Are banks short silver? What 27 years of CFTC bank reports show

Reviewed by Isaac Kahan, Owner · November 7, 2026

By Isaac Kahan, Owner, Bullion Trading LLC

Are banks short silver? Yes. Banks as a group were net short COMEX silver futures in 301 of the 311 monthly Bank Participation Reports from July 1999 to October 2026, according to Bullion Trading LLC research on archived CFTC reports. In the October 6, 2026 report, 20 banks held 48.1% of all short contracts, and their net short of 35,642 contracts comes to about 178 million ounces, roughly a fifth of the 846.6 million ounces the world’s mines produced in 2025.

Banks are as short gold. Their silver shorts grew as the price rose, and their most short months came before higher prices more often than average, possibly by chance. The CFTC found the biggest shorts were mostly hedges; JPMorgan’s record 2020 CFTC penalty was for spoofing, not short positions.

Key finding	Result
Banks net short	301 of 311 monthly reports (97%), July 1999 to October 2026
Latest report (October 6, 2026)	20 banks; 48.1% of all shorts; net short 35,642 contracts (33.9% of open interest), about 178 million oz
Biggest net short	83,597 contracts (February 4, 2020); 49.8% of open interest (July 1, 2025)
Gold, same reports	Net short in 288 of 313; median 22.3% of open interest (silver 23.0%)
Silver up more than 10% in three months	Banks added to their net short 73% of the time
Silver a year after banks’ most short 10% of months	Higher 24 of 30 times (80%), median +38.0%; all months 60%, +7.7%; 14% of calendar shifts matched
Ranked against the past 36 reports	Most short months higher a year later 47 of 60 (78%), against 63%; 3% of shifts matched
Separate most short episodes	4 of 7 followed by higher prices a year later

What does the Bank Participation Report show?

The CFTC’s monthly Bank Participation Report gives banks’ combined futures positions in every market where five or more banks hold reportable positions: U.S. and non-U.S. banks’ “aggregate gross long and short” positions as of “typically the first Tuesday of each month,” its explanatory notes say. The CFTC “only maintains BPR data for the most recent 25 months,” hence the archive copies used here.

Each COMEX silver contract covers 5,000 troy ounces (see how COMEX futures work). The report counts only traders filed as commercial banks, not their non-bank affiliates; this study uses the futures report, not the options one. Banks’ over-the-counter forwards, swaps and metal holdings don’t appear.

How long have banks been net short silver?

Since at least 1999, with 10 exceptions: three months in 2001, two in 2003, July to October 2007 and January 2008. The net short grew from an average of 8.1% of open interest in 2000 to 38.4% in both 2024 and 2025. The largest in contracts was 83,597 on February 4, 2020, about 418 million ounces; the largest share of the market was 49.8% of open interest on July 1, 2025. Bank numbers rose from as few as 5 in the early 2000s to 28 in 2017 and in 2019 to 2021.

The U.S. banks’ short jumped in mid-2008: two U.S. banks were short 4,249 contracts in the June 2008 report and 33,805, or 25.4% of open interest, in the August 5 report. At a 2010 CFTC hearing its acting surveillance director, Steve Sherrod, said the COT report showed no change “of the same magnitude” and offered two explanations: a trader reclassified from non-bank to bank, or “a merger or acquisition where a bank assumes the position of a non-bank entity.” He named no firm.

Are banks as short gold?

Yes. The same reports show banks net short COMEX gold in 288 of 313 months, with a median net short of 22.3% of open interest against 23.0% in silver; silver was the more shorted in 168 of 311 months. In October 2026, 26 banks held 53.7% of gold’s short contracts, against 48.1% in silver.

Which banks hold the silver short?

Mostly non-U.S. banks, now. U.S. banks held most of the bank short in every year from 2007 to 2013, up to 98.1% in July 2010, and in 2018 and 2021 to 2023. They last held the larger part in January 2025; in October 2026 their share was 30.6%, with non-U.S. banks holding 35,106 of the 50,578 short contracts.

Did the biggest bank shorts come before falls?

No, more often before rises, possibly by chance. Bank shorts move with the price: in the 73 three-month stretches when silver’s monthly average rose more than 10%, banks added to their net short 73% of the time, by a median 4,295 contracts; in the 40 when it fell more than 10%, they cut it 90% of the time, by a median 8,298. The rank correlation between the change in their net position and silver’s move over the same three months is -0.45 (more short as the price rose), -0.32 or -0.17 with prices a month earlier or later, and 0.10 against the following three months, close to none.

