China Silver Premium Grows on ‘Stereo’ Exports: Chart of the Day

Silver in China has been the most expensive relative to London in about three years as exporters stepped up overseas shipments to qualify for a tax rebate, draining inventories of the metal.

The CHART OF THE DAY tracks the price difference between an ounce of silver in Shanghai and London, with the Chinese price hitting a 17 percent premium this month and last, according to Shanghai Gold Exchange data. The spread was higher only twice in the last six years. The lower panel shows that supply in warehouses monitored by the Shanghai Futures Exchange have dropped to 115 metric tons, down 80 percent from this year’s peak in February. The decline is due to exporters boosting shipments by classifying ingot as acoustic wire, said Liu Xu, a precious-metals analyst at Capital Futures Co. in Beijing.