A note on silver · 20 October 2026
Silver, plainly
What happened to the price this year, what the supply figures say, how silver can be bought, how it is taxed, and where the traps are. It describes; it does not advise.
The short version
Two things are true at once.
The world has used more silver than it produced for six years running (2021 to the 2026 forecast). That shortfall is real and documented.
And the price still fell by about half in under nine months. The shortfall was there the whole way down.
Anyone describing only the first of those is telling you half the story.
- Silver now
- $57.93spot bid, Kitco, 20 Oct 2026, 18:20 New York
- Record
- $121.62spot, during trading, 29 Jan 2026
- Since the record
- −52%spot to spot, in under nine months
- A year earlier
- $51.80London fix, 20 Oct 2025
Prices are in US dollars per troy ounce, the unit precious metals are priced in (a little heavier than an ordinary ounce). The spot price is what an ounce costs right now; a dealer quotes a lower price to buy from you (the bid) and a higher one to sell to you. Against the London benchmark a year earlier, today's bid is about 12% higher; those are two different measures, so treat that as approximate.
The year in one chart
The month-end points hide how sharp the peak was: the fix was 118.45 on 29 January and 103.19 the next day.
Silver did climb back above $70 once: a fix of 70.26 on 28 August, and $71.16 spot during trading on 31 August. It has fallen about 19% since, spot to spot.
| Month | Fix | Month | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 2025 | 48.96 | Apr 2026 | 73.55 |
| Nov 2025 | 53.91 | May 2026 | 75.79 |
| Dec 2025 | 74.84 | Jun 2026 | 58.80 |
| Jan 2026 | 103.19 | Jul 2026 | 58.06 |
| Feb 2026 | 89.98 | Aug 2026 | 70.26 |
| Mar 2026 | 72.69 | 7 Sep 2026 | 65.57 |
January: the squeeze and the break
The squeeze
In autumn 2025 London, the main market for physical silver, ran short of spare metal. The free float is the silver in London's vaults that is not already owned by funds and so is available to trade. At the end of September 2025 it was about 136 Moz (million troy ounces), with funds holding 83% of London's stock. That figure is the World Silver Survey's, as quoted by Kitco, so it is second-hand.
The clearest sign of a shortage is the lease rate: the cost of borrowing physical metal for a period, as a yearly percentage. It normally sits under 1%. On 2 October 2025 the one-month rate was 7.3% (Japan Bullion Market Association, as reported by a news site). One news report puts the peak at 39% on 9 October 2025, without saying for what period of borrowing. Both are second-hand figures.
The break
The fix peaked at 118.45 on 29 January 2026; spot touched $121.62 during that day. Then it broke: 103.19 on 30 January, 81.98 on 2 February, and 74.94 by 6 February. One report (Business Today) puts the fall on 30 January at as much as 37% during the session.
What happened at the top, and what nobody knows
Two things are documented at the peak:
- The exchange raised the deposit. CME, which runs the main US silver futures market, raised the margin (the deposit a trader must post, as a share of the contract's value) on 27 January, from 9% to 11%, and again on 30 January, from 11% to 15%, effective 2 February. The second came on the day of the break and took effect after it. These were read from a garbled copy of CME's notice; the direction matches an earlier notice but was not checked against a clean table.
- A new Federal Reserve chair. Bloomberg reported on 29 January that a Kevin Warsh nomination was being prepared, and it was announced on 30 January. The dollar firmed the same day.
Nobody has published how much of the fall each one caused. No statement from the Silver Institute or the LBMA on the reversal was found. Any split between the margin increases and the nomination is a guess, and this page does not make one.
Could it happen again?
There is more metal in London now. LBMA vault data, which is primary: 790.3 Moz at the end of September 2025, and 931.9 Moz at the end of September 2026 (published 7 October 2026). That is up 18%, or 141.6 Moz more.
That does not settle whether a squeeze can come back, for three reasons:
- What matters is how much of that metal is free, and there is no clean answer. The one current estimate, 298 Moz at the end of September 2026, comes from a data aggregator using a different method from the 136 Moz a year earlier. The two cannot be compared as a trend.
- No current lease rate could be found.
- More metal on hand is what relieves a squeeze. It is not evidence that one cannot recur.
