The final month of the year has begun, and it’s definitely silver’s time to shine.
The white metal has put on a record-setting performance that really began at the end of last week, when it broke through US$56 per ounce for the first time.
Silver continued on up this week, passing the US$58 level and later breaching US$59.
What’s driving this big move? There’s a lot going on, and I want to break it down in a couple of different ways. First, let’s look at the white metal’s more traditional drivers.
Silver is impacted by many of the same factors as gold, and one point that’s working in their favor is higher expectations for a December interest rate cut from the US Federal Reserve.
While market participants were previously divided on whether another cut is coming, CME Group’s (NASDAQ:CME) FedWatch tool now shows strong expectations for a reduction.
Target rate probabilities for December Fed meeting.
Chart via CME Group.
Both metals also benefit from geopolitical turmoil, which has ramped up due to US-Venezuela tensions. And silver specifically has had various other elements in its corner recently — a supply squeeze in London helped boost the price in October, as did strong Indian demand.
Chinese silver stockpiles are now also reportedly at low levels.
But when it comes to silver’s latest rise there’s been a lot of talk about other factors that may be in play. When silver started moving at the end of last week, its increase coincided with a trading halt on the Comex. At the time, CME Group said in an X post that a ‘cooling issue’ at a CyrusOne data center located in a Chicago suburb was responsible for the outage.
The problem took about 10 hours to resolve, and left market watchers questioning if there was more to the story, especially in terms of the connection to silver.
Opinions vary, but a key point that’s been mentioned by industry participants is that with Comex futures trading unavailable, the physical side of the silver market came to the forefront — the idea is that an entity or multiple entities were looking to stand for delivery, and perhaps the Comex was deliberately taken offline to remove that pressure from the market.
There’s a lot of speculation going on, and it’s worth noting that not everyone thinks this type of behind-the-scenes activity is happening. I heard from Clem Chambers of aNewFN.com, who said these types of outages do happen from time to time, especially in hot markets.
Here’s how he explained it:
‘What happened at the CME — it doesn’t take a Bond villain to do that. It takes a bit more traffic than normal, something weird, some guy didn’t show up for work, some update that wasn’t checked properly. It’s a myriad of reasons and it happens a lot. So don’t get paranoid about evil forces. And of course it will absolutely go down when the market is a fast market — that is the pinch point.’
This is a complex topic, and next week I’ll be talking to experts like Peter Krauth of Silver Stock Investor and Gary Wagner of TheGoldForecast.com to get their thoughts as well. If you have any questions you’d like me to ask, please drop a comment below.
For now, I’ll leave you with a few expert opinions on silver heading into 2026.
I’ve been asking guests to share their pick for next year’s top-performing asset, and the white metal has definitely been a popular choice.
Here’s Brien Lundin of Gold Newsletter on why he chose silver:
‘If I’m looking at what would be the best, I would probably say silver and silver stocks … I would say that because I don’t think — you know, silver leverages gold, and silver’s playing catch up right now. Mining stocks leverage gold, silver stocks leverage silver. So you’re adding leverage on top of leverage. So that would probably be my bet.’
Rich Checkan of Asset Strategies International is also most bullish on silver in 2026:
‘In terms of price, value and appreciation, I think it’s going to be silver. There’s no question. We’re not the end, but I think we’re past (the) midway point, and we’re probably going toward the late stages of a bull market — that usually favors silver, right? So I expect to see silver outpace gold at this point.’
Finally, this is why Jay Martin of VRIC Media thinks the big money is in silver:
‘The sure money is on gold, but the big money is on silver. And I think we’re going to see that materialize in 2026, so if I had to pick one to go all in with the purpose of maximal return and accepting the risk, I’m going with silver.’
Securities Disclosure: I, Charlotte McLeod, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.