Our expectation is still that the price has an upward bias. We are seeing some profit taking in gold, silver, platinum, palladium, copper and other commodities. There is some downside potential.

There still is a tremendous amount of uncertainty as to where we are politically, economically, militarily in the world. So we do have some reasons to be concerned about that. But we think that overall the economic environment will continue to stimulate investment demand for gold.

Silver prices are around $72 an ounce. They have been testing that $70 range and actually broke below it. There is scope that they can spike down further with $50 on the downside as a target for investors waiting to see lower prices to re-enter. On the upside, you're looking at prices in the range of $90-$95.

You have a skew right now toward the upside in terms of the risk-reward ratio. Silver prices are really at atmospheric levels. They've never been anywhere near this prior to December last year.

Pay attention to the four pillars of our silver research: 1) Economic, political, financial, and social environment (drives investment demand), 2) Fundamentals (mine production, secondary recovery, fabrication demand, investment demand, inventories), 3) Shorter-term physical and market developments (arbitrage differentials, regulatory issues), 4) Technical price chart patterns and computerized trading (for pacing and timing).

This is a fundamental structural approach to analyzing markets statistically, quantitatively, and qualitatively. It applies to other markets like gold (central bank activity) and copper (less physical investment demand).

First off, there's no silver supply deficits. There are surpluses. Total supply less fabrication demand leaves metal left over. That metal is bought by investors. Investors drive the price higher, which causes more mine supply, more secondary supply, less fabrication demand, leaving a surplus which investors absorb.

When investors are bearish, they're selling on a net basis. The net is composed of gross buying and gross selling by investors. From 1990-2005, gross selling was larger. Since 2005, gross buying has been larger.

The Silver Institute's reported deficits are wrong because they throw investment demand in with fabrication demand. If you strip out their inflated investment demand figures, you get surpluses, not deficits.

Over the last five years, they show 767 million ounce deficits. Their investment demand figures are way too high (1.3 billion ounces total). Taking those out reveals cumulative surpluses of 536 million ounces.

Above-ground silver inventories are 6.4+ billion ounces, up from less than 4 billion in 2005, because investors have been net buyers.

Investors do not use silver. They store it in refined bullion form. People argue about availability, but the metal is there. In 1980, with 4.5 billion ounces, several hundred million were sold as the price rose from $5 to $50.

Looking at investment demand: Gross long positions in COMEX have gone from 450 million ounces down to about 150 million ounces—a massive liquidation. Since January, 64-65 million ounces of silver have been sold by ETF holders.

This is a sign of investors being less bullish than they had been. It makes sense because the price went from $28 to $121 and then back down to $60. Investors are taking profits.

Investment demand is showing signs of tiredness, weakness, pause. That can change on a dime if politicians convince everybody to start buying again.

Our expectation in the next 12-24 months is that investors will come back and buy a lot of silver, especially in the second half of this year, which overlaps the US congressional elections. But right now investors have been lightening up their silver positions.

Silver fabrication demand (excluding solar) has been in a downward trend since 2006. Total fabrication has risen due to solar panels, but silver use in photovoltaics may have peaked in 2025.

Our expectation is a decline in 2026, beginning a long-term downward move. New technologies use less or no silver, and the high price of silver ($28 to $121) changes the economics for solar panel manufacturers.

On the supply side, most of the increase since 2018-2019 has been from secondary recovery from scrap, not mine production. Primary silver producers have cash costs below $25/oz, half below $10/oz, creating a great incentive to mine more.

There's a gigantic gap between the average cash cost and the average silver price going into 2025.

COMEX silver inventories are down to about 327 million ounces but are higher than ever before prior to 2020-2021. The percentage of futures deliveries vs. inventories has been less than 10% since 2010-2011.

The vast majority of people in silver futures do not want physical silver. The 'not enough silver for delivery' argument is not an issue.