Silver doesn’t move politely. When the precious metal trends, it tends to rip higher fast, and when it reverses, it can punish late chasers just as quickly.
That’s why silver’s recent surge has traders asking the same question that Twitter Tom asked Senior Market Strategist John Rowland, CMT, during last week’s Market on Close livestream:
What’s driving the parabolic run in silver futures (SIH26) — and can it last?
John’s answer matters because it reframes silver as more than a “metal trade.” In his view, silver is acting like a high-beta signal tied to bigger macro forces — like industrial demand, fiat currency credibility, and risk sentiment.
But even in a parabolic market, there are still two practical “tells” you can track as a trader or investor:
Is silver simply overextended, or structurally bid?
Is this a silver story, or a “hard assets” story across the board?
Let’s break it down in plain English, and then turn it into action steps you can actually use on Barchart.
Silver is unusual because it sits at the intersection of two worlds:
It’s both a monetary metal, and an industrial metal.
That means it can catch a bid from “fear trade” behavior (like safe-haven gold does), while also catching demand from real-world use cases — especially as electrification and power infrastructure expand.
In late 2025, silver’s strength wasn’t subtle. Prices pushed to multi-year highs and volatility picked up sharply, so much so that CME raised its margin requirements on silver futures. That’s the kind of administrative move that tends to take place when markets get hot and positioning gets crowded.
That doesn’t “end the bull market” by itself, but it does tell you something important:
When leverage gets involved, silver can become a market where small moves trigger big reactions.
One of the best parts of John’s breakdown is that he doesn’t rely on one narrative. He checks the story against a relationship he’s been tracking professionally for decades – namely, the gold-silver ratio.
Gold price ÷ Silver price = Gold–Silver Ratio
This ratio isn’t a magic prediction tool, and it can’t tell you prices will be up tomorrow, or down next week. What it does well is highlight relative stretch: whether silver is getting “too expensive” relative to gold, or whether gold is the one lagging.
Source: finance.yahoo.com
