Ian Welsh

~by Sean Paul Kelley

Everyone is talking about gold topping $5k an ounce. The yellow metal is captivating and big moves by it tend to suck all the oxygen out of the media space regarding other metals. In 2025 gold rose a whopping 64% against all comers, i.e the dollar, the S&P 500, oil, Bitcoin and on and on.

Gold’s meteoric rise last year is a fucking piker compared to what silver did. Silver was the best performing asset of 2025 rising an astonishing 147%. Yeah you read that right. 147% from January 1, 2025 to December 31, 2025. This raises some important questions, such as why did silver, after decades of disappointing performance, blow past every asset this planet has to offer and consequently how high can it go? Does silver have a ceiling?

So, questions asked, let’s now examine the known and/or knowable variables affecting silver prices at present.

First, what’s silver’s all time inflation adjusted high? This depends on who you ask and how you measure inflation. By our current CPI measurement silver’s all time, inflation adjusted high was roughly $150 an ounce. This was in February 1980 when the Hunt Brother’s tried to corner the silver market. Now, as most of you know, Ian and I both distrust current inflation measures, like the CPI, because it overweights consumer goods with stable or falling prices, using accounting legerdemain like hedonic pricing which equates increasing computer chip power and/or efficiency as disinflationary. At the same time the CPI underweights prices of goods that are rising, like food and other non-durables.

Seriously, I defy anyone to tell me food prices are stable or falling: you can’t do it. The CPI does this primarily to avoid COLA adjustments on entitlements, cheating retirees.

Other measures of inflation, indices, weighting using purchasing power parity or other yardsticks, delivers an all time silver high closer to $190. So, I’m going to channel King Solomon and split the baby in half and call the all time high at $170. But however you measure inflation it’s clear silver isn’t even close to its 1980 Hunt Brother’s high.

Second, price moves in gold and silver are not coupled and have not been for at least 150 years. They don’t correlate. Gold is considered a safe-haven against fiat currency hyper-inflation or economic collapse. Silver, on the other hand, is essential to modern electronic manufacturing. So gold had a nice run last year, but silver was number one by a very, very wide margin, outperforming gold, the way Shohei Ohtani outclasses everyone else on a baseball diamond. Even as silver and gold have been decoupled since the late 19th century evidence is mounting that last year’s silver move might have been the opening act of their long awaited re-coupling.

Perhaps a précis on how and why they decoupled and what a re-coupling would look like is in order.

The first question is to ask, “how long were gold and silver coupled?” Well, from ancient times—yes, fucking Greeks and Romans ancient times—until the 19th century silver and gold traded at a 15:1 ratio.

Don’t believe me?

Consider then how the 1792 US Coinage Act established a 15:1 ratio between the two in our newly constituted republic. That said, during the next century—the 19th—a handful of rare developments coalesced to break the two thousand year old linkage between the two royal metals, thereby widening the ratio nearly exponentially.

First, the gold standard for measuring currency values between nations was established. It soon became the, well, gold standard for all international trade.

Second, the conventional wisdom prophesied the end of America’s silver boom—never mind that the aggregate value of silver mined in Arizona and Nevada had a notional dollar value greater than the California, Yukon, Deadwood, Montana and Alaska gold rushes combined. Gold’s price during the 19th century, due in large part by its merciless acquisition by European banks, blew out the ratio, decoupling the two metals for a century and a half. The ratio between the newly decoupled metals had widened from 15:1 to 50:1 by the turn of the 20th century. By the turn of the 21st the gap was nearly 100:1, in large part due to US government manipulation of silver prices. The US government sheltered a rentiers market in silver bullion for decades. Wholesalers got silver at spot prices. They then charged retail buyers high premiums and pocketed the sizable difference. This cozy arrangement, due to silver’s recent price moves is breaking down, and fast. Good I say.

That said, I argue, based on a reasonable man’s assumption, that the spread, now roughly 50:1, will continue narrowing and sometime in the next few years complete a reversion to its 2,000 year historical mean. That puts a potential price of an ounce of silver at $320 an ounce and might even overshoot a little bit, as reversions are wont to do at times. Overcorrections are a real thing. Hitting the Hunt Brother’s high of $170 an ounce is just a mental milestone, nothing more. The silver bugs are getting their revenge and how.

Now, my assumption is based on a single premise, a reversion to the mean/norm. Not a bad premise to base an assumption on, but not enough for intellectual coherence and honesty. So, let’s explore another variable: silver’s supply versus demand forecast.

What is the global supply versus demand picture like? In short, extremely unbalanced. The numbers are staggering. Aggregate global demand per year is 1.3 billion ounces. Annual global mining supply maxes out at roughly 850 million ounces. Let’s be generous and toss in recycling raising global supply to 1 billion ounces of silver a year available for industrial purposes.

The maths paints a grim supply picture: a whopping 23% gap between supply and demand. Because silver is the single most important industrial metal—it is in every electronic we own— demand is not going down any time soon. A single tomahawk missile requires 500 ounces of .999 grade silver. Yes, 500 ounces. See where I’m headed with this demand equation?

Why is it in everything? It’s the goldilocks of metals. Silver might not be as conductive as some but it’s less resistant than most. It doesn’t overheat like some and burn through plastic coating, but its best left exposed and uninsulated. It’s place in the bell curve of the electrical performance of all metals is right before the big bulge grows. Most of the time we want things good and fast. In reality, however, we must choose between good or fast, but silver? Well, silver gives you good and fast together. Goldilocks!

