Gold News Today

Markets usually quiet down over the holidays as investors turn their attention to non-financial matters and businesses look ahead to the coming year. Yet 2025 offers no such pause. Silver has jolted to fresh all-time highs, closing out the year with unmistakably bullish momentum.

In this week’s The Gold Spot, Scottsdale Bullion & Coin’s Precious Metals Advisors Steve Rand and Todd Graf discuss silver’s most recent peaks and the accompanying spike in demand, the roles a short squeeze and cup-and-handle pattern play in the shiny metal’s strength, and where investors can still find a great deal on investment-grade silver coins.

Silver Hits Record High Above $64/oz

This week, silver prices propelled to above $64/oz, conquering a new high on the rally and firmly establishing itself above a long-held ceiling. This impressive leap comes only a month after the shiny metal reached near the $50/oz hurdle for the first time since 2011. Year-to-date, silver prices have gained a remarkable +120%, entering 2025 at around $29/oz.

Supply Pressures Lift Prices

At its most basic level, the silver spike can be understood as a reflection of extreme supply-and-demand imbalances. Industrial and investment demand for the precious metal has been on the rise, and the available supply remains largely stagnant. 2025 is on pace to mark the fifth year of supply deficits, signaling a structural issue.

On the industrial side, silver is consumed for manufacturing, fossil fuel and electric vehicles, solar energy, and artificial intelligence applications. Furthermore, more countries are actively diversifying their precious metals reserves. The government recently added silver to the U.S. critical minerals list, elevating the metal’s protective status and standardizing its importance.

“There are a lot of reasons right now why silver could really explode much, much further up to the upside.”

Steve Rand

General Manager / Sr. Precious Metals Advisor

The Resulting Short Squeeze

For decades, speculation has swirled about rampant market manipulation in the silver market. These rumors were vindicated a few years ago when two JPMorgan bullion traders were convicted of fraudulent trading, offering a rare glimpse into the behind-the-scenes price maneuvering by major players.

Every so often, the systemic supply crunch forces the hand of the whales betting against silver. When the shiny metal experiences a spike in value, these short-sellers are forced to cover their losses by buying back their positions. This creates a positive feedback loop by increasing demand following a price jump, which fuels further growth.

A glaring symptom of this short squeeze is the spike in borrowing costs, which usually hover around 1%. Recently, they’ve jumped to as high as 39%, signaling a considerable shortage of physical silver at leading bullion vaults.

Source: The Bubble Bubble Report

SLV — the most heavily traded silver-tracking ETF — is showing an extreme tightening in available supply. The number of borrowable shares has plunged from roughly 10 million to just 10,000.

The 50-Year Cup-and-Handle Breakout

In earlier episodes, we’ve discussed the cup-and-handle pattern that’s been forming for 50 years in the silver market. This extremely bullish technical model is completed when an asset retests a price ceiling following a period of significant build-up.

For silver, this preparation has been years in the making, following rejections at $50/oz in the 1980s and again in 2011. In October, the shiny metal blew past this long-term price cap, and the most recent move above $64/oz indicates the breakout is in full motion.

On Wall Street, there’s an old saying: the longer in base, the higher in space. This suggests that the longer an asset spends building a stable price floor, the bigger and more powerful its eventual breakout tends to be. Considering silver has had half a century to establish its foundation, experts have eye-watering price targets for the current rally.

Silver Price Targets:

• Conservative targets range from $80/oz to $100/oz.
• Moderate predictions reach between $150/oz and $200/oz.
• Full pattern expectations stretch to $400/oz and even $600/oz.

These gains aren’t locked in yet, but many experts agree that $100/oz is on the table. It wasn’t long ago that $60/oz silver seemed unreasonable, yet this record price was achieved within a year when prices were below $30/oz. Given these silver price predictions, it’s safe to say the next leg up could be explosive.

Silver Dollars Trading at Unusually Low Premiums

Silver’s prices may have hit all-time highs, but savvy investors who know where to look can still find plenty of deals. Right now, Morgan and Peace dollars, two of the most popular investment-grade silver coins, are trading 30% to 40% below their current premiums.

These highly sought-after historic coins are rarely near-bullion prices, giving investors a small window of opportunity to scoop them up before a silver rush pushes premiums higher. We’ve even seen some investors reallocating existing bullion positions from silver bars, coins, or junk silver into Morgan dollars and Peace dollars to benefit from these lower premiums.

“Morgan dollars and Peace dollars show a lot more stability than silver bullion. They rely on the physical buying and selling to support their prices, which is different.”

Steve Rand

General Manager / Sr. Precious Metals Advisor

Core Advantages of Morgan and Peace Silver Dollars

• Built-In Scarcity: Silver dollars offer value beyond metal content thanks to their limited supply, collectible demand, and century-old historical significance — all of which help support stronger long-term premiums than bullion.
• More Stable Pricing: Because their value is tied to physical supply and real collector demand, rather than derivatives or spot-market swings, silver dollars tend to exhibit more consistent and less erratic price behavior than generic bullion.
• Stronger Downside Protection: Silver dollars have historically held their value far better than bullion during major selloffs. During one severe decline, bullion dropped 70% while silver dollars fell only 38%.

If you’d like to learn more about how you can leverage silver’s increasing price action and inherent value to protect your wealth, claim a FREE copy of our Silver Investor Report.