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Markets always seem to find new ways to create stress.

Stocks look expensive. Private credit is showing cracks. Liquidity is not what it used to be. Confidence is high right up until it is not. Every asset feels like it comes with fine print.

Silver keeps ignoring the drama.

At the end of 2024, heading into 2025, price forecasts for precious metals were already pointing higher. Gold targets near $3,000 were becoming common. Silver was expected to follow, but quietly, with many forecasts clustering in the low to mid $30s at the time. Many saw it as the laggard that would eventually catch up.

That is exactly what happened.

Silver broke out of long standing ranges and moved into a new price zone, pushing through levels that had capped it for over a decade. Prices that once struggled to hold the mid $20s suddenly found support well above $30. Not because of hype, but because supply stayed tight while demand kept growing. Industrial use did not slow. Investment demand did not disappear. And physical metal became harder to source at reasonable premiums.

Fast forward to the end of 2025, looking into 2026, and the tone has shifted again. Forecasts are not calling for a peak. They are calling for continuation.

Recent outlooks show silver targets clustering much higher than where prices spent most of the last decade. Conservative projections sit well above old resistance levels, often pointing to the $50 to $60 range. More aggressive models start talking about prices that once sounded unrealistic, including numbers that begin with an eight or a nine.

This is not a straight line story. Silver never moves in a polite way. It rallies fast, pulls back hard, and tests conviction. But zoom out, and something important is happening. Silver is not trading like a cheap industrial metal anymore. It is being repriced.

There is also something quietly ironic going on in the physical market. Large silver bars are delayed and expensive, even at prices north of $80. Premiums are elevated. Supply chains are tight. Meanwhile, old circulated coins are sitting there, available, still close to spot. Junk silver, doing exactly what silver is supposed to do. No story. Just metal.

People forget that gold once traded at $99 an ounce. At the time, it did not feel historic. It felt boring. It felt unnecessary. Until it wasn’t.

Silver feels a bit like that now, even after moving from the teens to the $30s and beyond in a relatively short period of time.

There are plenty of real problems in markets today. Valuation problems. Trust problems. Liquidity problems.

Silver is not one of them.

In fact, silver just may be part of the solution.

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