The FlipSide Reserve
Stewby Flipside
Market Trends | Analysis | Community
Newsletter Edition: SEPTEMBER 23, 2026
THE FLIPSIDE RESERVE
Silver: So… What Exactly Happened?
It has been a little while since the last Flipside Reserve update.
That wasn’t because I disappeared, lost interest in silver, or was secretly buried under 15,000 coins somewhere.
The truth is much less exciting:
For a while, silver was behaving more or less the way the underlying conditions suggested it should.
There were price swings, obviously. There always are. But there simply wasn’t enough new information to justify sending you another breathless newsletter every time silver moved two bucks and somebody on the internet announced that COMEX was going to default by Tuesday.
Now?
There’s enough going on that it is worth talking again.
And the question I keep hearing is pretty straightforward:
How did silver go from more than $120 an ounce in January to roughly $65 today — and what would actually have to happen to get us back above $80?
That answer is considerably more interesting than either:
“THE MANIPULATION!”
or
“Silver was just in a bubble.”
Both explanations are incomplete.
So let’s flip this thing over and look at the other side.
First: January Was Real — But It Wasn’t Normal
Silver’s January 2026 run was spectacular.
Depending on which benchmark and moment you use, silver traded north of $120 per ounce, with the January 29 London benchmark around $118.45.
That did not happen because somebody accidentally leaned on the BUY button.
There were legitimate physical-market stresses.
Metal had been moving between markets. Lease rates had risen. Investment demand was strong. Immediate availability of wholesale silver became increasingly important.
But there is an important distinction:
A shortage of conveniently available silver is not the same thing as the world running out of silver.
January increasingly became a market where people weren’t just paying for silver.
They were paying for:
silver,
access to silver right now,
protection against possibly not getting silver later,
and the expectation that the next buyer would pay even more.
That last part matters.
By late January, physical tightness had combined with momentum traders, retail enthusiasm, futures positioning and pure old-fashioned fear of missing out.
Silver had gone from scarce to scarce-with-a-story.
And markets will pay extraordinary prices for a good story.
Until they don’t.
Then Somebody Pulled the Chair Away
The collapse from January’s highs was violent.
Changing expectations around Federal Reserve policy contributed to it. Margin conditions changed. Speculative leverage came out of the market.
And suddenly the same silver everyone was terrified they wouldn’t be able to buy at $110 was available considerably cheaper.
This is something I think gets misunderstood in precious-metals circles.
A physical shortage can be completely legitimate and the price can still overshoot dramatically.
Those two things are not mutually exclusive.
January wasn’t imaginary.
But January probably incorporated a very large scarcity premium that could only survive if conditions continued getting progressively tighter.
They didn’t.
Fast Forward to Summer
By late June silver was down around $56.
Then something interesting happened.
It stopped falling.
July largely became a stabilization period.
Then August brought silver back toward $70–71.
That recovery mattered because it demonstrated that there was still meaningful demand under the market.
But silver couldn’t decisively get through that $70-ish area.
And here we are in late September around $65.
So we’ve basically spent the last few months answering this question:
Was January the beginning of silver permanently repricing higher?
or
Was January an extraordinary squeeze sitting on top of an otherwise bullish-but-not-insane silver market?
So far, the market is voting much closer to the second answer.
The Fed Has Become a Bigger Problem Than Many Silver Bulls Admit
Silver people love inflation.
At least theoretically.
“Inflation is good for precious metals.”
Sometimes.
But there’s another side to that equation.
If inflation causes the Federal Reserve to maintain higher interest rates, real yields rise.
And when investors can earn attractive inflation-adjusted returns from government debt, an asset that sits in a vault producing no yield becomes comparatively less attractive.
The Federal Reserve raised rates another 25 basis points on September 16, bringing the target range to 3.75–4.00%.
Meanwhile, the 10-year real Treasury yield has moved from roughly 2.29% in late June to about 2.62% recently.
That is a meaningful headwind.
It also helps explain something that otherwise seems strange.
Silver rallied strongly during August as real yields eased.
Then it struggled again as real yields moved higher.
Coincidence?
Maybe partly.
But I certainly wouldn’t ignore it.
And No — The Dollar Hasn’t Just Been Screaming Higher for Three Months
Another explanation you’ll hear is:
“Silver is falling because the dollar is strengthening.”
Sort of.
The dollar has strengthened recently.
But compared with late June, the broad trade-weighted dollar is actually somewhat lower.
So the last three months cannot simply be explained by “strong dollar = weak silver.”
The more convincing macro combination has been:
higher real yields + reduced speculative enthusiasm + industrial demand responding to very high prices.
That is a much better explanation.
What About Iran?
Here is where things become counterintuitive.
Normally geopolitical conflict gets tossed straight into the “bullish gold and silver” bucket.
But silver is not gold.
Silver is both a monetary metal and an industrial commodity.
An escalation in the Iran conflict could drive oil dramatically higher.
