Some analysts are skeptical of silver’s recent surge.Shutterstock
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On January 1, China listed silver as a strategic resource along with rare earth minerals. The move limited silver exports, making it more difficult to obtain licenses. Only 44 companies are eligible to receive silver export licenses as China seeks to secure supplies of next-generation solar energy, electric vehicles and electronics technology.
The move accelerates a rally that emerged last year, driven by bullish industrial demand for high-tech applications and, more generally, rising interest from investors eager to diversify their portfolios by owning silver ETFs, such as the Silver ETF. iShares Silver Trust (SLV), or physical silver, such as coins and bars.
This number is indeed huge. Silver’s move lifts market size to $6 trillion. To put this number into perspective, Nvidia, Apple and Alphabet have market capitalizations of US$4.5 trillion, US$3.75 trillion and US$4 trillion respectively.
More precious metals:
Everyone wants to be involved.
January 26, iShares Silver Trust According to Bloomberg, exchange-traded fund revenue is approaching $40 billion, a figure that SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY), the ETF of choice for the 500 most influential public companies. That’s almost it 20 times That’s higher than the average for most of last year.
Moves like this don’t happen often, and they’re usually a warning that investors should heed. I’ve been tracking the markets for over 30 years, and I’ve seen many eye-popping rises turn into declines.
I’m not the only one worried that recent moves could lead to a reversal.
Former JPMorgan strategist Marko Kolanovic’s career stretches back more than 20 years, with stints at Merrill Lynch and Bear Stearns before a 16-year tenure at JPMorgan that helped him get to JPMorgan Institutional Investors Hall of Fameissued a straightforward silver forecast on X.
Kolanovich said the rally faces existential risks and will eventually cause the bubble to burst.
“Unlike purely fictional assets like NFTs, commodity bubbles don’t last long—industry demand dries up, supply (e.g. recycling) increases, and new production is hedged,” Kolanovich wrote.
Senior trader Peter Brandt, Perhaps best known as the character in Jack Schwager’s “The Unknown Market Wizards: The Best Traders You’ve Never Heard of,” it also raises eyebrows.
Brandt began trading commodities as early as 1976 at ContiCommodity Services, a division of Continental Grain Company, where he handled institutional accounts for major consumer goods companies such as Campbell Soup.
He founded his own proprietary trading firm, Factor Trading Co., in 1980, wrote “Trading Commodity Futures with Classic Chart Patterns” in 1990, and then wrote “Diary of a Professional Commodities Trader” in 2011. Needless to say, he knows something about commodities, including silver.
On the
“Today, nearly two years’ worth of world production is traded on world exchanges. Over 1.5 billion ounces. The last time such a proportion was traded was on April 25, the day of the 2011 peak,” Brandt wrote.
Brandt previously correctly called for silver prices to fall on April 24, 2011.
It’s hard to get into a frenzy right now because the spikes and dips tend to be much worse than most people expect. Many silver bulls believe the game changed in January when China restricted exports and the U.S. government added silver to its list of critical minerals.
Over my decades of working in the markets, I’ve learned that some of the most dangerous words in the English language when it comes to investing are “this time it’s different.”
Related: Silver surge masks calm risks
Kolanovich and Brandt seem to agree. No one knows when silver’s rally will subside, but history may provide clues. For example, hunt brothers An attempt to corner the silver market in 1980 drove the price from about $6 per ounce to nearly $50.
It ended badly for Team Hunt and those who followed them to silver. The silver market collapsed after the COMEX implemented “Silver Rule 7,” which restricted silver purchases on margin, triggering massive margin calls and forced sell-offs that wiped out 90% of silver’s value in two years.
In 2011, when Brandt warned of silver risks, the price of silver was also near $50 as buying surged due to a weak dollar. Exchanges implemented margin adjustments again, raising requirements until the bubble burst.
As Twain said, history does not repeat, but it often rhymes. As Kolanovich points out, more supply, including physical silver holders selling, changes in margin requirements, or even silver miners selling future production, could derail silver’s epic rally.
Related: Robert Kiyosaki Teases Weird New Gold Price Target
This article was originally published by TheStreet on January 27, 2026, and first appeared in the Investment section. Click here to add TheStreet as your preferred source.
