By Money Metals News Service
We should learn more about the implications of a global “ransomware” attack on vulnerable computers this week. Computers networks everywhere – ranging from hospitals in the United Kingdom to the Bank of China’s ATM machines – were disabled.
Hackers used recently leaked malware built by the U.S. National Security Agency. The malware took advantage of a vulnerability in Microsoft Windows the Agency had identified and purposely kept hidden.
We can expect the Agency and its supporters in Washington to dodge all accountability. All blame will instead be laid at the feet of Wikileaks and the insiders who revealed the virus and put the Agency’s activities on display.
Should the attack lead to prolonged outages, we can expect markets to respond – perhaps with some flight to safety, which would help precious metals.
Estimates for 2016 are in and the data shows the first decline in silver mine output in 14 years. The Silver Institute’s World Silver Survey 2017 shows reduced production of the base metals lead and zinc are largely to blame, though silver production as a byproduct of gold mining also fell.
Free Reports:
The Institute estimates 70% of silver output is generated as a byproduct of mining for other metals. Primary silver producers actually managed a 1% increase.
Supplies from scrap dwindled once again, despite the higher average silver price in 2016 vs. 2015.
The total amount of scrap returned for refining was just short of 140 million ounces, the lowest levels since 1996.
Demand for silver, most notably from the jewelry sector and for retail coins and bars, declined in 2016.
Slowing economic conditions in the Far East and India meant less buying of bullion, jewelry, and electronics using silver.
The bright spot in industrial demand was in solar power related photovoltaic cells.
The deficit in silver supply versus demand would have been smaller in 2016, but for sizable builds in inventory at metals exchanges around the world and in vaults backing exchange traded products including silver ETFs.