Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:
Bullion Star's researchers note via Twitter today that another silver exchange-traded fund, the Aberdeen Standard Silver ETF Trust (SIVR), has updated its prospectus to take note of the recent internet campaign to attack shorts in silver.
But unlike the prospectus change made by the largest silver ETF, the iShares Silver Trust (SLV) --
-- the change made by SIVR simply notes the campaign and asserts that it may cause volatility in the silver price. The SIVR prospectus change does not assert, as the SLV prospectus change does, that the campaign may cause difficulty for the fund in obtaining metal.
The new text in the SIVR prospectus says: "... an online campaign intended to harm hedge funds and large banks is encouraging retail investors to purchase silver and shares of silver exchange-traded products to intentionally increase prices. This activity may result in temporarily high prices of silver."
The new SIVR prospectus is posted at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's internet site here:
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1450922/000138713121001680/sivr-...
But before you start figuring that SIVR is a much more secure investment, note that, like SLV, SIVR uses JPMorgan Chase Bank as custodian of its metal. Are the silver stashes of the two silver ETFs strictly segregated in the bank's custody? Does the bank really have all the metal the ETFs claim to own? Is any of the metal leased, swapped, otherwise encumbered, or counted multiple times?
Only God knows, at least until a grand jury looks into the matter.
Trust JPMorganChase if you want, but remember that in 2019 the U.S. Justice Department called the bank's commodities trading desk a criminal enterprise, specifically in regard to silver. So investors might want to ask the managers of SLV and SIVR why they continue to have anything to do with such a bank.
CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.
CPowell@GATA.org
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