One exception came on the way to silver’s record: between the July 1, 2025 and January 6, 2026 reports, banks cut their net short from 81,377 contracts to 40,142 while silver’s monthly average rose from $37.70 to a record $92.06 in January 2026, during the 2025 squeeze in silver lease rates.

After the 31 reports with the largest net short, 36.09% of open interest or more, silver was higher a year later in 24 of the 30 with a full year of prices (80%), median gain 38.0%, against 60% and 7.7% for all months. But 15 of the 31 fall in one stretch, May 2024 to September 2025, and the 7 separate episodes split 4 higher, 3 lower; silver fell 36.7% in the year after the first report of the October 2012 to February 2013 build-up. In a calendar-shift test 14% of shifts matched the 80%, so it could be chance.

Ranking each report only against the 36 up to and including it, as a trader could have, gives a similar answer: after the 60 that ranked among the four most short of their 36, silver was higher a year later 78% of the time, against 63% for all months from September 2002, and 3% of calendar shifts matched that. Three months out, the edge almost disappears: 63% against 58%.

Bank silver positions by year since 1999

What did regulators find about the silver shorts?

A May 2004 CFTC open letter to silver investors said its staff’s review indicated the so-called naked shorts “are not naked at all, but are for the most part hedging.” A May 2008 CFTC report on 2005 to 2007 found “no observable relationship between short-futures-trader concentration levels and silver prices,” and cited an August 2007 NYMEX review: the largest short traders held forward purchase and sales agreements that “left the firms with a net long silver exposure.”

In September 2013 the CFTC’s enforcement division closed the silver investigation it confirmed in 2008, finding “not a viable basis to bring an enforcement action” “based upon the law and evidence as they exist at this time.” In October 2010, Commissioner Bart Chilton had said: “I believe that there have been repeated attempts to influence prices in the silver markets.”

The cases that ended in penalties were about orders. In September 2020 JPMorgan agreed to pay $920.2 million, then the most monetary relief the CFTC had imposed, after traders on its precious metals and Treasuries desks placed orders in gold, silver, platinum, palladium and Treasury futures “with the intent to cancel those orders prior to execution” from at least 2008 through 2016; in many instances, the CFTC found, they “did cause artificial prices.” Two former JPMorgan precious metals traders, Gregg Smith and Michael Nowak, were convicted in August 2022 and sentenced in 2023 to two years and a year and a day.

In 2020 the CFTC also ordered the Bank of Nova Scotia to pay $77.4 million: $60.4 million for spoofing and attempted manipulation in gold and silver futures from about January 2008 to July 2016, and $17 million for false statements to CFTC staff. Orders canceled before they trade never become positions, so this report can’t show them. The same claims about banks came back during the 2021 silver squeeze.

Bullion Trading research methodology

Positions are the COMEX silver line (CEI, NYME or CMX SILVER over the years) of the CFTC’s futures Bank Participation Report, July 1999 to October 2026, read on November 3, 2026: on cftc.gov from October 2024, in Internet Archive copies before. Of 328 months, 14 have no copy we could find (July 2008; June, July and September 2013; June to October 2018; February, March, June and July 2019; July 2021); in April 2001 and March and April 2002 silver wasn’t listed, as fewer than five banks held reportable positions. A script checked that every printed percentage matches contracts over open interest and that the U.S. and non-U.S. lines add up.

Net position is bank long minus bank short contracts, over open interest. Silver prices are World Bank Pink Sheet monthly averages, at full precision through January 2026 and rounded to 10 cents after. Forward changes run from the month after the report to 3, 6 or 12 months after that. The three-month test compares reports three months apart (stretches overlap) with silver’s move between those months and over the next three.

The most and least short groups are the 31 reports at each end of the 310 with a price; the past-36 test flags a report among the four most or least short of the 36 up to and including it, from September 2002. The calendar-shift test slides each flagged list around the 297 months with a 12-month result (262 for the past-36 test) and counts how often a shifted list did as well. Episodes merge flagged months under four months apart, scored from their first report. The full dataset is a CSV download.

What the bank report can and can’t tell a silver buyer

The report shows banks short COMEX silver almost without a break since 1999, and as short in gold, but not what offsets those shorts; CFTC reviews of the largest short traders through 2007 found mostly hedges. On November 7, 2026, the silver Ask was $52.44 an ounce, against a record monthly average of $92.06 in January 2026. For someone buying physical silver, a paper market position report like this one says little about where the price goes next.