 export restrictions on silver after the trade war ended. And in 2026, blocking silver from going to the COMEX are the new events that changed the zombie market of silver. Otherwise the manipulation game would have continued. China sets the price of silver and determines where most of silver goes.

[C.Martel]

The crash of gold and silver in October 2025 was the banksters knowing the market manipulators had a partner in China to suppress the price of gold and silver.

The banksters are playing a risky game in not going long. It will be the banksters only to blame for a financial collapse from silver breaking free.

New story of 2026:

China Just Cut COMEX’s Silver Lifeline: 50 Million Ounces Blocked And The West’s Paper Game Is Out Of Time

Niko Moretti

Those 50 million ounces Comex was counting on are beyond critical— Losing that lifeline turns an ultra tight market into structural failure. Comex is now a “has been” institution and no longer legitimate gatekeeper. - Jon Forrest


COMEX just discovered the hard way that silver is no longer a metal; it is policy. China’s refusal to move a 50‑million‑ounce lifeline to New York is the moment the trade war Trump launched stopped being about tariffs and started being about who controls the last free ounces of silver.​

Price signals or confession

Silver trading near $130 in Japan, $106 in Kuwait, $97 in Korea and “$71” on Western screens is not price discovery; it is a written confession from the paper system. In the real world where bars clear docks and dealers wire funds, silver has already slipped into triple‑digit territory while the supposed benchmarks in New York and London cling to a fantasy built on leveraged IOUs.​​
China changes the rules

Beijing’s new export regime formally reclassifies silver from ordinary commodity to strategic material, putting 60–70% of globally traded refined supply behind a licensing wall. No license now means no export, which in practice gives China a veto over how much physical ever reaches Western vaults, mints, or solar factories.​

COMEX meets geopolitics

The “Shanghai Port Authority refusing COMEX‑bound cargoes” story may have surfaced on rumor channels, but the logic behind it is brutally simple: physical flows are now a geopolitical decision, not a basis‑trade convenience. COMEX still has tools—margin changes, position limits, cash settlements—but it does not control the seaborne ounces that make delivery real.​

Endgame for bank shorts

For U.S. banks that have leaned on short positions to sit on silver for decades, this is the worst‑case script: physical premiums exploding in Asia, export spigots controlled by Beijing, and a domestic futures price that suddenly looks like a stale quote from a dead benchmark. If China’s “no silver exports without state blessing” era sticks, every failed shipment is one more reminder that the West owns paper promises—and the East owns the metal

https://substack.com/home/post/p-183244096

Banksters are short 5 year supply of silver:

https://thesilverindustry.substack.com/p/silvers-doomsday-math-two-us-banks

Banksters have to go long and allow silver to reprice in the 200-500 dollar range or else the bankers are to blame if the banks collapse because of a short bet on silver.

[C.Martel]

The risks to silver investing remain:

China backstabs the good side.

No crash of the LBMA and COMEX, continued market manipulation.

Where silver investors have not figured out, silver is not an investment to make money. Silver is the investment to beat the wall street elites and Washington crooks. Once the defeat of wall street elites and Washington crooks happens with silver, then there are huge profits in victory of the good side winning. The entire existence of the United States and anything it entails is about the suppression of the price of silver.

This is the information that is kept from the public, or else populism would mean silver investing and practically only silver investing. To be a real populist, you need to own a lot of silver, according to your own means, in not going in debt, nor hurting you financially. Don't pay for cable TV, buy silver. Don't have Netflix, buy silver. Don't have a subscription to the NYT, buy silver. Don't make political contributions to Democrats/Republicans, buy silver. Silver is supposed to be your hobby, not your retirement fund. It is supposed to be your generational wealth that is passed on, not a retirement fund. Because for silver to win, it has to be bought by the populists, as was done with the Ron Paul Revolution, or else silver goes nowhere. This industry supply shortage is a game changer, though the players in the industry supply shortage want low silver prices. China is going to determine if their citizens win with high silver prices or if their industries win with low silver prices. As China has high silver prices compared to the West because of the paper game. That should reverse. China should have the low silver prices in the 100-300 dollar range. And the West desperate for silver (though a supposedly glut on COMEX/refineries), should have higher silver prices if physical determines price.

