Eseandre Mordi
⬤ On January 30, silver took a hard hit — paper prices dropped roughly 31% in a single session, briefly touching the $78 level. Meanwhile, physical silver in Shanghai held firm at around $120. That's not a typo. We're talking about two completely different prices for the same metal, trading at the same time.
⬤ Here's the thing — in a normal crash, physical metal usually trades at a discount because nobody wants to be stuck holding it when liquidity dries up. This time? Physical silver commanded a 54% premium over paper. That tells you demand for actual, tangible silver didn't budge. What broke down wasn't the metal — it was the pricing system itself.
⬤ Dig into the numbers and the leverage story becomes impossible to ignore. COMEX registered silver inventories sat at roughly 108.7 million ounces, while total open interest covered approximately 1.586 billion ounces. Do the math — that's about 14 paper claims for every single ounce of registered silver. If even a fraction of those contracts actually demand delivery, the cupboard is bare.
⬤ With March 2026 flagged as a potential delivery stress point, this episode is a wake-up call for the broader commodities market. Silver isn't just a trading vehicle — it's an industrial metal and a monetary asset. When confidence in how futures settle starts to crack, the consequences ripple far beyond a single bad day on the chart.
Eseandre Mordi
