By SRSrocco:

In just eight months, the U.S. LME copper inventories are down nearly 60%.

The top 10 Primary Silver Miners (does not include Fresnillo & Hochschild) had total revenues in Q3 2011 of $954 million with a combined net income of $241 million.  As the table shows, this was 25% margin compared to total revenues.

However, in this past quarter we can see the damage to the balance sheets as the miners received about $8.00 less an ounce for silver in Q3 2012 than the same quarter last year.  Total income declined to $895 million even though the overall production was a million oz more.  Furthermore, we can see that net incomes have plummeted 78% to only $53 million…. a mere 6% of total revenues.

From my simple calculations, the break-even price to Net Income was about $28.00 for the combined primary silver miners. [Read more...]