Category: Silver

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.

Silver’s newest milestone signals a structural shift in both the precious metals market and the broader economy — one no investor can afford to overlook. This isn’t just another record; it’s the clearest expression yet of a rapidly evolving financial landscape. The ripple effects are only starting to surface, and understanding them now can help investors position their portfolios for stronger protection and greater upside.

Silver’s Historic Break Above $60

Silver has crossed $60/oz for the first time in history, coming close to $64/oz in intraday trading. This new record brings the metal’s year-to-date gains to an eye-catching 114%. For context, gold prices — which have also hit all-time highs above $4,000/oz — are up 61%.

The shiny metal has not only doubled in 2025, but it has nearly doubled gold’s growth, which underscores the metal’s remarkable strength. This rally is being driven by a rare combination of persistent supply shortfalls, booming industrial demand, supportive monetary policy, and broader economic weakness.

Core Market Drivers Behind the Silver Surge

Industrial Demand Acceleration

Industrial demand remains one of the single largest sources of consumption for the silver market, and the subcategories continue expanding. The solar industry remains the most active buyer, although electric vehicles and hybrids are using more silver.

Power grid upgrades and broad electrification efforts are also expanding demand. Artificial intelligence is among the fastest-growing and transformative sources of silver demand.

ETF Positioning and Investment Flows

This industrial consumption is complemented by robust investment flows. Silver exchange-traded funds saw an influx of 487 tons in November and 475 tons in December already.

For reference, about 78% of the London Bullion Market Association’s (LBMA) vault silver is now tied up in exchange-traded products, up from 65% in late 2024. Global ETF holdings stood at 1.13 billion ounces recently, still 7% below the prior peak of 1.21 billion ounces in early 2021.

Multi-Year Supply Deficit

The imbalance between available supply and sustained demand has led to five straight years of a supply shortfall. The 2025 deficit is expected to hit 125 million ounces, bringing the cumulative supply gap to 800 million ounces since 2021. This supply strain is hampered by lackluster mine production and recycling, which have been largely flat for over a decade.

Tight Physical Inventories

Perhaps nowhere is this supply dearth more readily apparent than at the world’s largest bullion reserves. Earlier this year, the LBMA vaults struggled to keep pace with surging demand, leading to a 39-times spike in borrowing costs.

Sprott analysts note that free-trading inventory has shrunk to the point where modest demand increases create price convexity, meaning prices jump faster than normal in response to supply shortages.

Macro Drivers Supporting the Rally

Federal Reserve Policy Rate Expectations

The Federal Reserve’s dovish stance on the economy is paying dividends for silver’s performance. Historically, precious metals generate heightened demand during periods of quantitative easing as the opportunity cost of owning non-yielding assets diminishes.

This phenomenon played out in real time this week as silver prices leapt on the news of another Fed rate cut. The central bank is expected to make two more cuts in 2026, suggesting further tailwinds for silver.

Strategic Stockpiling

Another pillar of silver’s strong foundation is strategic stockpiling and an aggressive posture around the globe. Recently, President Trump added silver to the U.S. critical minerals list, indicating strategic protection and policy alignment in the future.

At the same time, some central banks — most notably Russia and China —  appear to be diversifying portions of their physical reserves into silver, which supports long-term de-dollarization efforts. Beijing even plans to implement silver export controls in 2026, adding further pressure to global supplies given its leading role in silver production.

A Technical Breakout 50 Years in the Making

All of these forces are unfolding at the same time that silver is completing one of the most important technical patterns in its modern history. For the past five decades, silver has been forming a cup and handle pattern. The shiny metal’s current breakout above $60/oz is the culmination of this half-century build-up.

50 year silver cup and handle chart pattern

Now, silver has officially entered price discovery mode, with no historical price ceilings in the way. At this point, $100/oz silver is on the table. With market pressure still intensifying, the move to this next threshold may unfold sooner than many investors expect.

This 50-year cup-and-handle formation is so, so bullish.

–Precious Metals Advisor Tim Murphy