New $59 per oz High for Silver Signals Growing Stress in a Market Already Running Short
- Silver just set a new nominal record, briefly breaking above $59 per oz before settling at $58.15, capping a stellar year in which all four major precious metals dramatically outperformed stocks and bonds.
- 2025 has been a breakout year for metals, with silver doubling, platinum up 84%, gold up 61%, and palladium up 58%, highlighting a powerful rotation of global capital into hard assets.
- Despite rising investment interest, ETF market share in gold and silver remains far below 2011 levels, suggesting the public is not yet fully engaged—often a sign that a bull market still has room to run.
- Silver’s supply-demand imbalance continues to intensify, with cumulative deficits since 2019 now estimated at 1.35 billion ounces, and LSEG reporting a 2024 deficit exceeding half a billion ounces—nearly half of annual global supply.
- Analysts are increasingly comfortable publishing 2026 price scenarios ranging from the $40s to over $100/oz, with some citing industrial demand—solar, electrification, AI-driven metals usage—and rising physical tightness as catalysts.
- Industry voices like Ben McMillan emphasize a growing physical squeeze, comparing today’s market to the 1980s and noting that funds are even preparing to take physical delivery due to the widening gap between paper and metal.
- Traditional skeptics—career derivative traders—continue to push back online, but much of that commentary is rooted in a fading era of London/NY price-suppression dynamics, which appear increasingly strained in today’s globalized market.
- Global consumer behavior is shifting, from India’s surge in silver refining during record prices to Singaporean investors selling gold to buy silver, convinced that silver’s affordability and historical gold-silver ratio make it the better value play.
- More analysts, such as David McAlvany, argue silver is still deeply undervalued relative to gold, noting the gold-silver ratio is breaking lower from historically cheap levels and could justify $65–80/oz silver within 6–12 months.
- A striking chart shows global silver pricing outside COMEX hours reaching nearly $400/oz, hinting at a growing East–West price disconnect that could reconverge—potentially igniting what some see as a two-stage silver bull market into the 2030s.
Why 2025’s explosive precious-metals rally may only be the beginning—and what investors need to understand before the next leg higher.
The world silver market continues to garner attention as a new nominal price record just above $59 oz spot was ticked today to close the week.
This year has been a tremendous one for all four of the major precious metals.
To start this month December 2025, the spot silver price had doubled on the year, platinum was up 84%, gold up 61%, and palladium was up 58% year to date.
Perhaps more importantly when we think about competing asset classes, the precious metals have blown away stocks and bond in 2025. Yes there have been more capital inflows into the precious metals sector.
But when we examine 21st Century ETF data in collective unsecured gold and silver ETF market shares in the broad ETF sector. We can see we are still many multiples away from the old 2011 tops.
Bloomberg's coverage of the sector has become more persistent and aggressive in conveying bullish signals ongoing.
Highlighting collective world unsecured gold and silver ETF inflows have been rising.
Here is the unsecured silver ETF inflow vs outflow data on the year according to their data. Net positive with over 114 million oz inflowing into world silver ETFs thus far in 2025.
The combined silver supply deficits when one considers demand outstripping supplies since 2019 is estimated to be now near 1.35 billion oz over the last seven years.
Hard to imagine this stopping as silver FOMO kicks into higher gears ahead.
Even in a Reuters article this week, the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG), formerly Refinitiv, published data stating in the article that the silver supply deficit in 2024 was over 1/2 billion oz in that year alone.
That's about half of annual world silver mine and refining supplies to put that eye watering figure into perspective.
Looking forward, silver price guesses for 2026 are increasingly being published and stated in the public arena.
There are bears and bulls of course, and the range of guess works call for price slams back down into the $40s oz or potentially running to over $100 oz silver by the end of next year 2026.
Here is one of those potential silver triple digit shot callers, Ben McMillan of IDX Advisors speaking to Yahoo Finance just over a month ago recorded on Nov 1st 2025.