Supply and demand
From the World Silver Survey 2026 (Silver Institute and Metals Focus, 15 April 2026), read from the original PDF. 2026 figures are the survey's forecast, made in April.
| Line | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 forecast |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mine supply | 823.6 | 846.6 | 844.1 |
| Recycling | 194.5 | 197.6 | 211.3 |
| Net producer hedging | 0.0 | 44.7 | 10.0 |
| Total supply | 1,019.6 | 1,090.4 | 1,066.4 |
| Industrial use | 679.0 | 657.4 | 639.6 |
| of which solar panels | 197.5 | 186.6 | 151.0 |
| Jewellery | 205.1 | 189.3 | 159.4 |
| Silverware | 53.5 | 42.1 | 33.5 |
| Photography | 25.5 | 24.2 | 22.5 |
| Coins and bars | 190.9 | 217.7 | 257.6 |
| Total demand | 1,157.4 | 1,130.6 | 1,112.6 |
| Balance (minus = shortfall) | −137.9 | −40.3 | −46.3 |
The shortfall is real, and small
It is in its sixth year, but the 2026 forecast is about 4% of forecast demand, and the estimates move a lot. The 2025 shortfall was forecast at 117.6 Moz in April 2025 and 95 Moz in November 2025, and came in at 40.3 Moz, about two-thirds lower, mostly because mines produced more than expected.
These figures leave out buying by funds. Counting it, 2025's shortfall was 318.4 Moz, because funds bought 278.1 Moz; in 2026 the survey expects fund buying to fall to 30.0 Moz.
A "215 million ounce record deficit" circulates online. It appears in none of the four Silver Institute publications checked.
Solar demand is falling, not rising
A common argument runs: solar panels need silver, solar is booming, so silver demand is booming. The survey says otherwise. Silver used in solar panels is forecast to fall from 186.6 Moz in 2025 to 151.0 Moz in 2026: down 19%, a loss of 35.6 Moz, while installations keep growing. The survey's explanation is manufacturers speeding up thrifting (redesigning a product to use less of an expensive material) and substitution.
- Less per panel. A standard solar cell of the common type used about 90 mg of silver in 2025, and the industry roadmap expects about 60 mg by 2036 (as reported by a trade publication, not read from the roadmap itself).
- Copper instead. LONGi, a large Chinese panel maker, switched on a 21 GW copper-based cell line on 9 July 2026. Nobody publishes how much of the whole industry has switched.
The rest of industry grows by about half what solar loses. Every other industrial use combined, including data centres, power equipment and car electronics, grows by about 17.8 Moz. That is a subtraction on the survey's own lines, not a figure the survey prints. The survey names AI data centres and cars as growing but publishes no ounce figure for either; a figure quoted for them is not the Silver Institute's.
The sturdier argument, and its brake
- Only 26% of 2025 mine supply came from mines dug mainly for silver, a record low. The rest is a by-product of mining lead and zinc (29%), copper (28%) and gold (16%). So a higher silver price brings out little new mined silver, because almost nobody's decision to open a mine turns on it.
- Recycling is the brake. High prices pull old silver out of drawers and scrap. Recycling is forecast at 211.3 Moz in 2026, the highest since 2012.
- Coin and bar buying is forecast up 18% to 257.6 Moz in 2026, after rising 14% in 2025.
How it can be bought
Robinhood does not sell physical bars or coins. What follows are funds that hold the metal, or own mining companies, bought like a share through a brokerage account. A fund's expense ratio is its yearly fee, as a percentage of what you hold; it comes out of the fund's value rather than arriving as a bill.
| Ticker | What it is | Yearly fee |
|---|---|---|
| SLV | iShares. A fund holding silver. The largest and most traded. | 0.50% |
| SIVR | abrdn. A fund holding silver; the same job. The fee is 0.45% before a waiver that runs to 28 Feb 2027. | 0.30% |
| PSLV | Sprott. A closed-end trust holding 207.2 Moz (19 Oct 2026). Large holders can swap units for metal. | 0.52% |
| SIL | Global X. Shares in silver miners. | 0.65% |
| SLVP | iShares. Shares in silver and metals miners. | 0.39% |
| SILJ | Amplify. Shares in smaller miners. | 0.69% |
| SLVR | Sprott. Shares in silver miners. | 0.65% |
SLV's own published ten-year return is 11.56% a year, to 30 September 2026. Next to that, a 0.2-point difference in yearly fee is small compared with the tax differences below. A ten-year comparison between SLV and SIVR is not given here: their issuers report it to different quarter-ends.
