Silver price’s steepest fall since 2021: planning signals for mine projects
Reviewed by Tom Sullivan
First reported on MINING.com
30 Second Briefing
Silver plunged nearly 10% from a record $83.63/oz to the low $70s on Monday, its steepest intraday fall since 2021, after a month-long 40% surge driven by Chinese investment demand and Shanghai spot premiums exceeding $8/oz over London. Despite the pullback, silver is still up 148% in 2025 and briefly reached a market capitalisation above Nvidia’s $4.55 trillion, with its 14-day RSI easing to about 67 after three weeks above the overbought 70 threshold. Gold also retreated more than 4.5% from a record $4,543.51/oz, though it remains up nearly 75% year to date.
Technical Brief
- Shanghai spot silver traded at record premiums above $8/oz relative to London.
- Chinese silver fund premium exceeded 60% over its underlying Shanghai Futures Exchange silver contracts.
- London vault inventories have rebuilt since the October squeeze, but significant available stocks now sit in New York.
- Silver’s 14‑day RSI cooled to ~67 after more than three weeks above the 70 overbought threshold.
- Earlier Chinese fund warning flagged risk of “heavy losses” if the silver bull phase reverses abruptly.
- KCM Trade’s Tim Waterer projects $90–$100/oz silver next year if supply shortfalls persist.
Our Take
With silver up 148% year-to-date and forecasts in this piece pointing to $90–$100/oz next year, higher-cost primary silver projects in our database that were marginal at sub-$30 pricing could now model robust economics even after stress-testing for a sharp pullback.
The more than $8/oz premium for silver on the Shanghai Futures Exchange over London suggests China is currently setting the marginal price, which has implications for project developers in the USA and elsewhere who may increasingly benchmark offtake strategies to Asian rather than London pricing.
Iron ore’s intraday move to about $106.55/t in Singapore, alongside the volatility in silver and gold, underlines that bulk and precious commodities are diverging in price drivers in our recent coverage, with iron ore still tracking Chinese steel demand while silver is trading more like a leveraged financial asset.
Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.
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