In January, 2025, the price of silver on the spot market was somewhere between $28 and $32 per troy ounce. A year later, for all intents and purposes, that price has tripled.
Thank about that for a moment. A 200% gain in just one year. A triple.
Now, think about individual people - hundreds of millions of them from America to Europe to China and India and all places in between - that own silver in the form of bars, coins, trinkets, and jewelry. Their net worth has seen a massive increase, depending on how much silver they hold.
Americans, probably the dumbest people on the planet, have been selling their silver and their gold as prices have rocketed higher. Imagine those who sold at $50 an ounce, probably got $45 or thereabouts from their coin dealer, and are now kicking themselves for selling too soon, believing that the COMEX, LBMA, CME, and the usual horde of speculators and bullion banks that have been short silver for decades, would perform their usual magic and send the price screaming back down into the 30s or 20s.
They were wrong. Dead wrong. The Comex has been effectively neutered by industrial buyers and U.S. bullion banks who switched from short to long around and after September of 2025.
Now, those 100s of millions of people in China, India, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and elsewhere across Asia and Africa who held their silver, knowing from experience that it has value as money, plain and simple, they're feeling much more well off than they were a year ago. In some of these countries that regard gold and silver in high esteem, many households probably have 100 ounces of silver or more. What was $2,500 in January of last year is now $7,500 presently (as measured in their currencies of course), and prospects for further gains are not just good, they are very, very good.
What has happened over the past year is nothing short of a massive shift in wealth, changing course from the haves to the have-nots, a dynamic reversal of the top 10% reaping all the gains, mostly in stocks, while the lower 90% tried to keep up. The rest of the world, outside the West, is very different in their approach to just about everything, and, in the case of gold and silver, their age-old reverence from precious metals is paying off in many ways.
Just think about 100 to 500-ounces of silver in 200 million or more Asian and African households - not all of them, mind you, but enough to make a huge difference - that are reaping the rewards of simply saving in silver and gold as protection from inflation and calamaties in fiat currencies. They are not only feeling what former Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke termed the "wealth effect", they are experiencing it in real, tangible ways.
One example of how silver will be changing lives is in India, which, back in October issued formal requirements of banks and other financial institutions to lend to individuals and small merchants using silver as collateral. All are supposed to be in compliance by April 1, 2026, but many already are. Indians, mostly rural farmers and businesspeople, are being lifted out of poverty every day now in the world's most populous country and the use of silver as collateral or just plain old money is spreading like wildfire across the globe.
Back in the world of stocks, the Dow took a heavy blow on Tuesday, mostly in response to JP Morgan's (JPM) rare earnings shortfall. Today it's Citigroup that is soon to be feeling the pain, having missed top and bottom line this morning with their 4th quarter earnings report. Bank of America (BAC) and Wells Fargo (WFC) also reported this AM and are both being sold off 1.5-2.5%, despite earnings that were pretty much in line with expectations, indicating that something larger is spooking the market.
Perhaps it has something to do with the Producer Price Index for December, which, earlier this morning was reported thusly:
The Producer Price Index for final demand increased 0.2 percent in November, seasonally adjusted, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Final demand prices edged up 0.1 percent in October and advanced 0.6 percent in September. On an unadjusted basis, the index for final demand rose 3.0 percent for the 12 months ended in November.The November increase in prices for final demand can be traced to a 0.9-percent advance in the index for final demand goods. Prices for final demand services were unchanged.
The index for final demand less foods, energy, and trade services advanced 0.2 percent in November after moving up 0.7 percent in October. For the 12 months ended in November, prices for final demand less foods, energy, and trade services climbed 3.5 percent, the largest 12-month increase since rising 3.5 percent in March.
Stock futures are lower across the board. Gold, silver, and oil are positive.
Inflation is in the pipeline and the president wants to annex Greenland and lower interest rates.
Any idea how insane all of that sounds?
At the Close, Tuesday, January 13, 2026:
Dow: 49,191.99, -398.21 (-0.80%)
NASDAQ: 23,709.87, -24.03 (-0.10%)
S&P 500: 6,963.74, -13.53 (-0.19%)
NYSE Composite: 22,655.44, -40.49 (-0.18%
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