Is It Time to Sell My Silver? No. Here Is Why

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Silver bars and coins with a downward price chart and a large arrow showing declining market sentiment, used as the hero image for the article discussing when to sell silver.
Home » The Gold Silver Mart Blog » Silver Insights » Is It Time to Sell My Silver? No. Here Is Why

We have been getting this question a lot over the last few weeks. Is it time to sell my silver. Silver pulled back hard. It went from over $130 CAD to under $110 CAD. People who bought on the way up watched their position drop 15 to 20 percent and now they want to know if they should get out.

Our answer is no.

We just wrote a full breakdown of the gold market in our post on whether now is a good time to buy gold and a lot of what we said there applies to silver too. The macro picture is the same. But silver has its own dynamics on top of that and they are worth walking through separately.

Why Now Is Not the Time to Sell Your Silver

Silver went from around $40 CAD to over $130 CAD in a little over a year. That kind of move shakes people out. It is supposed to. Pullbacks of 15 to 20 percent have happened in every single precious metals bull cycle we can find in the data. The 1970s cycle had them. The 2000s cycle had them. We wrote about the annualized returns and the correction patterns in both of those cycles in our post on the gold silver ratio.

If you are asking is it time to sell my silver because the price went down, you need to think about why you bought in the first place. If you bought silver because you believe we are in a long-term commodity cycle and you wanted exposure to precious metals as a hedge, nothing about a pullback changes that thesis. The thesis is about years, not weeks.

If you bought because someone on the internet told you silver was going to $200 next month and you panicked when it dropped, that is a different situation. But even then, selling into a pullback is almost always the worst time to exit. You are locking in the loss at the bottom instead of waiting for the recovery that has followed every previous pullback in every previous cycle.

What Is Actually Happening Right Now

The pullback in silver did not happen because something changed about silver fundamentals. It happened because the Iran war spiked oil, oil spiked inflation, bond yields rose, and that put tightening pressure across the whole market. Gold pulled back about 10% from its highs. Silver pulled back harder because silver always moves faster than gold in both directions. That is just how silver works. It is a smaller, more volatile market.

Consumer sentiment just hit 47.6 on the University of Michigan Index. That is the lowest reading in the survey’s 74-year history. Year-ahead inflation expectations jumped from 3.8% to 4.8% in a single month. The CPI surged 0.9% in March. People are feeling the squeeze from energy prices and that fear is showing up everywhere.

But the ISM Manufacturing PMI came in at 52.7 for March. Third consecutive month of expansion. The economy is not collapsing. It is running under pressure with prices building. The Prices Index inside that report hit 78.3, the highest since June 2022. So you have an economy that is expanding slowly while costs are exploding. That is not the environment where you sell your metals. That is the environment where metals do their job.

Trump just declared a US naval blockade of Iranian ports in the Strait of Hormuz. CENTCOM confirmed it was fully implemented within 36 hours, cutting off 90% of Iran’s seaborne trade. The strait itself is still largely closed because of Iranian mines and both sides are operating under a fragile ceasefire. The US has begun mine-clearing operations. Oil has come down from over $100 to around $94 on Brent because the market thinks a deal might happen. If oil continues to fall, bond yields follow, and central banks get room to cut rates again. That is bullish for precious metals. We laid all of this out in the gold article with the full data.

The war created the headwind. The headwind is easing. And underneath it the same forces that drove silver from $40 to $130 are still there. Slowing global growth. Massive government debt. Central banks that want to ease. A commodity cycle that we believe has years left.

Silver Has Its Own Story on Top of All That

Silver is in its sixth consecutive year of global supply deficit. Mine production has been flat. Industrial demand keeps growing because of solar panels, electronics, EVs, and AI infrastructure. Over 50% of silver demand is now industrial. That structural deficit is not going away because of a war-driven pullback.

The gold silver ratio is another signal we watch closely. In the previous cycles, silver’s biggest outperformance came after gold went parabolic and the ratio compressed. Gold is making parabolic moves right now. Silver tends to lag and then catch up violently. If you sell your silver before that catch-up phase, you are getting out right before the part of the cycle where silver historically delivers its best returns.

We wrote about all of this in detail in our post on whether silver is a good investment in Canada. The thesis has not changed since we published it. If anything the pullback makes the entry better for anyone looking to add.

