High Margin Requirements Are Killing The Silver Market

By EconMatters The CME raising margins for Silver Futures to such a degree that relative to market price, futures multiplier, and physical demand by consumers is just too high has basically killed the silver market.  Throw in the fact that many brokerages have even higher margins than the exchange margins, and outside of a fed announcement, the silver market has all but dried up, when compared to the much more active physical market for silver.       The Silver contract which closed Friday at $31.93 an ounce has an initial margin of $16,940 with an overnight margin of $11,000 at a typical brokerage.   Now I know this market went through a very volatile trading phase, and with all the turmoil regarding Europe and central bank decisions around the world, it was probably a good idea to raise margins beyond normal percent driven formulaic metrics, ...