Podcast: Play in new window
Gold started recovering lost ground this week, climbing up nearly 4% and continuing its steady march back to recent highs. Rocketing back onto the scene, silver shot up nearly 16%. The metals markets signal broad strength across the board as platinum and palladium also post strong gains.
Let’s take a look at where prices stand as of Wednesday, February 25:
The price of gold is up about 3.8%, sitting at $5,170 since we recorded last Wednesday.
The price of silver is up almost 16% at $89.15. The counterpart to gold is having a little bit of resurgence, but we’ll see if that means anything.
Platinum is up about 10.5% sitting at $2,323.
Palladium is up 6% to $1,811.
Taking a quick glance over at the paper markets…
The S&P 500 is up 1.3% to 6,946 and still looking very choppy like it has over the last couple of months.
The US dollar index is dead even at 97 from a week ago.
Silver’s Big Moves and Thin Inventories
Silver has been the headline metal for weeks, jumping almost 16% and “sucking all the air out of the room.”
COMEX shows around 88 million ounces of registered silver, while London’s LBMA has only about 800,000 ounces currently deliverable—roughly $72 million worth at 90 per ounce. That is shockingly small for a major hub. At the same time, legal and rule‑book escape valves (like cash settlement rather than metal) make an instant “zero silver left” moment less likely.
We see current action as a very wide trading range, with upper‑$80s to low‑$90s capping current rallies. Commitment of Traders positioning has cooled dramatically from extremely long (8–10:1 longs to shorts months ago) to closer to 1.5–2:1 recently, which is more “sitting on hands” than “stampede.” In that context, a pullback from the top of the range into the mid‑zone is normal.
CME “Technical Difficulties”
We’ve seen repeated “technical difficulties” at the CME Group just as silver pressed toward potential breakout levels.
In late 2025, an air‑conditioning “issue” in the server room triggered a halt to protect data. More recently, as silver pushed into the low‑$90s and approached a prior bounce high near 92, CME again halted trading and ultimately cancelled all trades for the day, citing technical problems.
This comes on top of other visible interventions: Shanghai suspending silver futures when prices screamed toward $120, and CME raising margin requirements in late January to knock back leveraged longs. These actions match a long‑running pattern we’ve seen before—paper venues attempting to manage volatility in markets where physical demand is increasingly in the driver’s seat.
The lesson is not to chase conspiracies, but to recognize that market structure and rule changes are now part of the risk set. If your wealth plan assumes frictionless, transparent paper markets, you are using an outdated model.
Silver as a Strategic Mineral
The current administration is grouping silver with other strategic minerals and engaging government agencies and private industry in building a strategic stockpile and potential price supports. The intent is two‑fold:
- Put a floor under prices so miners can keep exploring and producing, and
- Explicitly allow price inflation in these commodities to attract capital by signaling better future profitability.
Combined with ongoing structural deficits (industrial and investment demand outstripping mine supply), official recognition and support tilt the long‑term probability structure in silver’s favor.
In other words, silver is not just a “poor man’s gold”; it is increasingly a policy‑critical input in energy, technology, and defense. That makes a long‑term physical allocation rational, even if the path is volatile.
Quiet, Reliable Gold
While silver grabs headlines, gold continues to do what serious wealth‑preservation assets do: grind higher in a disciplined trend.
From around $3,300 in August 2025 to roughly $5,170 today, gold has risen about 57%, yet it has done so in a rising channel with repeated “check‑ins” to its trendline support. Sharp spikes higher have consistently mean‑reverted back into the channel rather than collapsing through it.
Even after January’s sharp correction, gold is posting higher highs and higher lows as it grinds back toward its late‑January peak. This complements the broader story: from 2020–2025 gold and silver were already among the best‑performing core assets in diversified portfolios, even before the 2025–26 explosion.
Silver is the fun ride; gold is the core holding. Use silver’s big swings to accumulate more gold over time, but let gold remain the anchor.
Gold–Silver Ratio Trade Opportunities
The gold to silver ratio has collapsed from over 100:1 last year to about 58:1 at the time of this recording, after intraday dives into the mid‑40s during the most recent silver surge. Historically, those swings are cyclical: the ratio tends to overshoot in both directions, with probable future trips back toward 75:1 and, on spikes, toward the low‑40s.
We have been actively swapping client silver into gold in IRAs and other tax‑advantaged accounts as the ratio tightened into the low‑50s, “harvesting” the outsized silver gains of 2025–26 into more total gold ounces.
Our rule of thumb for swaps: by the time you’re near 40:1, you should be moving meaningful chunks of silver into gold. You don’t need to catch the precise bottom in the ratio; you need a process that gradually shifts you from the currently over‑performing metal into the more stable store of value.
Add More Gold Ounces
Is it time for a ratio trade in your precious metals portfolio? With strategic ratio trades, you’re not just betting on higher prices; you’re using the relationship between metals to systematically grow ounces—especially inside IRAs where gains are sheltered.
The team at McAlvany is here to help you determine the best time for your next ratio trade. We have a collective 75 years experience investing in the precious metals market. We are happy to speak with you about your goals on a no-obligation, complimentary consultation. Reach out to us at 800-525-9556.