Of course grizzled career long COMEX leveraged derivative traders have taken to Twitter X to talk down to onlooking silver bulls with past silver bear market FOMO takes.
This is normal in any bull market, top callers are about as common as delusional bulls when prices climb walls of worry. The issue is so many hot takes simply speak with their life experience trading within the full fiat currency Western world silver price suppression era. My thesis remains, that old London/NY silver price suppression system is falling apart before our very eyes.
But my opinion aside, basically at the moment we have two camps forming on where silver is headed in the coming year and even further years to come.
Bloomberg published old CPLie linked silver price charts this week, suggesting the all time real price high in today's fiat US dollars for silver is near $150 oz.
Of course we know the US government's BLS has been increasingly altering and rigging their compounding price inflation data since the last time gold and silver almost wrecked the then fiat petro-dollar system in early 1980.
What $50 in January 1980 is now worth in today's 2025 fiat US dollars is a point of contention that will be argued for years to come. It is likely multiples of what the US government claims. More on the long suppressed silver price later in this week's update.
Stick around for after this brief intro we'll go across the world and see and hear from other bullion bulls swapping out of some gold for silver, and see signs that rising spot silver prices are beginning to bring scrap back into one key Asian market.
The spot silver price briefly broke above $59 oz today and closed this week at $58.15 oz bid.
The spot gold price ended this week trading at $4,194 oz bid price.
The spot gold silver ratio ends this week at 72 oz of spot silver to afford 1 oz of spot gold.
To better wrap our mind's around how strong the move in silver has been over the last nearly four months.
It used to cost $20 fiat US dollars to buy three 90% US Silver quarters pre-1965 melt value.
Now that same $20 bill only affords silver buyers two 90% silver quarters.
Luke Gromen using the silver composition fall of the Roman denarius as analog pointed out this week that if the 1964 minimum wage of $1.25 or five 90% silver quarters has kept up with ongoing silver prices, that minimum wage in today's silver melt value would be over $52 an hour or just over a six figure per year salary working full time.
Reports out of India suggest larger sterling silverware refining loads are flowing as Indians take advantage of nominal record price highs in silver. Indian silver demand an annual basis is anywhere between 200 to 250 million oz since the pandemic ran it course, so internal refining of silver could help it meet some growing silver demand as price continue climbing over time.
Let's turn now to Singapore's state television channel CNA Insider for a look at local bullion buyer rationales for swapping out of some gold holdings and moving into silver.
Let's get one more 2026 silver and gold outlook for 2026 and beyond with Bloomberg Canada interviewing David McAlvany on his views.
To finish with an illustration of how systemically cheap silver remains still.
Something broke in the world silver market in Covid 2020 and the aggregated world silver price outside of COMEX trading hours (the blue line here), well it has ballooned to almost $400 oz ongoing.
My contention remains, this red silver NY open price and the eastern blue line have another re-convergence to come.
It will be the 5th time this phenomenon has occurred but it seems we're likely setting up a two part silver bull run to do it.
This first silver upward push towards triple digits I believe is underway, and then later on during a store of value and systemic crisis perhaps in the 2030s to come takes us to the mania price peak for this history books.
That will be all for this Week's SD Bullion Market Update.
REFERENCES:
Why silver could rise to $100 in 2026 at moment 4:42 in:
https://youtu.be/hY0-bBBdgZY?si=kBZNG0DZ3J9oHHfo
Why Silver Prices Are Soaring? - CNBC International
https://youtu.be/7quVYyWJcio?si=FDa6CZpop9-w04Gk
Gold Out, Silver In: Smart Move Or Risky Bet? | Money Mind | Investment
Singapore's CNA Insider - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjeFNWa_hIA
'Expensive, yes, but very under owned': McAlvany on buying gold
https://youtu.be/DfmPYRz1EJ8?si=g8a5C3reIOpUotP8