[C.Martel]

In late December before I started this thread when silver broke out from the 60s, I thought the bankers had common sense and were turning their shorts into long positions. The banks could go to more well defended positions at 100-200 or 150-300. With the goal to end demand not by refusing to sell to Asia as the exchanges are doing, the goal to reduce demand perhaps the normal way of higher prices. Also get sellers at higher prices to increase supply. I am not saying prices would stay there. I am saying banks would develop new short positions in the hundreds of dollars.

The battle in the 70s has way more volitility and can snap the market one way or another.

If you need to sell, then sell. There is much upside potential for those that don't, so long as china does not sell us out again, as china has done typically.

Shortages seem here to stay. Though the banksters are seeking to manage this with destroying demand in Asia while promoting surpluses at American refineries to send to the exchanges. There are shortage issues at the dealers and the comex. The comex does not want price discovery, the comex wants demand destruction. That is the difficulty the comex is in

Though there are financial system collapse scenarios that could usher in bretton woods 2.0 of bitcoin.

Moderate to high inventory levels of silver is a sell signal. As unlike in 2011, in 2025/6 there are no major buyers trying to crash the comex and make gold and silver money again. This is 100% from supply shortages.

That bull market of gold leading silver did fizzle. There was no shortages of gold, it was brics buying for trade war, the year of 2025 was the year of trade war chaos and the move to 4500 gold was the buying from trade war chaos. That ended in October and fizzled. Then started the silver shortage and silver is leading the precious metals, not based on fake government data nor nations selling out to trumpstein, this is from multiyear shortages that are causing real trouble for the exchanges. This is the reason for the changes to margin rules, denying silver to Asia.

The zombie gold market worked for the bankers in 2025. The silver shortages are causing far more trouble. Not saying where precious metals go. Shortages have been here for years and appear to be here for a while more.

[C.Martel]

Bank of America Escaping Shorts, Going NET Long & Calling Out $309 per Ounce Silver.
Also: Perth Mint Runs out of Silver. UK Dealer paying 5% over spot. UK Bullion dealers out of Silver. US Dealers cancelling Silver orders. 10 ounce and Kilo Bars Sold out almost everywhere.
The Silver Academy
Jan 07, 2026

Bank of America has shifted from quietly managing large synthetic short exposures in silver to openly championing the metal, as U.S. bullion banks collectively flip net long on COMEX futures.​


After years of suppressing price risk through shorts, the bank’s research desk now promotes silver’s tight supply, structural deficits, and leverage to green-energy demand, pushing aggressive upside targets into 2026

Bank of America’s Michael Widmer says silver could peak between about $135 and $309 per ounce, extrapolating from historical extremes in the gold–silver ratio during past bull markets.

Widmer’s $135–$309 silver peak comes primarily from applying historical low gold–silver ratios to BofA’s $5,000 gold target, assuming mean reversion and silver’s tendency to outperform in bull markets.​
Ratio-based target

Widmer notes the current gold–silver ratio near 59:1 versus historical lows around 32:1 in 2011 and 14:1 in 1980.​

Applying those low ratios to a possible $5,000 gold price implies silver between roughly $135 and $309 per ounce.​

Dual demand drivers

Silver has both safe‑haven investment demand and large industrial use in photovoltaics and electronics.​

BofA expects the green‑energy transition and a rebound in global manufacturing to lift industrial demand alongside financial demand.​

Investment flow potential

Silver investment positioning is described as relatively modest compared with gold, leaving room for a large capital inflow if sentiment swings to precious metals.​

Because silver’s market is smaller and more volatile, Widmer argues that new investment flows can trigger outsized price moves.​

Supportive macro backdrop

BofA expects a broadly supportive environment for precious metals, with gold leading and silver historically accelerating later in the cycle.​

The analysis ties this to a potential period of monetary easing and persistent inflation, conditions under which precious metals have tended to perform well.


What else is Going on?

Bullion Dealers

out of Silver or

Delaying Orders and/or

Cancelling Customer Silver Orders

Image

The Royal Mint’s website showed zero silver availability, including its vaulted “Digi Silver,” meaning no coins, bars, or digital silver could be purchased at all during that visit, suggesting acute stock or systems issues in silver products
Perth Mint out of their Sovereign Kangaroo

Image

Also in Australia

Look at these persistent lines outside ABC Bullion

Time 1:20PM AEDT

Australian Eastern Daylight Time (AEDT) is the easternmost time zone in Australia.

Date: Wed Jan 7, 2026

Video below

video by David Taylor, Twitter handle, @DaveTaylorNews


https://substack.com/home/post/p-183788873