Precious Metals

-Commercial pressure (batteries, semiconductors for AI, solar panels)
-Increased demand from India/Russia and retail Investors priced out of gold
-Global shortage from mine closures in S. America, other mining activity from which silver is a by-product

Last August there was a rumor going around that silver was about to shoot up. Guess they were a year and some change early on that.

However, 80% of India's silver supply is imported. The UAE and China are increasingly supporting that demand, but the U.K. is traditionally India's largest silver supplier.

Yet, London's vaults have been emptying rapidly for the past few years. In June 2022, the London Bullion Market Association held 31,023 metric tons of silver. By March 2025, volumes had fallen by around a third to 22,126 metric tons — its lowest point in years.

"What isn't necessarily so visible to people is what's happening in the vaults," said O'Connell. "And that had reached a point where there was basically there was no available metal left in London."

In October, the squeeze was such that traders had to pay much higher borrowing costs – or lease rates – to close their positions.

"At one stage, to borrow overnight was costing 200% on an annualized basis, so a lot of people were very stressed to put it mildly," said O'Connell.

Supply is a constant issue for silver, as for other precious and rare metals. The Silver Institute's 2025's World Silver Survey estimates that mine production has been decreasing over the past 10 years, especially in Central and South America.

"Over the course of the past twelve months or so, the underlying surplus has started to turn into a deficit for three reasons: the impact of the electrification of the vehicle fleet, artificial intelligence, and photovoltaics," said O'Connell.
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"At the moment, a standard electric vehicle has about 25 grams of silver, maybe the larger EVs have 50 grams of silver as part of their components," said Syms.

"If we move into these solid-state silver batteries, each electric vehicle might require a kilo or more of silver," he added.

"At the moment, a standard electric vehicle has about 25 grams of silver, maybe the larger EVs have 50 grams of silver as part of their components," said Syms.

"If we move into these solid-state silver batteries, each electric vehicle might require a kilo or more of silver," he added.
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Source

All I know is a) my husband has scored yet another “you were so right” and b) kids are happy their allowance savings are in silver dollars.
 
I actually went through a phase of buying up physical silver about a decade ago. Earlier this month I sold about half of what I had when it was around $62 per ounce. Now I'm wishing I had held off until next year.
 
Wutang said:
I actually went through a phase of buying up physical silver about a decade ago. Earlier this month I sold about half of what I had when it was around $62 per ounce. Now I'm wishing I had held off until next year.
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At least you still have the other half. ;)
 
I have owned silver (physical) for 15 years now.


Samsung (the largest industrial consumer of silver) is trying to buy silver directly from miners likely because they know at some point the LBMA will run out of physical silver to deliver. If that happens in 2026 there will be a huge short squeeze on silver mooning the price. Paper price manipulation eventually comes to an end when there is huge industrial demand for the physical product that overwhelms the paper market. The shorts are going to get wrecked in 2026.
 
Cooper said:
Silver looks like a sure thing as an investment going forward.
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Famous last words.
Maddox said:
What are your guys thoughts on converting a 401k into silver at this point?
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This is called performance chasing and is a very ill-advised. The time to invest in silver was a year or more ago, not now when its price is up 180% YoY. Piling into an asset at all time highs - particularly after an unprecedented run-up like silver has enjoyed over the past few months - rarely works out well. Fast and easy way to become a bagholder.

Also, you really don't want to put all your eggs in one basket. This is why it's important to diversify your investments. Sure, you see the occasional guy trumpeting his massive gains online after he YOLOed his life savings into some investment that did a 10-100x. What you don't see are the hundreds of other guys who made similar bets and lost everything, and are now stuck wage slaving for the rest of their lives.

