Silver Rises Over 120% YTD 
Silver set an all-time high of approximately $121 per ounce on January 29, 2026 — then lost more than 30% in under 30 hours. Today it trades in the mid-$70s.
For anyone caught in the silver pullback, that’s a painful number to watch. Mike Maloney has a different word for it: opportunity.
The Cost of Waiting for the Perfect Entry
Mike’s position hasn’t shifted in years of commentary: he doesn’t trade short-term noise. He doesn’t call tops. That’s not laziness — it’s risk management.
Here’s his logic. There will come a day when silver looks technically overbought. Every chart, every commitment-of-traders report signals a correction. Then a macro event hits, and silver takes off anyway. Anyone he told to stay on the sidelines just missed it. They held currency instead — and currency, as Mike has argued for decades, trends toward zero purchasing power over time.
The pullback from $121 to the $70s tells you what just happened. It says nothing about where silver is going. Those are two different conversations.
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The Best Mistake Mike Ever Made
When he first started buying gold, spot was at $315. It ran immediately. He kept waiting for a better entry — should I buy more, should I wait? Finally, convinced the pullback would never come, he bought at $392. The next day it started falling. It dropped all the way to $325 and took nearly a year to recover.
His verdict on that experience? He doesn’t regret it. He wishes he could make that same mistake today — it was still the best financial decision he ever made.
If you bought silver at $90, $100, or $110 and you’re watching it trade in the $70s, you’re in a version of that story. The question isn’t whether you timed it perfectly. The question is whether the thesis is still intact.
What If You Stopped Counting in Dollars?
Mike’s core reframe is blunt: stop measuring your position in dollars.
Right now, you don’t have a loss. You have a certain number of ounces. That number hasn’t changed. A loss only becomes real when you sell — when you convert ounces back into dollars and lock in the difference. Until then, what you’re watching is a temporary price swing in the currency you traded away to get real money.
Mike’s rule: keep increasing the number of ounces. A lower price makes that easier. At the January high of ~$121, a $1,000 purchase bought roughly 8.3 ounces. At today’s price near $76, that same $1,000 buys about 13.2 ounces — nearly 60% more metal for the same dollars [Fortune, April 8, 2026]. That’s not a crisis. That’s the gift.
Have the Fundamentals for Silver Actually Changed?
The structural case for silver isn’t built on price momentum. A short-term correction doesn’t erase the underlying supply and demand picture.
The numbers back him up. The silver market recorded its fifth consecutive annual supply deficit in 2025, with total demand exceeding mine production by an estimated 95 million ounces [Silver Institute, November 2025]. The cumulative five-year shortfall now stands at approximately 820 million ounces. Mine supply is forecast to remain essentially flat — silver is predominantly extracted as a byproduct of other metals, making production relatively inelastic to price signals [J.P. Morgan Global Research, February 2026].
On the demand side, industrial and technology applications account for roughly 60% of annual silver consumption — driven by solar photovoltaics, electric vehicles, AI data center infrastructure, and semiconductors. Silver prices rose more than 130% over the course of 2025, fueled in part by tightening physical inventories and a structural mismatch between supply and growing industrial demand [J.P. Morgan Global Research, February 2026].
None of those dynamics reversed because of a one-day correction in late January.
Is Silver’s Volatility a Problem — or a Feature?
Silver is volatile. Mike doesn’t hedge on that. The same industrial and monetary demand that drives it to record highs can pull it back hard.
Silver’s market is roughly one-tenth the size of gold’s [CNBC, November 2025]. Shifts in margin requirements, institutional positioning, or macro sentiment produce outsized swings in both directions. When a market is one-tenth the size of gold’s, there’s nowhere to hide from a forced liquidation event.
The January 30 crash, triggered by the nomination of Kevin Warsh as Federal Reserve chair and the resulting repricing of rate expectations, is a case in point [J.P. Morgan Global Research, February 2026].
If the volatility is shaking your confidence, that’s worth paying attention to. It probably means your position size is too large for your time horizon — not that the underlying thesis is broken. Mike’s advice for anyone who can’t stomach a sharp drawdown is direct: size accordingly, or stay out.
For those who understand what they own, a pullback from record highs — in a macro environment defined by deficit spending, currency debasement, and tightening physical supply — isn’t a warning sign. It’s a window.
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People Also Ask
Is now a good time to buy silver after the pullback?
In Mike Maloney’s framework, pullbacks are buying opportunities — not red flags. The long-term case for silver doesn’t change because the price fell from a recent high. The silver market has now run a structural supply deficit for five consecutive years, with the cumulative shortfall approaching 820 million ounces [Silver Institute, November 2025]. If the thesis holds, lower prices simply mean more ounces for the same dollars.
Did I lose money if I bought silver above $100?
Not if you haven’t sold. A loss only becomes real when you convert ounces back into dollars and lock in the difference. Your ounce count hasn’t changed — only the dollar figure the market assigns to them today.
Why does silver drop so fast after hitting highs?
Silver’s market is small and leveraged — roughly one-tenth the size of gold’s [CNBC, November 2025]. When margin requirements rise, or institutional positions unwind, or risk-off sentiment hits, the moves are sharp and fast. The January 30, 2026 crash — silver’s worst single-session decline since 1980 — fell more than 30% from its record high. That volatility is a structural feature of the asset, not evidence that something is fundamentally wrong.
Should I sell my silver during a pullback?
That depends on your thesis. If you own silver as a long-term hedge against currency depreciation, selling during a pullback makes the loss permanent. Mike does the opposite — he accumulates on weakness, because lower prices mean more ounces per dollar spent.
What does Mike Maloney say about silver’s long-term outlook?
Mike’s position hasn’t changed: silver and gold aren’t commodities — they’re money. As governments expand currency supply, purchasing power erodes. Industrial demand for silver now accounts for roughly 60% of annual consumption [J.P. Morgan Global Research, February 2026], driven by solar, EVs, and AI infrastructure. Physical silver sits outside the financial system. Over long enough time horizons, that distinction matters more than any short-term price swing.
SOURCES
1. GoldSilver.com — Silver Price Crash History: What Happens After the Biggest Drops
2. Fortune — Current Price of Silver as of April 8, 2026
3. Silver Institute — The Silver Market Is on Course for Fifth Successive Structural Market Deficit
4. J.P. Morgan Global Research — How Will Silver Prices Fare in 2026?
5. CNBC — Silver Hit Record Highs in 2025 and Still Has Further to Run
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice. Always consult a qualified financial advisor before making investment decisions.
