Silver is now half its January peak: the numbers behind the slide

Silver’s 6% fall on Wednesday was its worst day in almost four months. Dow Jones Market Data, published via Morningstar, puts numbers on the slide: front-month Comex silver futures — the October delivery contract — lost $3.611 to settle at $55.550 an ounce.

The drawdown in numbers

Measure	Figure
Wednesday’s settlement	$55.550 (−6.10%)
Largest one-day % fall since	24 June 2026
Lowest settlement since	26 November 2025
Last three sessions	−8.44%
Month to date	−7.57%
Year to date	−20.79% (from ≈$70.13 at the end of 2025)
Below the record settlement	−51.73% (record $115.08, 26 January 2026)

As reported by Dow Jones Market Data via Morningstar, 14 October 2026. Figures are for front-month Comex futures settlements.

A note on “the record”

Readers of our earlier pieces will have seen silver’s all-time high given as about $121.6. Both numbers are right; they measure different things. $115.08 is the highest settlement price of the front-month Comex futures contract — the official end-of-day price, on 26 January. About $121.6 is the highest price the spot market touched during trading, on 29 January. An intraday peak is always at least as high as the day’s settlement, and spot and futures prices differ. The same distinction explains why FXStreet calls Wednesday’s low the lowest since July — measured on the spot price during trading — while Dow Jones calls the settlement the lowest since November 2025. Either way, silver is now roughly half its January high.

From the peak to here

The slide has come in stages. Silver fell from its January peak into the $60s through the spring and summer, where — in the Silver Institute’s words — it “comfortably settled” (see Silver’s new floor). It held around $59–$61 through the first half of October, until Wednesday’s hot CPI — covered in Hot CPI, hot yields, cold metals — knocked it out of that range.

Capitulation or a new leg lower?

A big one-day fall to a multi-month low can be either: the last sellers giving up before a recovery, or the start of a further decline. The numbers do not say which. What traders are watching are the levels below. Kitco’s immediate support is $55.27; FXEmpire puts support at $55–$56 and warns that a break could open the way to $50 — see the CPI trade map. These are their levels, not our forecast.

What would need to change

For silver to recover, the forces that have pushed it down would need to ease: Fed hike expectations, Treasury yields and the dollar on the monetary side, and worries about industrial demand on the other. Early on Thursday, silver bounced about 1% as the dollar eased — see Gold bounces back above $4,150. The gold-to-silver ratio shows how far silver has fallen behind gold.

Every figure here is as reported by the publications listed under Sources, at the time they reported it. Prices move; the live gold price has the current one. Nothing on this page is investment advice.