Investment decisions should be made prudently and with a cool head. If you ever find yourself thinking something like, "I really need to buy into this before it's too late!" or are otherwise overly influenced by fear or greed, you should take a step back and slow down.
 
scorpion said:
Also, you really don't want to put all your eggs in one basket. This is why it's important to diversify your investments. Sure, you see the occasional guy trumpeting his massive gains online after he YOLOed his life savings into some investment that did a 10-100x. What you don't see are the hundreds of other guys who made similar bets and lost everything, and are now stuck wage slaving for the rest of their lives.

Investment decisions should be made prudently and with a cool head. If you ever find yourself thinking something like, "I really need to buy into this before it's too late!" or are otherwise overly influenced by fear or greed, you should take a step back and slow down.
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Why I only put a bit on silver. I bought when spot was like 66 USD. It was already mooning so I decided to play it safe. If it crashes, my diamond hands won’t wipe me out. I wish I put more on it but you know, better safe than sorry. The guys who put a ton on silver in the $20 era are probably grinning ear to ear.
 
KulturedKaveman said:
Why I only put a bit on silver. I bought when spot was like 66 USD. It was already mooning so I decided to play it safe. If it crashes, my diamond hands won’t wipe me out. I wish I put more on it but you know, better safe than sorry. The guys who put a ton on silver in the $20 era are probably grinning ear to ear.
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I got my silver back about a decade ago and I'm actually slapping myself for selling a good chunk of it around $60 last month even though you would think I would be happy that it's finally gone up after remaining stagnant for so long. I think it says something about human psychology or maybe it's just about me individually.
 
Wutang said:
I got my silver back about a decade ago and I'm actually slapping myself for selling a good chunk of it around $60 last month even though you would think I would be happy that it's finally gone up after remaining stagnant for so long. I think it says something about human psychology or maybe it's just about me individually.
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Some food for thought… look at the price of silver vs gold. Totally disproportionate. Now you double that market manipulation tidbit to keep the almighty fiat up with the fact silvers an industrial metal… do the calculations. Silver had a good future, but I don’t think I’d bet my back end on it.
 
KulturedKaveman said:
Iirc wasn’t it 20 bucks in the Biden era?
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yes, but it was more or less stagnant at 20 dollars since 2013


silver-20-yr-usd-20-may-20.png
 
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Caduceus said:
Yeah, but they had to wait over 15 years to cash in.
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I started buying silver in 2010 and accumulated for many years after that. I’m sitting on a decent stack with good gains now but it did nothing for many many years. In fact during that period I even stopped watching the silver price for a number of years because nothing was happening and at some point I started to doubt myself and wonder why I didn’t invest the money in something with more growth potential. It worked out okay in the end but a huge amount of patience and doubt was involved. It’s never as easy as it looks.
 
scorpion said:
Famous last words.

This is called performance chasing and is a very ill-advised. The time to invest in silver was a year or more ago, not now when its price is up 180% YoY. Piling into an asset at all time highs - particularly after an unprecedented run-up like silver has enjoyed over the past few months - rarely works out well. Fast and easy way to become a bagholder.

Also, you really don't want to put all your eggs in one basket. This is why it's important to diversify your investments. Sure, you see the occasional guy trumpeting his massive gains online after he YOLOed his life savings into some investment that did a 10-100x. What you don't see are the hundreds of other guys who made similar bets and lost everything, and are now stuck wage slaving for the rest of their lives.

Investment decisions should be made prudently and with a cool head. If you ever find yourself thinking something like, "I really need to buy into this before it's too late!" or are otherwise overly influenced by fear or greed, you should take a step back and slow down.
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Silver today is different from a classic bubble situation in at least three major factors:

-It is an industrial input in industries with explosive growths, including solar panels and chips, not unlike say copper or nickel. There is a a solid demand for the metal.
-It is also, like gold, a currency play and a monetary reserve asset in an increasingly volatile global financial environment with growing debt.
-Its supply and production is limited, cannot scale up as much as for other metals in response to higher prices and greater demand, as most silver produced is a byproduct of the mining of other metals like lead or zinc.

This being said, I agree about the importance of a diversified portfolio.
 
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