That could:
push inflation higher,
make the Fed more hawkish,
raise real yields,
hurt global manufacturing,
and initially cause investors to raise cash.
In that scenario, gold could outperform silver considerably.
On the other hand, genuine de-escalation could lower energy prices, ease inflation expectations and eventually allow monetary policy to become less restrictive.
Oddly enough, that could ultimately be better for silver.
So when you see the next Iran headline, don’t automatically ask:
“Is war bullish for silver?”
Ask:
“What does this do to oil, inflation expectations, the Fed and real yields?”
That’s the trade.
But Stewby… Aren’t We Still Running Out of Silver?
Kind of.
And kind of not.
Welcome to commodities.
The Silver Institute currently expects another silver-market deficit in 2026 — roughly 46 million ounces.
Mine supply remains relatively constrained.
And because much of the world’s silver comes as a byproduct of mining things like copper, zinc, lead and gold, miners cannot simply flip a switch because silver is expensive.
That is legitimately bullish over the long term.
But here is the part people leave out.
Demand changes too.
High prices encourage recycling.
Manufacturers reduce silver loading.
Engineers substitute where possible.
Solar-cell manufacturers, for example, continue reducing the amount of silver required per unit.
That doesn’t mean solar is suddenly irrelevant.
It means:
More solar panels ≠ infinitely more silver demand.
At $30 silver, businesses behave one way.
At $70 silver, they start redesigning things.
At $120 silver, everybody suddenly becomes very creative.
China: Yes, It Matters. No, It Didn’t Ban Silver Exports.
One of my favorite silver-market traditions is watching a complicated Chinese trade-policy announcement become:
CHINA BANS SILVER EXPORTS!!!
That isn’t exactly what happened.
China continues to authorize specific companies to export silver.
There are controls. There is friction. There are licensing requirements.
But it is not a blanket export prohibition.
China also remains enormously important on the demand side, particularly through electronics, photovoltaics, EVs and infrastructure.
But even there the picture is mixed.
China eliminated VAT rebates for certain photovoltaic exports this year, which altered manufacturing incentives.
Manufacturers continue thrift efforts.
And Chinese silver exports have continued.
So China absolutely remains part of the bullish structural story.
It is simply not the magical one-way valve some people portray it as.
India Might Matter More Than People Think
India increased its gold and silver import duty from 6% to 15% in May.
That matters because India is one of the world’s most important physical precious-metals markets.
Higher import duties make silver more expensive domestically.
And when you make something substantially more expensive, people frequently buy less of it.
India's silver imports were already running meaningfully below last year.
Some of that is price.
Some is policy.
Some is changing trade behavior.
But this is an example of something that gets missed constantly:
A higher local silver price does not necessarily mean stronger global silver demand.
Sometimes it means the government just made silver more expensive.
If India materially reduces that import duty, I would consider that a legitimately positive demand catalyst.
China Silver vs. “Paper Silver”
This is another place where the internet, and even me at times, simplifies something complicated into something exciting.
You’ll hear:
China trades real silver. London and COMEX trade paper silver.
Not entirely the case.
Shanghai has futures markets.
The Shanghai Gold Exchange has margin-based contracts.
London has enormous physical vault holdings.
COMEX contracts can result in physical delivery.
The better question is not:
“Which market is fake?”
The better questions are:
Where is the silver?
Who owns it?
Is it available?
What does delivery cost?
What are lease rates doing?
Is near-term silver trading above future silver?
Are premiums persistent after tax, freight and financing?
China creates another complication because quoted domestic prices frequently include 13% VAT.
So when somebody posts:
“Silver is trading 12% higher in China!”
…that may tell you considerably less than you think.
You need to remove VAT and account for currency conversion before comparing the Chinese price with London or New York.
Sometimes a genuine premium remains.
Sometimes the supposedly explosive premium mostly disappears.
Details matter.
Annoying, I know.
So What Do the Vaults Actually Say?
This is probably the most misunderstood part of the entire silver market.
London
At the end of August, LBMA vaults held roughly:
914 million ounces of silver.
And here is the part that may surprise you:
London silver inventories actually increased modestly over the summer.
That does not mean all 914 million ounces are available for sale.
A large portion belongs to investors, ETFs and institutions.
But it does mean:
London is not presently showing a simple “the vaults are emptying” story.
COMEX
Recent COMEX warehouse data has been around:
331 million ounces total
with approximately:
98 million registered
and
233 million eligible.
Registered silver is warrant-ready for delivery.
Eligible silver meets exchange specifications but is not currently registered for delivery.
And no, eligible silver is not automatically secretly available inventory waiting for shorts to steal.
Somebody owns it.
They may have absolutely no interest in selling it.
Shanghai
Chinese exchange inventories remain considerably smaller than London and COMEX.
Recent data puts SHFE silver around roughly 46 million ounces, with Shanghai Gold Exchange inventories in the neighborhood of another 27–28 million ounces.
That makes changes in Chinese inventories potentially important.
