After more than one full week of trading, silver has failed to break above $60 and stay above it. In morning trading overseas (10pm NY), silver is down 2.46% at $58.28, less than one dollar above its recent closing low of $57.30.
Billy Ward and the Dominos recorded a song in 1955 called “Can’t Do Sixty No More“. It was a follow-up to their big hit “Sixty Minute Man”, released several years earlier in 1951…
Silver, as it has done in the past, has lost considerably more (twice as much) on the downside than gold since their respective peaks earlier this year. The silver spot price is down 50%, while gold is down merely 25%.
I expect the gap to widen as both metals continue to decline. The lower the eventual bottom(s), the worse it will be for silver.
HOW BAD CAN IT GET FOR SILVER?
Pretty bad. After both metals peaked in 2011, silver lost more than 70% over the next five years, dropping from $49.00 to $14.00. The decline in gold was comparatively smaller at 45%, dropping from $1900 to $1050.
After gold began to climb the price ladder higher, silver struggled and eventually fell as low as $12 in April 2020, a decline of 76% from its 2011 high. Even at its concurrent low point, gold was up almost 30% from its low of $1050 several years earlier.
In 1980, the price of silver fell from $48 to $5.70 in less than two years. The decline of 88% was much worse than gold, which dropped from $850 to $290 for a loss of 66%.
Silver’s case worsened after that. Its price dropped as low as $3.57 ten years later, for a cumulative loss of 93%.
WHERE’S THE BOTTOM?
We don’t know. But I expect the selling to accelerate, and it could take silver as low as $30 oz. That would represent a 50% decline from its current price and a cumulative decline of 75% from its peak price in January 2026 at $120.
To whatever extent the decline in the silver price continues, it will be worse than that for gold. If you own gold, though, that should not make you happy. Look for gold at $3000 oz. on the downside.
(also see Silver Surfers Hit By Killer Wave and New Closing Low For Gold – Again)