COMEX Gold Registered Metal Slips to 54% of the Vault
· By the ByShovel Research Desk
The split between deliverable and stored metal shows registered gold down to 54% of total vault stocks and registered silver at 29%, both as of this week's COMEX readings.
COMEX vault reports split every ounce into two buckets: registered and eligible. The distinction matters more than the headline total, because only one of those buckets is actually pledged for delivery. This week the registered share of the gold vault sits at 54%, and the silver vault reads much tighter at 29% registered.
What Registered and Eligible Actually Mean
Every bar in a COMEX-approved warehouse falls into one of two categories. Registered metal carries a warrant, meaning it is available to settle futures contracts and can be handed to a buyer standing for delivery. Eligible metal meets exchange purity and form standards and sits in the same vaults, but it has no warrant against it. It belongs to someone who has chosen, for now, not to make it deliverable. The total vault figure adds both together. The registered share, deliverable metal as a percentage of everything in the building, is the number that tells you how much of the stack is actually free to move.
The Gold Reading This Week
Registered gold, the metal available to hand to buyers, fell 112,204 oz this week to 14.83M oz, a decline of 0.8%. Total gold in COMEX vaults barely moved, down 1.3% to 27.46M oz. Because registered fell while the total held roughly flat, the deliverable share now reads 54% of the vault. At a spot price of $4,201 an ounce, this week's registered swing is worth roughly $471M. Our read is straightforward: the deliverable pool is shrinking slightly faster than the total, which is why the registered percentage moves down even as the headline vault number looks stable.
Silver Moves the Other Way
Silver went the opposite direction on the flow but stayed far tighter on the ratio. Registered silver rose 5,820,101 oz this week to 92.88M oz, a gain of 6.7%, while total COMEX silver was essentially flat, down 0.1% to 323.16M oz. That leaves the deliverable share at 29% of the vault, well below gold's 54%. The week's registered swing is worth about $370M at a $64 spot price. So even with metal moving into the registered category, silver's deliverable percentage sits at less than a third of the total stack, a structurally lower reading than gold.
What to Watch
The Desk tracks the registered share, not just the total, precisely because the two can diverge. Gold's total vault and registered pool both fell this week, but registered fell faster, nudging the deliverable ratio down. Silver's registered pool rose without the total following, lifting deliverable ounces while the ratio stayed low at 29%. Neither reading is a forecast, and neither is a verdict. They are snapshots of how much metal is warranted for delivery versus how much is simply parked. Watch whether the gold registered share holds near 54% or continues to slip, and whether silver's fresh registered metal stays warranted or migrates back to eligible in coming reports.