I never thought I'd see the day Metals would behave like a Cryptocurrency

Hyperion · January 30, 2026 8:06AM

20% drops in silver inside 24 hours, gold down -600 off record intraday highs.

I guess when there's lots of $$$ floating around looking for a spot to make a fast buck buying on margin.

Btw, I dont know crap about the markets, I'm just a non-invested casual.

taxbuster1040 · January 30, 2026 4:53PM

Like the stock market when a bad quarterly result comes out..... Carnage....... More often than not, after the dust settles, a few days, or weeks, I have made much money buying stocks that "crashed".... GE is an example.... I am not buying today,
but I am patiently waiting and expect to buy more. All the forces at work that drove prices higher, are not gone.... It is the weak hands that got scared and sold today..... Stay tuned. Nothing has changed beside the day of the week. Long term, I am all in, as I have been for many years.... Stay tuned. Don;'t be afraid.... Our dollars cannot possibly hold their value with our chronic budget deficits....

blitzdude · January 30, 2026 4:59PM

Perhaps it was just the Gamestop MEME stock Reddit crew decided to start dumping the SLV? THKS!

Cocoinut · January 30, 2026 5:05PM

Reminiscent of January 1980. I wouldn't bet on a quick recovery; in fact, I wouldn't be surprised to see silver drop another $30 or more, but my crystal ball is sometimes on the fritz.

pmh1nic · January 30, 2026 9:26PM

Gold, silver platinum and palladium all down double digits today. What wou.d cause the cost of all this physical metals to plunge this way? Nothing. This is all paper manipulation.

Raptormaniacs · January 30, 2026 10:02PM

There were no big winners in the lottery this week.

Thats the best way to describe what’s going on…

GoldFinger1969 · January 30, 2026 10:07PM

@pmh1nic said:
Gold, silver platinum and palladium all down double digits today. What wou.d cause the cost of all this physical >metals to plunge this way? Nothing. This is all paper manipulation.

NO, it's what happens when a chart goes parabolic. This has happened NUMEROUS times in the PMs and other financial assets and it ALWAYS ends badly.

Some people have short memories.

Overdate · January 30, 2026 11:45PM

Still over $120 in Shanghai.

jmski52 · January 31, 2026 3:40AM

What wou.d cause the cost of all this physical metals to plunge this way? Nothing. This is all paper manipulation._

The usual suspects.

Still over $120 in Shanghai.

Oh, you mean the physical market. Next week will be interesting.

johnny9434 · January 31, 2026 4:12AM

@Raptormaniacs said:
There were no big winners in the lottery this week.

Thats the best way to describe what’s going on…

If one cashed out they may have done well, I hope and they got some awesome purchase with it

blitzdude · January 31, 2026 6:04AM

@pmh1nic said:
Gold, silver platinum and palladium all down double digits today. What wou.d cause the cost of all this physical metals to plunge this way? Nothing. This is all paper manipulation.

It was all paper manipulation to get metals where they were prior to the smackdown. No suprise here. RGDS!

jmlanzaf · January 31, 2026 6:59AM

@pmh1nic said:
Gold, silver platinum and palladium all down double digits today. What wou.d cause the cost of all this physical metals to plunge this way? Nothing. This is all paper manipulation.

Why wasn't it manipulation in the way up?

jmlanzaf · January 31, 2026 7:00AM

@Overdate said:
Still over $120 in Shanghai.

Perhaps because it's closed

jmlanzaf · January 31, 2026 7:01AM

@Raptormaniacs said:
There were no big winners in the lottery this week.

Thats the best way to describe what’s going on…

I won. Sold a bunch at $100+. And I'm just a little guy.

pmh1nic · January 31, 2026 8:40AM

@jmlanzaf said:

@pmh1nic said:
Gold, silver platinum and palladium all down double digits today. What wou.d cause the cost of all this physical metals to plunge this way? Nothing. This is all paper manipulation.

Why wasn't it manipulation in the way up?

Might have been, I don't know. But I don't see how all the metals drop significant in the same time period but for manipulation. Are these metals all tied together in a way that would cause demand for physical metal to increase or decrease significantly on the same day?

I guess the question is who benefits and who loses when the price goes up and down? I would think those that need physical metal are hurt when the price goes up and those selling gain. When the price goes down those that use physical metal benefit and those selling are hurt. Then there are those that benefit when the price goes down by short trading.

Do you believe there was manipulation during the run up and/or significant pull back? How was it done? I doubt it can be done via physical buying/selling which would place my focus on paper manipulation.

pmh1nic · January 31, 2026 8:42AM

@GoldFinger1969 said:

@pmh1nic said:
Gold, silver platinum and palladium all down double digits today. What wou.d cause the cost of all this physical >metals to plunge this way? Nothing. This is all paper manipulation.

NO, it's what happens when a chart goes parabolic. This has happened NUMEROUS times in the PMs and other financial assets and it ALWAYS ends badly.

Some people have short memories.

What would cause the charts to go parabolic for all of these metals at the same time?

RedneckHB · January 31, 2026 9:22AM

@pmh1nic said:
I doubt it can be done via physical buying/selling which would place my focus on paper manipulation.

Buying and selling of paper silver does not constitute manipulation. It constitutes buying and selling.