But right now I do not see synchronized evidence of:
London draining.
COMEX draining.
Shanghai draining.
Everybody panicking.
That is the configuration I would want to see before screaming:
GLOBAL PHYSICAL SILVER SQUEEZE 2.0.
We are not there yet.
But Here’s Why Silver Can Still Explode
Remember that annual silver deficit?
Roughly 46 million ounces.
Now consider this:
The iShares Silver Trust alone recently held approximately 494 million ounces.
A 5% change in that single fund's holdings represents almost 25 million ounces.
That is more than half the projected annual deficit.
That tells you something incredibly important.
In the short run:
Investment flows can overwhelm industrial fundamentals.
That is why silver can sit there doing absolutely nothing while everyone complains…
…and then move $7 in three days.
Technical Levels I’m Watching
I am much more interested in broad areas than pretending a magical line drawn at $68.37 controls the universe.
$60–63
First meaningful support.
I want silver holding this area.
Break it decisively and the probability of revisiting the $55–58 summer base rises considerably.
$70–71
This is the first serious hurdle.
Silver has already shown us that sellers exist here.
Getting above $71 intraday is nice.
Getting above it and staying there is much more important.
$74–76
This is where things start getting interesting.
If silver clears $71 and then begins accepting trade above roughly $75, I would become materially more constructive.
$80–81
This is the big one.
It also happens to correspond approximately with a conventional 38.2% retracement of the January-to-summer collapse.
I don’t believe Fibonacci numbers contain ancient market magic.
But enough traders watch these levels that they sometimes matter anyway.
And $80 is psychologically enormous.
So What Gets Us Back Above $80?
From roughly $65 today, silver needs a little more than a 23% rally.
Possible?
Absolutely.
Routine?
Absolutely not.
I think three things could materially improve the odds.
1. Real yields start falling
If inflation cools or the market becomes convinced the Fed is nearly finished tightening, silver gets a major macro headwind removed.
2. Investment demand returns
ETF inflows.
Futures buyers.
Speculative participation.
Retail interest.
Silver needs somebody willing to absorb the metal investors are currently willing to sell.
3. Genuine physical tightness resurfaces
Not screenshots.
Not dramatic tweets.
Not somebody comparing a Chinese VAT-inclusive price directly to COMEX.
I mean:
persistent premiums,
falling exchange inventories,
high borrowing costs for physical metal,
and increasingly expensive immediate delivery.
Give me two of those three categories at the same time and $80 becomes significantly more interesting.
Give me all three?
That is when I start paying very close attention.
My One-Month Silver Outlook
Let’s put numbers on it.
These are subjective probabilities, not guarantees, and silver has repeatedly demonstrated its ability to make anyone forecasting it look ridiculous before breakfast.
45% — Consolidation
$60 to under $72
This remains my base case.
Silver continues building a range while physical demand supports the downside and higher real yields limit the upside.
20% — Bullish Recovery
$72–80
Macro conditions improve, yields soften and buyers return.
Silver gets through $71 and starts challenging the mid-$70s.
20% — Renewed Liquidation
Below $60
If real yields push higher, industrial demand weakens or another risk event creates widespread liquidation, silver could retest the mid-to-upper $50s.
15% — Breakout
Above $80
For this to happen quickly, I think we probably need some combination of:
meaningfully lower real yields,
strong ETF/futures buying,
a major macro shock,
or renewed evidence of physical scarcity.
One Important Distinction
I think there is approximately a:
25–30% chance silver touches $80 during the next month.
But only around a:
15% chance it is still above $80 at the end of that period.
Those are very different things.
Silver is extraordinarily good at visiting prices it has absolutely no intention of moving into.
Ask anyone who traded January.
The Flipside
Here is where I land.
Silver did not collapse because the fundamental bull case disappeared.
And silver did not reach $120 simply because that was suddenly its mathematically correct value.
January was a legitimate physical squeeze mixed with speculative acceleration.
The decline afterward reflected a market realizing that physical scarcity, investor enthusiasm and monetary conditions would not continue moving in the same direction forever.
Today we have:
continuing structural supply deficits,
constrained mine production,
enormous long-term industrial applications,
meaningful physical inventories,
price-sensitive industrial demand,
restrictive monetary policy,
elevated real yields,
and investors who are considerably less euphoric than they were in January.
That is not a bearish picture.
It also isn’t the setup for an automatic trip back to $120.
From here, the number I care about first isn't $80.
It is $71.
Let silver prove it can reclaim that.
Then show me $75.
Then show me declining real yields and renewed physical/investment demand.
Do that, and $80 stops being a fantasy and starts becoming a legitimate target.
Until then?
Silver is doing what silver does best:
Keeping everybody convinced they understand it right up until the exact moment it reminds them they don't.
— Stewby
The Flipside Reserve is market commentary and analysis for collectors, bullion enthusiasts and people who enjoy arguing about shiny metal on the internet. Nothing here is individualized financial advice.
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