Miners versus the metal
A mining company carries its own risks on top of the silver price: debt, costs, a flooded mine, a government changing the rules.
| Fund | 2026 to date | One year |
|---|---|---|
| SLV (metal) | −15.97% | +30.86% |
| PSLV (metal) | −16.23% | +28.15% |
| SLVP (miners) | +2.94% | +31.10% |
| SILJ (smaller miners) | −1.23% | +20.62% |
| SLVR (miners) | −2.17% | +27.81% |
| SIL (miners) | not published | +22.02% |
This year, the miners fell far less than the metal, by 14 to 19 points against SLV. Over the full year, they matched it or lagged it. Both are true. Which one a seller quotes tells you what they are selling.
A quirk of PSLV
A fund's net asset value (NAV) is what the silver it holds is worth, per unit. PSLV's units trade at a discount: below that value. On 19 October 2026 the NAV was $19.45 and the price $18.48, 5.01% below on Sprott's figure; on 30 September it was 5.97% below. Earlier research found a discount on every trading day of 2026 in Sprott's quarterly table; that was carried forward and not re-checked. A discount that has not closed in ten months is not a gain waiting to happen. It is also there when you sell.
Tax
US federal, plus California. The least intuitive part of owning silver.
- SLV and SIVR are taxed as collectibles, the category that covers art and antiques. Gains on units held over a year are taxed at up to 28%, where ordinary shares top out at 20%: an 8-point difference. Both funds say so in their own annual reports, and the IRS position is a Chief Counsel memo (PMTA 01809, 2 May 2008), which is guidance rather than binding law. Gains on units held a year or less are taxed as ordinary income.
- Miner funds are ordinary shares, taxed at the usual long-term rates of 15% or 20%.
- PSLV is different. Sprott's own disclosure says it is a PFIC (a "passive foreign investment company", a US tax category for certain foreign funds). With a QEF election (a form filed with a tax return), units sold after a year get the usual lower long-term rate. But each year the holder is also taxed on a share of the trust's own gains from selling silver, and that part is taxed at up to 28%. A different election, mark-to-market, makes everything ordinary income. This is a question for an accountant, starting from the annual PFIC statement Sprott publishes.
- California taxes all capital gains as ordinary income, up to 13.3%, on top of federal tax. So the federal gap between 28% and 20% is a smaller share of the total bill there.
Two things on Robinhood that are not investing
Event contracts
Robinhood offers daily and fifteen-minute contracts on whether silver will be over a set price at a set moment, through Robinhood Derivatives (confirmed 20 Oct 2026). Each pays $1 if right and $0 if wrong. They are a bet on one moment. Nothing on this page bears on where silver will be at any particular moment.
Futures
A futures contract is an agreement to buy or sell a fixed amount of silver at a future date, at a price fixed now. Silver futures are offered to eligible Robinhood customers (CME, 29 Jan 2025). The standard contract is 5,000 oz, about $290,000 of silver at $57.93, controlled with a deposit that is a fraction of that. The exchange sets that deposit and raised it twice in the last week of January. Silver fell 52% from its record in under nine months; on borrowed exposure of that size, a fall like that does not shrink a position, it wipes it out and calls for more money. Whether the smaller 1,000 oz contract is offered on Robinhood is not confirmed.
What this cannot tell you
- Where the price goes. Nothing here is a forecast. The shortfall was there through the whole fall.
- Whether the squeeze comes back. London has more metal, but there is no comparable figure for how much of it is free, and no current lease rate.
- How firm the shortfall is. The Silver Institute revises its 2026 forecast in November. Its 2025 estimate moved from 117.6 to 40.3 Moz across three publications.
- What caused January's break, in what proportions.
- How far copper has replaced silver in solar. Nobody publishes the figure.
- The price since 7 September on the London benchmark. Later fixes were not reachable.
What the experts said, and how it held up
A set of interviews with market commentators was graded against what silver did next. Three findings come first.
- Nobody in them called the squeeze or the crash. Every precious-metals interview is dated 3 August to 3 September 2026, six months after the 29 January peak. The one claim to have warned of the crash is its maker's own retelling of an earlier webcast, which is not in the set and could not be checked.
