Silver has officially lost its mind.
If you haven’t checked your portfolio or the news in the last 48 hours, you might want to sit down. As of Sunday, January 18, 2026, the current silver price is hovering around $90.88 per ounce.
Just think about that for a second. We are watching a metal that spent decades stuck in the $20 range suddenly behave like a high-growth tech stock. It’s wild. Honestly, if you told a silver bug three years ago that we’d be flirting with $100 before the end of January 2026, they would have probably laughed you out of the room. But here we are.
The Reality of the Current Silver Price
Right now, the market is a bit of a battlefield. We saw silver breach the historic $93 mark just a couple of days ago on Friday, January 16. That was a seismic shift. Since then, we’ve seen a slight "cooling off" period—basically a breather—as traders lock in profits. The bid price is currently sitting near $90.08, while the ask is around $90.88.
It’s a bit lower than the intra-day peak we saw earlier in the week, but don’t let that tiny dip fool you. Over the last year, silver is up nearly 197%. You're reading that correctly. It has outperformed almost every other major asset class, including gold, which "only" gained about 67% in 2025.
Why is this happening now? Why is the current silver price behaving so violently?
It’s not just one thing. It’s a "perfect storm" of industrial desperation, geopolitical chaos, and a weirdly specific supply problem that nobody seems able to fix.
It’s No Longer Just "Poor Man’s Gold"
For decades, silver was the sidekick. It followed gold around like a lost puppy. If gold went up 1%, silver went up 2%. If gold fell, silver fell harder.
That old playbook is dead.
The world has started treating silver as a critical strategic mineral. In late 2025, the U.S. government officially added silver to its list of critical minerals. That’s a huge deal. It means silver is now seen as a national security issue, right alongside lithium and rare earth elements.
Why? Because you can’t build a "green" future without it.
- Solar Power: The solar industry alone is eating up over 200 million ounces a year.
- Electric Vehicles: An EV uses significantly more silver than your old gas-guzzling sedan.
- AI Data Centers: The infrastructure for artificial intelligence requires high-conductivity electronics, and silver is the king of conductivity.
Basically, the tech we’re all obsessed with is built on a foundation of silver.
The China Factor and Supply Chain Chokeholds
If you want to understand the current silver price, you have to look at what’s happening in the East. China is the world's leading refiner of this stuff, and they’ve started tightening the screws.
Earlier this month, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce announced new "strategic export license" requirements. They aren't just letting silver leave the country like they used to. They want to protect their own high-tech manufacturing. This has created a massive "Shanghai Premium," where silver is actually trading at higher prices in Asia than it is in London or Chicago.
It’s a classic squeeze.
Supply is structurally broken. You see, most silver isn't even mined on its own. It’s a byproduct of mining for copper, lead, and zinc. So, even if the silver price doubles, a copper miner isn't necessarily going to dig more just to get a little extra silver. This means the supply is "inelastic." It can't just snap its fingers and grow to meet demand.
We’ve had five straight years of structural deficits. We are literally draining the vaults.
What the Experts Are Saying (And Where They Disagree)
There is a massive divide right now between the "Permabulls" and the "Realists."
Robert Kiyosaki, the Rich Dad Poor Dad author, has been shouting from the rooftops. He’s predicting silver could hit $107 as early as tomorrow, Monday, January 19. He points to Tesla’s reported struggles to secure enough physical metal for their batteries as a sign that the "big one" is here. He’s even thrown out long-term targets as high as $200 or $500.
On the other side, you’ve got firms like HSBC. Their analysts are a bit more cautious. They think the current silver price is "fundamentally overvalued" because of the speculative mania. They’re forecasting an average price of around $68.25 for the full year of 2026, suggesting we might see a sharp correction once the initial panic subsides.
Then you have someone like Fawad Razaqzada, a market analyst who notes that while momentum is "stretched," there are no clear signs of a reversal yet. He looks at $80 and $84 as crucial support levels. If we stay above those, the path to $100 stays open.
Is the Current Silver Price Sustainable?
Honestly? It feels like we’re in a period of "price discovery."
When an asset breaks out of a 10-year range and hits all-time highs, there is no historical map. We’re in uncharted territory. The gold-to-silver ratio, which was famously 100-to-1 just a couple of years ago, has collapsed to around 57-to-1.
Historically, when that ratio drops, it means silver is the leader of the pack.
But there are risks.
The CME Group recently hiked margin requirements for silver contracts. They did this to cool the market down, and it forced some smaller traders to liquidate their positions. That’s why we saw that "violent" pullback from $93 down to $90. If they hike margins again, we could see more "forced" selling.
Also, watch the Federal Reserve. They stopped shrinking their balance sheet in late 2025, which was a huge "buy" signal for precious metals. But if inflation data comes in hotter than expected and they pause their rate-cut plans, the current silver price could take a hit.
How to Navigate the Current Market
If you’re looking at silver right now, you’ve got to decide what kind of player you are.
- The Physical Collector: If you want coins and bars, be prepared to pay huge premiums. The spot price says $90, but you’ll be lucky to find a 1 oz American Silver Eagle for less than $110 right now. Physical supply is incredibly tight.
- The ETF Trader: Funds like SLV or PSLV offer easier entry and exit, but you don't get the "metal in your hand" security.
- The Miner Play: Silver mining stocks are basically a leveraged bet. When the metal goes up 10%, a well-run miner might go up 25%. But they also have operational risks—labor strikes, fuel costs, and taxes.
Actionable Insights for the Week Ahead
The market is moving fast, and you can't afford to be passive. Here is what you should actually do:
- Watch the $90 Pivot: This is the psychological line in the sand. If silver closes the day above $91, expect another run toward $95. If it breaks below $88, we might be looking at a deeper correction toward $84.
- Check Local Coin Shop Premiums: Before buying online, call your local dealer. Sometimes "brick and mortar" shops haven't adjusted their premiums as fast as the big online retailers, though that's becoming rare in this environment.
- Audit Your Portfolio Weighting: If you bought silver at $25, it might now represent a massive portion of your net worth because of the 2025 rally. It sounds crazy, but you might need to sell a little just to stay balanced—unless you’re a "ride or die" silver bull.
- Monitor the Gold-to-Silver Ratio: If this ratio starts climbing back toward 70, it might mean silver is losing its relative strength. As long as it stays under 60, silver is the "alpha" metal in the complex.
The current silver price isn't just a number on a screen anymore; it’s a reflection of a world that is suddenly realizing it doesn't have enough of the "devil's metal" to build the future it promised. Whether it hits $100 tomorrow or next month, the era of "cheap silver" appears to be firmly in the rearview mirror.
Check the charts again on Monday morning. Given how volatile things are, $90 could feel like ancient history by lunch.
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Next Step: Monitor the LBMA London Fix on Monday morning to see if the institutional market validates the retail surge we've seen over the weekend. This will confirm whether the $90 support level is structural or purely speculative.