Silver Breaks $100 as Physical Demand Forces a Global Market Repricing
- Silver has violently re-rated higher, driven by physical demand, not paper speculation, with China, India, and other Asian markets leading the charge
- Strong bullion premiums and tight inventories show the global silver market is moving back toward balance after more than a decade of distorted price discovery
- India’s silver investment demand continues to grow despite sharply higher prices, with imports flowing from Switzerland, China, the UK, and the UAE
- Chinese silver inventories on the SGE and SHFE fell another 3+ million ounces, reaching decade-low levels, reinforcing ongoing supply tightness
- COMEX registered silver inventories have collapsed to roughly 114 million ounces, down about 86 million ounces since September 2025
- Rising negative silver lease rates in London signal longer-term supply stress, not just short-term market tightness
- Silver broke decisively above its 1980 nominal high, highlighting the severe long-term debasement of fiat currencies, including the Swiss franc
- Platinum and palladium prices are also surging, with platinum still historically cheap relative to gold and silver on a long-term ratio basis
- Precious metals have massively outperformed U.S. equities, with gold and silver reaching extreme valuation shifts versus the S&P 500 and U.S. housing
- With industrial demand rising, mine supply constrained, and global financial risk elevated, the author argues that sustained triple-digit—and eventually multi-hundred-dollar—silver prices may be required to restore equilibrium
Surging bullion premiums, collapsing inventories, and relentless industrial demand signal a historic rebalancing of the world silver market—one that paper pricing can no longer contain.
Why is silver being rerated so violently upwards?
Not just by China, but also India, & elsewhere.
A collective unyielding premium bid for Silver bullion.
It is pushing the market's collective price discovery wheels faster & faster, higher it climbs.
Physically demand driven. Not some unsecured over levered derivative clown show.
World Silver Market moving back into balance
That's what we're witnessing
Decade+ of mostly London & COMEX's price discovery fogs burning off
Still a wild ride ahead in this 5th silver market rebalancing era.
Let's get into some real time precious metals and data news from the week that welcomed $100 spot silver triple digit landia.
We still haven't seen Jan 2026, China silver export data yet. But based on the premiums that India is paying for industrial sized silver bullion bars, it is likely that more silver exports will be headed to India as Silver ETF buying in India remains strong and growing.
Last month's data on Indian silver imports showed Switzerland led the way (slightly irregular). But China and UK were there to export into India as well as the UAE and other myriad silver export markets.
Investment demand for silver in India is still growing and demand is forecasted to grow even in the face of much higher local prices.
China's SGE & SHFE inventory levels fell over another 3 million ounces this week to levels not seen since over a decade ago. That market remains silver supply tight based on high premiums continuing.
Registered silver bullion in collective COMEX warehouses continues to collapse now down to 114 million oz.
Having fallen around -86 million ounces since Sep 2025.
Chris Marcus of Arcadia Economics reports Robert Gottlieb's latest post stating that 1-5 year silver OTC lease rates in London have been climbing sharply of late rising from -1.5 -2.5% to now around -3.5 to -4%. Suggesting there are silver supply concerns more over the coming few years basis as opposed to merely a shorter medium term basis.
Bad news for the fiat Swiss franc as a safe haven.
This week silver finally blew through the near ancient nominal 1980 all time high price that was ticked near 76 oz.
A currency that was once defined at 4.5 grams of silver per note, has now lost over -92% of its value to silver and these loses will go high 99 percentile in time.
The Swiss fiat is no exception to the debasement trade.
Good news for Platinum and Palladium bullion bulls.
Their respective prices have also been gapping higher in China of late. Last price for Palladium was $2225 oz and Platinum at over $3065 oz.
On a long term ratio play, platinum bullion is trading historically cheaply still versus gold bullion and also silver bullion.
The four major precious metals' price performance to kick off 2026 is near a handful of standard deviations above the 45 year norms.
Much like last year, Silver, Gold, and the white precious metals are climbing at rates suggesting we're not going back to Kansas any more, and Dorthy's slippers were silver the whole time.
