The silver rate whipsawed in today after scaling an all-time high that briefly made the white metal a more lucrative assets than Nvidia’s stock.
On the Multi Commodity Exchange, the silver rate surged as much as 5.99% to an intraday high of ₹2,54,174.00, before giving up all the gains and more to hit an intraday low of 2,33,120.00—down 2.78% from previous close. Essentially, the white metal has swung 8.77% within a day.
The swing was largely attributed to “short covering”—the act of buying back borrowed securities, in this case silver, to close an open short position.
- A “short covering” occurs when a trader who previously sold stock they didn’t own (short selling) buys it back from the market to return it to the lender. This is done to either lock in a profit after a price drop or limit losses if the price rises.
In the global market, silver gyrated after smashing through $80 an ounce for the first time amid a historic surge powered by speculative trades and a persistent mismatch between supply and demand.
“The speculative atmosphere is very strong,” Wang Yanqing, an analyst with China Futures Ltd., told Bloomberg News, adding that any discussion on moves by Beijing to tighten exports was groundless. “There’s hype around tight spot supply, and it’s a bit extreme now.”
Silver’s acceleration—prices have nearly tripled in one year—caps a yearlong rally for precious metals. The gains have been driven by elevated central-bank purchases, inflows to exchange-traded funds and three successive rate cuts by the US Federal Reserve. Lower borrowing costs are a tailwind for commodities, which don’t pay interest, and traders are betting on more rate cuts in 2026.
“We are witnessing a generational bubble playing out in silver,” Tony Sycamore, market analyst at IG Australia, wrote in a note on Sunday. “Relentless industrial demand from solar panels, EVs, AI data centres and electronics, pushing against depleting inventories, has driven physical premiums to extremes.”