If You Are Thinking About Selling, Think About This First

What are you actually going to receive. Not the spot price on a chart. The real buyback price for your specific product after the spread. Silver Maple Leafs have different resale dynamics than generic rounds. 10 oz bars move differently than 100 oz bars. In volatile markets, bid-ask spreads widen and the number you walk away with can be meaningfully lower than what the chart says. If you are going to sell, at least know the actual number. We buy silver every day and we can give you a real quote on your exact holdings.

What are you going to do with the cash. Most people who sell precious metals in a panic do not have a plan for what comes next. They sit in cash, watch silver recover, and buy back higher than where they sold. If you do not have a clear plan for what the money does after you sell, that is a sign you should not be selling.

Is your position too large for your comfort. That is a legitimate reason to trim. If silver went from 10% of your portfolio to 30% because of the run-up, cutting back to your target allocation is not panic. It is discipline. But trimming and selling everything are two very different decisions.

Is It Time to Sell My Silver? No.

We do not think it is time to sell your silver. We think the pullback is noise inside a larger cycle. We think the macro forces driving precious metals higher are still intact. We think the war headwind is easing, not building. And we think anyone who is asking is it time to sell my silver should be asking a different question. The question is whether you should be adding.

Silver is sitting around $110 CAD per ounce. It was $40 not that long ago. It hit $130 and pulled back. If the cycle plays out the way we think it will, this pullback is going to look like a gift in hindsight. The same way every previous pullback in every previous cycle looked like a gift to the people who held through it.

If you want to add to your position, browse our silver coins and silver bars. Check the live silver price in CAD. And if you are still not sure, read through what we have been writing. The commodity cycle thesis. The silver investment case for Canada. The gold article we just published. It is all connected and we have been saying the same thing consistently.

We are not financial advisors. We are dealers who follow this market closely and put our own money into it. When someone asks us is it time to sell my silver, we say no. Hold it. If you can, add to it. The cycle is not over.

We have been getting this question a lot over the last few weeks. Silver pulled back hard. It went from over $130 CAD to under $110 CAD. People who bought on the way up watched their position drop 15 to 20 percent and now they want to know if they should get out.

Our answer is no.

We just wrote a full breakdown of the gold market in our post on whether now is a good time to buy gold and a lot of what we said there applies to silver too. The macro picture is the same. But silver has its own dynamics on top of that and they are worth walking through separately.

The Pullback Does Not Mean What You Think It Means

Silver went from around $40 CAD to over $130 CAD in a little over a year. That kind of move shakes people out. It is supposed to. Pullbacks of 15 to 20 percent have happened in every single precious metals bull cycle we can find in the data. The 1970s cycle had them. The 2000s cycle had them. We wrote about the annualized returns and the correction patterns in both of those cycles in our post on the gold silver ratio.

If you are asking is it time to sell my silver because the price went down, you need to think about why you bought in the first place. If you bought silver because you believe we are in a long-term commodity cycle and you wanted exposure to precious metals as a hedge, nothing about a pullback changes that thesis. The thesis is about years, not weeks.

If you bought because someone on the internet told you silver was going to $200 next month and you panicked when it dropped, that is a different situation. But even then, selling into a pullback is almost always the worst time to exit. You are locking in the loss at the bottom instead of waiting for the recovery that has followed every previous pullback in every previous cycle.

There is a legitimate concern here and we are not going to pretend there is not. Previous precious metals cycles did not end with a gentle rollover. They ended abruptly. In 1980 silver went from $50 to under $11 in two months. In 2011 it went from $49 to $26 in a matter of weeks. When these cycles end they end fast and violently and the people holding at the top get hurt badly. That is a real risk and anyone in silver needs to understand it.

The question is whether we are at the end of this cycle. We do not think we are. The conditions that marked the tops of those previous cycles are not present right now. In 1980 Paul Volcker had just raised rates to 20% to kill inflation. In 2011 the crisis that drove metals higher was fading and the economy was recovering. Right now rates are being held because of a war, inflation is reaccelerating, consumer sentiment is at an all-time low, and the global economy is slowing. That is not what a cycle top looks like. That is what the middle of a cycle looks like.

We could be wrong. We have been wrong before. But we are not seeing the signals that historically mark the end and we are seeing plenty of signals that the run has further to go. If those signals change we will say so.

What Is Actually Happening Right Now

The pullback in silver did not happen because something changed about silver fundamentals. It happened because the Iran war spiked oil, oil spiked inflation, bond yields rose, and that put tightening pressure across the whole market. Gold pulled back about 10% from its highs. Silver pulled back harder because silver always moves faster than gold in both directions. That is just how silver works. It is a smaller, more volatile market.

