What’s Up With PSLV Volume Lately?
February 11, 2025
The PSLV etf buys and holds physical silver for its shareholders, so buyers can own physical metal in their brokerage accounts, and as far as I know, its legitimate. They list the bars bought and sold each day for shareholders by serial number, and post the data on their website each day. On the other hand, many silver etfs, like the largest one defined by assets under management, is the SLV etf. Its volume os shares traded each day used to dwarf the PSLV, but more people all the time are coming to understand that funds like SLV don’t have to own the metal, they just try and track the price (until the don’t). Their prospectus is clear about this, so SLV defeats the purpose of buying silver in the first place. On top of that, since etfs like SLV are only supposed to track silver’s price, there is no guarantee that they will, and they make that clear as well. Seems to me, if one is a bull on silver, they would want their vote counted by taking some physical off the market and into their possession, or Sprott’s possession to hold and protect for them. This helps the price higher, because supply is reduced, but with SLV type etfs, if they don’t buy the silver, you don’t get to put your pressure on prices to go higher.
I mention this to help those that might not have read the SLV prospectus, please do so, you must realize that you don’t necessarily (probably don’t) own the metal you thought you bought. It looks like more people are understanding this lately, or maybe we are nearing a shock event. I’ve posted the charts of PSLV and SLV below, notice how SLV’s is relatively constant, while PSLV’s volume is exploding higher, in fact setting records many days over the last month. Spikes in PSLV volume only seem to occur near big market shocks, you will notice this if you find a chart that goes back far enough. Usually these moments are accompanied by big moves higher in price, such as the silver squeeze in 2021, and we also see the discount to NAV shrink at the same time, which is happening now. In fact, when we have lots of fear in the markets, PSLV will trade at a premium to it’s NAV, often with a sharp spike higher. These observations tell me something big is about to occur, others know about it, and are getting into position to own physical silver. Record volume more than doubling what has occurred in past events, and lasting a month or longer, are particularly noteworthy.