One big variable exists concerning global silver supply that has no easy short or even medium term fix. It’s physically impossible for global mining companies to ramp up mining production enough to even begin closing a 23% gap between supply and demand in any time frame less than 2-3 years. And this assumes no economic growth leading to increased global demand. That is some wicked nasty inelastic demand for silver and it has zero supply side answers, except very high prices that lead to retail silver owners cashing out. Central banks would have to print precisely three metric shit-tons of fiat currency to induce silver bugs to sell. I know some of them—they make rabid dogs seem like puppies—and they are adamant: no selling until the ratio reverts to 15:1. Until they get their ring there will be no huggy or kissy.

Another fundamental we ought mention are draconian export controls on bullion instituted by the Chinese central government. Note: China is the world’s leading consumer of industrial silver. It also has an extremely long and complex history using silver as its monetary base. Much, much less so with gold. If you want a book recommendation on the subject just ask.

Then there is our southern neighbor, Mexico, our number one supplier of silver to this day, is considering retaliatory tariffs on silver for United States because of Trumpian fuckery. Much fuckery there and I applaud Mexico’s president for sticking to her guns.

Consider as well dollar weakness and potential QE. Both point directly towards higher silver prices. Add to all this a wildcard fundamental hiding in plain sight: the magic price point that compels the addition of physical silver to the portfolios of Central, Commercial and Investment Banks around the globe. It’s a simple equation: storage costs fall as prices rise. At $40 an ounce there is no reason to hold silver in a vault. At $170? We’re getting close. At $300? Bingo! You’re goddamned right there is a reason. Such a development would spike demand by an order of magnitude as it would reinforce the powerful upward trend already in place. This is the dynamic that could at long last force the reversion of the gold to silver ratio back towards 15:1. Gold’s present price of $5000 an ounce implies a target of $333 per ounce of silver. In my opinion, and this is not investment advice, this is where we are heading. Right now. It may take 18-24 months, but it’s going to happen.

These are just some of the fundamentals. I can’t cover them all. If you think I missed an important one, add it in the comments, please.

Let’s talk about some technicals followed by sentiment.

Late in 2025 silver achieved a triple top breakout. Triple top breakouts are very rare in any asset. But when they occur they are an extremely bullish signal, conveying that there is no predictable upper limit to the assets potential advance. This is silver today. Silver hit $50 in October, backed down to the low $40s, made another run in November to try and overcome $50 and didn’t make it. But then in late November and all of December during the Santa Claus Rally silver blew through $50 and ended the year at $72.05. Market observers I respect, all unsure but all equally intuitive, explained the triple top breakout as the result of a handful of factors coalescing in the short term, such as Chinese export control tightening, high retail demand, Mexico threatening tariffs on silver, and a short squeeze on the Comex. This confluence makes sense to me.

The underlying technicals that lead to triple top breakouts are usually either a short squeeze or a gamma squeeze. In late 2025 silver underwent a short squeeze. But in early 2026 led by a bank frenzy to cover what were in essence some very large naked shorts in the SLV and PSLV ETFs, coupled by a bizarre change in margin requirements—from a straight percentage to one based on the notional value of the contracts (I mean, WTF?)—backfired spectacularly, leading to the rarest of rare technical developments, one I’ve only seen once in my life as an investor—the mythical unicorn, the gamma squeeze.

In short, a gamma squeeze “is a rapid [asset] price surge from [futures] trading, where heavy retail (read: investment banks, spk) call buying forces market makers to buy shares to hedge risk, creating a feedback loop that pushes the price even higher.” A gamma squeeze can be viewed as one powerful force intent on creating and sustaining an upwardly positive feedback loop “[where the] cycle escalates because as the [asset] price rises, market makers must buy more [futures or the hard asset] to cover their increasing delta risk, driving prices up further and attracting more call buying, often in low-float, i.e. low-volume [assets].” Silver is now, for all intents and purposes, in a virtuous rising feedback loop, leading to higher prices which force more buying to cover expected demand thus leading to higher prices. When it comes to shorting a gamma squeeze FAFO. You will lose your ass.

These developments all serve to reinforce my call late last year that silver is not on a cyclical bull run. It is engaged in a secular bull stampede.

Cyclical trends last between 3-5 years, represent basic price discovery and a market composed of two healthy opposing forces: supply and demand. Cyclical bull or bear runs tend to predict the business cycle as well, serving as a leading economic indicator.

Secular trends, however, are a different animal altogether. Like Earl Campbell, that human rhinoceros, running over middle linebackers like they were children, a secular bull or bear is powerful, based on large scale structural economic rearrangements, demographic realignments, and/or crushing but ‘unforeseeable’ externalities—like the Arab Oil Embargo of the 1970s or losing wars like Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan——that leave robust long-term consequences, like inflation, busted supply chains, broken armies, revanchist politicians, rising internal violence and other variables, in their wake. Secular bulls or bears last decades, some as long as 40 years.

Now a word on sentiment. Sentiment is a fickle bitch, much like the muse. Nothing can bankrupt an investor with more rapidity and totality than a sudden turn in sentiment. Two forces, ultimately rule investing: fear and greed. Beware the latter and respect the former, said my mentor at Morgan Stanley.

Right now silver is flying under the radar. Everyone is talking about gold. It’s gold, why the hell not? Gold makes people febrile. I’ve literally seen it with my own eyes. I’ve felt my forehead warm up and my fingers get a sudden subtle itch when I’ve held certain gold coins in my life. I had a Julius Caesar gold aureus in the palm of my hand once. Wow! So I get why silver remains the red headed step-child of the metals market. And the lack of commentary on silver reinforces my conviction of silver’s inevitable rise to $250-$300. As I used to say when I worked on Wall Street, “buy the rumor, sell the news.”

It worked every time. And right now silver is hardly a whisper much less a rumor.

So, realistically at what price would I begin selling my silver?

$275-$300 an ounce.

I’m patient.

And certain.