We're gonna be right back with Silver news out of Japan as the long time yen carry trade unravels onward.
How far silver and gold have both come relative to other major asset classes in the USA.
As well, we're gonna look at LBMA Precious Metals price guessers for the year 2026.
They have to be more accurate this year, right, right?
The spot silver price ripped higher on this historic week, closing at $103.33 oz bid.
The spot gold price led the bull this week threatening five thousand an ounce, ending this week's trading at $4,983 oz bid.
The spot gold silver ratio cut down to 48 oz of spot silver to afford one troy ounce of spot gold.
Gold has broken out versus the S&P 500 now costing 1.39 oz to buy the nominal US Stock market index's nominal number closing at 6,915 today.
Will we see the S&P 500 and the nominal price of Gold match this year? That would the fair value over US financial history.
The last 3 times this chart fell below 1.4 oz it took anywhere from 26.5, 21, to 5 years to return in a new upward cycle above that key level.
On the silver side of these bullion versus US Stock market scales, the situation is even more extreme.
S&P 500 has lost -2/3rds it’s relative value vs Silver Bullion since the start of 2025
Still has to lose another near -60% to find that ratio’s late April 2011 low level near 25 oz
Near a -90% relative loss remains versus silver bullion if we fall back near extreme 1980 low levels again, perhaps next decade.
The silver versus median US priced homes with today's close is close to only 4,000 oz.
The 1980 lows fell for a time near and even below 1,500 oz.
In gold terms, we're almost now at 1980 lows measured by $5,000 oz gold vs $415,000 median priced homes today, versus back then a median house costing $63,700 and $800 oz gold in early 1980. 83 oz now vs around 79 oz back then.
This occurring so early in this bullion bull suggests that median house / gold ratio has further to fall still.
4 MAJOR PRECIOUS METALS PRICE FORECASTS
Gold Price Guesses 2026
No joke, this is the
Smallest % variance $ 3,500 — $ 7,150 oz
The highest gold price guess is from a bank desk analyst out of China.
Silver Price Guesses 2026
Biggest % variance $ 42 — $ 165 oz
The highest guess is Ross Norman out of London. Bart Malek of TD Securities high gold and silver price guesses for the year have already been proven wrong by a few hundred dollars in gold and 17 dollar in silver.
Platinum Price Guesses 2026
2nd Widest % variance $ 1,300 — $ 3,600 oz
Bruce Ikemizu's $3,600 oz high call for platinum seems reasonable to win in bullion bull mode.
Palladium Price Guesses 2026
3rd Wide variance $ 1,090 — $ 2,900 oz
The high side guess being a Japanese analyst as of course the Japanese auto industry heavily uses palladium in their auto manufacturing processes.
A full link to these 2026 precious metals price guesses is in the show notes, each guesser has a rationale for their reasonings if you care to go find and read them,
Turning to the land of the rising sun.
The Twitter X algorithm has been serving me more Japanese silver bullion buying chatter the last few weeks and it is obvious the demand their for silver bullion has gone next level.
Here some guy complaining how hard it was to secure these 500 gram silver bullion bars.
I reminded him what's more painful is not owning silver bullion in size before it starts performing akin to how gold has already performed there to date.
Japan is very early still, but on their english business channel news this week, our industry friend Bruce Ikemizu-son was interviewed about the ongoing in silver.
Wait until you hear the industrial silver users commentary, it is completely flat footed.
I maintain my thesis that the World Silver Market moving back into balance. And in doing so it will likely require multiple hundred dollar an ounce silver as the ongoing aggregate price outside of COMEX hours remains hovering still around $400 oz.
That will be all for this Week's SD Bullion Market Update.
REFERENCES:
LBMA Precious Metals Price guesses 2026
https://www.lbma.org.uk/forecast-survey-2026/analysts-forecasts
Silver rallies on supply crunch as investors flee riskーNHK WORLD-JAPAN NEWS