- One forecast hit, two missed, and most silver talk had no date on it, so it cannot be scored at all.
- The two loudest optimists run a silver miner. Thomas Kaplan is chairman, and Heather White chief executive, of Sunshine Silver. Neither put a date on their view.
The claims that could be scored, using the London fix on the day of each interview and today's spot bid:
- Florian Grummes (Midas Touch) 5 Aug 2026 Hit
Said silver to $70. The fix was 61.27 that day; it reached 70.26 on 28 August, and spot reached 71.16 on 31 August. Whether his stated reason was the one that operated could not be tested. - Michael Howell (CrossBorder) 13 Aug 2026 Miss
Said silver was starting to claw its way back and outperform, and hedged it himself. Right for two weeks; from his date it has fallen from 64.96 to 57.93, a fall of 10.8%. - MacroVoices co-host 13 Aug 2026 Miss
On speculators' positioning: if this is a turn, "we're still in the first inning". The move peaked two weeks later and silver is now below where it started. - Thomas Kaplan (Electrum; chair of Sunshine Silver) 20 Aug 2026 Not scorable
Said gold and silver "are going to multiply", with no timeframe, which he said himself. The fix was 66.75 that day. - Heather White (chief executive, Sunshine Silver) 5 Aug 2026 Not scorable
Said demand far outweighs supply, driven by data centres; called $40–50 a realistic long-term price, with no date. The shortfall is real but about 4% of demand, and total industrial demand is forecast to fall.
Five other claims were descriptions, looked back rather than forward, or had no date, and were not scored. Interviews were seven to eleven weeks before this note, so anything graded here is graded early. Names and dates are as in the grading file.
The words, in plain terms
- Troy ounce
- The unit precious metals are priced in; a little heavier than an ordinary ounce.
- Moz
- Million troy ounces. The unit the supply and demand figures use.
- Spot price
- What an ounce costs right now. A dealer quotes a bid (what it pays you) and an ask (what it charges you), and websites show different ones, so two sites can disagree at the same moment.
- The fix
- The LBMA Silver Price: London's benchmark, set once a day by auction. The chart uses it because it is one consistent number per day.
- Free float
- Silver in London's vaults not already held by funds, and so available to trade.
- Lease rate
- The cost of borrowing physical metal, as a yearly percentage. Normally under 1%; a high one is the clearest sign of a real shortage.
- Margin
- The deposit a futures trader must post, set by the exchange as a share of the contract's value.
- Expense ratio
- A fund's yearly fee, as a percentage of what you hold, taken from the fund's value.
- NAV and discount
- Net asset value: what a fund's holdings are worth per unit. A discount is when the units trade below that.
- Thrifting
- Industry term for redesigning a product to use less of an expensive material.
- By-product
- Something that comes out of a mine dug mainly for something else.
- Collectibles
- A US tax category, covering art, antiques and metal held through funds like SLV, with a higher top rate on long-term gains.
- PFIC and QEF
- US tax categories for certain foreign funds, and an election that changes how one is taxed. Accountant territory.
- Forecast (2026)
- A figure the World Silver Survey projected in April 2026. It will be revised.
Sources
Each figure on this page carries its own date. Links were read on 20 October 2026. "Secondary" means the figure was taken from someone else's republication of the original.
Primary
- World Silver Survey 2026, Silver Institute and Metals Focus, 15 April 2026
- Silver Institute interim report, November 2025
- LBMA London vault data, September 2026, published 7 October 2026
- Sprott PSLV prospectus supplement, 20 January 2026
- iShares SLV fund page, read 20 October 2026
- IRS Chief Counsel memo PMTA 01809, 2 May 2008
- CME: futures launch on Robinhood, 29 January 2025
- Robinhood futures, read 20 October 2026
- Robinhood silver event contracts, read 20 October 2026
Secondary
- SD Bullion, LBMA fix table, read 20 October 2026
- Kitco silver, spot bid, 20 October 2026
- goldsilver.ai, London free-float estimate, read 20 October 2026
- pv-tech on the solar industry roadmap, 25 June 2026
- pv-magazine on LONGi's copper line, 9 July 2026
- BullionVault, 6 February 2026
- Business Today, 1 February 2026
- metalsmine on the Warsh nomination