Why does everything have to have some nefarious slant?

RedneckHB · January 31, 2026 9:24AM

@pmh1nic said:

@GoldFinger1969 said:

@pmh1nic said:
Gold, silver platinum and palladium all down double digits today. What wou.d cause the cost of all this physical >metals to plunge this way? Nothing. This is all paper manipulation.

NO, it's what happens when a chart goes parabolic. This has happened NUMEROUS times in the PMs and other financial assets and it ALWAYS ends badly.

Some people have short memories.

What would cause the charts to go parabolic for all of these metals at the same time?

The same reason why most other segments of various asset classes move in tandem.

Overdate · January 31, 2026 9:46AM

@jmlanzaf said:

@Overdate said:
Still over $120 in Shanghai.

Perhaps because it's closed

>
I believe that when Shanghai closed Friday afternoon (their time), silver was well under $100 here.

blitzdude · January 31, 2026 9:51AM

@jmlanzaf said:

@Overdate said:
Still over $120 in Shanghai.

Perhaps because it's closed

LOL my thoughs exactly.

@jmlanzaf said:

@Raptormaniacs said:
There were no big winners in the lottery this week.

Thats the best way to describe what’s going on…

I won. Sold a bunch at $100+. And I'm just a little guy.

Ditto, sold physical gutter at $73, $80, $85, $90, $100, $108 etc. Winner winner chicken dinner on those moves. RGDS!

Edit: Of course, yesterday with my physical gold and remaining gutter I did take around a $200k bath. Stopped out of all paper also. Oh well it's only money. Also wish I would have been home to click some buttons because ZSL would have been the lottery. THKS!

Treeman · January 31, 2026 10:29AM

All of those explanations sound great, but why did stocks, metals, and bitcoin all take the dive?

pmh1nic · January 31, 2026 11:56AM

@RedneckHB said:

@pmh1nic said:
I doubt it can be done via physical buying/selling which would place my focus on paper manipulation.

Buying and selling of paper silver does not constitute manipulation. It constitutes buying and selling.

Why does everything have to have some nefarious slant?

My understanding is the paper doesn't actually represent what exist in the physical.

jmski52 · January 31, 2026 1:02PM

Selling paper that isn't backed by a real commodity is no different than creating fiat money backed by nothing.

pmh1nic · January 31, 2026 1:46PM

@jmski52 said:
Selling paper that isn't backed by a real commodity is no different than creating fiat money backed by nothing.

Agree.

Did the demand for physical silver drop by 40%? No. But margin requirements were increased which may have lead to a sell off of paper and a drop in price.

What does the spot price mean? Dealers were buying and selling below spot. Dealers sometimes charge a significant premium over spot. It all depends on the demand or lack of demand for physical silver.

RobM · January 31, 2026 2:05PM

@jmlanzaf said:

@Overdate said:
Still over $120 in Shanghai.

Perhaps because it's closed

It is a good thing that metals markets close over the weekend! That is a big reason why PMs are not like cryptocurrencies. I sold some 999 silver today at $84 and I could have got at least a couple $ more. But BTC is getting destroyed today. Mr Saylor will no longer be able to boast about Strategy's Bitcoin yield! MSTR's been buying BTC for like 5 years and has not made a penny.

Samuel8 · January 31, 2026 3:02PM

@Overdate said:
Still over $120 in Shanghai.

Will not on Monday morning.

PerryHall · January 31, 2026 4:08PM

The Asian markets open Monday at 7:00 am which is Sunday 6:00 pm EST so tomorrow evening is when we'll see how the PM markets will do next week.

pmh1nic · January 31, 2026 5:32PM

"Reports allege that the Silver market is being heavily manipulated worldwide. A recent price analysis of silver revealed that the metal is trading at two different prices simultaneously.

The report highlighted that the precious metal is trading at around $92 in the U.S. (COMEX), while physical Silver in Shanghai, China, costs $130, a 40% premium in the Asian country. In the U.S., silver trading is dominated by paper contracts that track the metal’s price, and most of the volume is not real silver being bought or sold. The paper-to-physical ratio of America is estimated at around 350:1, meaning that for every real ounce traded, there are more than 350 paper claims."

jmlanzaf · February 1, 2026 5:46AM

@Overdate said:

@jmlanzaf said:

@Overdate said:
Still over $120 in Shanghai.

Perhaps because it's closed

>
I believe that when Shanghai closed Friday afternoon (their time), silver was well under $100 here.

Yes, but there's been a $10 to $20 gap for awhile because the numbers don't represent the same thing.

fathom · February 1, 2026 8:19AM

Yeah that's right, its moving back from a momentum trade to a fundamental trade.

There is still some domestic but also international retail momentum out there so it will be difficult to predict where it stabilizes.

Also other crosscurrents play a part and it will be an interesting few weeks coming up.

GoldFinger1969 · February 3, 2026 10:48AM

@Hyperion said:
20% drops in silver inside 24 hours, gold down -600 off record intraday highs.
I guess when there's lots of $$$ floating around looking for a spot to make a fast buck buying on margin.
Btw, I dont know crap about the markets, I'm just a non-invested casual.

We've seen this many times. Volatility is not new to most financial assets.

I never thought I'd see the day Metals would behave like a Cryptocurrency

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