Consumer sentiment just hit 47.6 on the University of Michigan Index. That is the lowest reading in the survey’s 74-year history. Year-ahead inflation expectations jumped from 3.8% to 4.8% in a single month. The CPI surged 0.9% in March. People are feeling the squeeze from energy prices and that fear is showing up everywhere.

But the ISM Manufacturing PMI came in at 52.7 for March. Third consecutive month of expansion. The economy is not collapsing. It is running under pressure with prices building. The Prices Index inside that report hit 78.3, the highest since June 2022. So you have an economy that is expanding slowly while costs are exploding. That is not the environment where you sell your metals. That is the environment where metals do their job.

Trump just declared a US naval blockade of Iranian ports in the Strait of Hormuz. CENTCOM confirmed it was fully implemented within 36 hours, cutting off 90% of Iran’s seaborne trade. The strait itself is still largely closed because of Iranian mines and both sides are operating under a fragile ceasefire. The US has begun mine-clearing operations. Oil has come down from over $100 to around $94 on Brent because the market thinks a deal might happen. If oil continues to fall, bond yields follow, and central banks get room to cut rates again. That is bullish for precious metals. We laid all of this out in the gold article with the full data.

The war created the headwind. The headwind is easing. And underneath it the same forces that drove silver from $40 to $130 are still there. Slowing global growth. Massive government debt. Central banks that want to ease. A commodity cycle that we believe has years left.

Silver Has Its Own Story on Top of All That

Silver is in its sixth consecutive year of global supply deficit. Mine production has been flat. Industrial demand keeps growing because of solar panels, electronics, EVs, and AI infrastructure. Over 50% of silver demand is now industrial. That structural deficit is not going away because of a war-driven pullback.

The gold silver ratio is another signal we watch closely. In the previous cycles, silver’s biggest outperformance came after gold went parabolic and the ratio compressed. Gold is making parabolic moves right now. Silver tends to lag and then catch up violently. If you sell your silver before that catch-up phase, you are getting out right before the part of the cycle where silver historically delivers its best returns.

We wrote about all of this in detail in our post on whether silver is a good investment in Canada. The thesis has not changed since we published it. If anything the pullback makes the entry better for anyone looking to add.

If You Are Thinking About Selling, Think About This First

What are you actually going to receive. Not the spot price on a chart. The real buyback price for your specific product after the spread. Silver Maple Leafs have different resale dynamics than generic rounds. 10 oz bars move differently than 100 oz bars. In volatile markets, bid-ask spreads widen and the number you walk away with can be meaningfully lower than what the chart says. If you are going to sell, at least know the actual number. We buy silver every day and we can give you a real quote on your exact holdings.

What are you going to do with the cash. Most people who sell precious metals in a panic do not have a plan for what comes next. They sit in cash, watch silver recover, and buy back higher than where they sold. If you do not have a clear plan for what the money does after you sell, that is a sign you should not be selling.

Is your position too large for your comfort. That is a legitimate reason to trim. If silver went from 10% of your portfolio to 30% because of the run-up, cutting back to your target allocation is not panic. It is discipline. But trimming and selling everything are two very different decisions.

Our Answer

We do not think it is time to sell your silver. We think the pullback is noise inside a larger cycle. We think the macro forces driving precious metals higher are still intact. We think the war headwind is easing, not building. And we think anyone who is asking is it time to sell my silver should be asking a different question. The question is whether you should be adding.

Silver is sitting around $110 CAD per ounce. It was $40 not that long ago. It hit $130 and pulled back. If the cycle plays out the way we think it will, this pullback is going to look like a gift in hindsight. The same way every previous pullback in every previous cycle looked like a gift to the people who held through it.

If you want to add to your position, browse our silver coins and silver bars. Check the live silver price in CAD. And if you are still not sure, read through what we have been writing. The commodity cycle thesis. The silver investment case for Canada. The gold article we just published. It is all connected and we have been saying the same thing consistently.

We are not financial advisors. We are dealers who follow this market closely and put our own money into it. When someone asks us is it time to sell my silver, we say no. Hold it. If you can, add to it. The cycle is not over.

Please note that this article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. The content provided is based on general knowledge and research, and individual financial situations may vary. It is always recommended to consult with a qualified financial advisor or professional before making any financial decisions or investments. Gold Silver Mart Canada does not assume any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, completeness, or suitability of the information provided.

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