[bankwalker]

I was talking specifically about physical delivery of expiring futures contracts. There are many other ways to trade silver such as SLV and other ETFs and ETNs.

A similar scenario (in reverse) occurred last spring when an expiring crude oil futures contract price went negative. The longs (not shorts) got squeezed as prices plummeted. As expiration date neared they knew they would be responsible for taking physical delivery of 1000 barrels of crude oil for each contract they held. They wanted to sell but there were no buyers as storage capacity was full. They ended up paying about $4000 per contract to exit the contracts to avoid physical delivery.

[BiglyCommentary]

The longs (not shorts) got squeezed as prices plummeted. As expiration date neared they knew they would be responsible for taking physical delivery of 1000 barrels of crude oil for each contract they held. They wanted to sell but there were no buyers as storage capacity was full. They ended up paying about $4000 per contract to exit the contracts to avoid physical delivery.

True longs didn't want delivery and so just kept selling and selling into the final hour of trading. The price closed at minus $37 but the settlement price is VWAP of the final half hour. So certain that was negative, meaning the shorts owed money to the longs. That a nice squeeze spot to be in.