Silver Is at $50 and Nobody Wants It. Q2 Coin Sales Were the Lowest Since 2010.

Spot silver was near $50.08 on Friday morning, down $2.12 on the day. Kitco says that’s the lowest level of the year.

I’ve spent two weeks telling you the supply story is bullish. Mines are producing less. That’s still true. But Metals Focus just published the other half of the ledger, and it’s ugly.

The Day

Gold slipped under $4,000, trading near $3,958.80, according to Kitco’s morning report. It’s headed for a second straight monthly decline. Silver fell harder.

The trigger was oil. Maritime authorities said a tanker in the Strait of Hormuz was hit by explosive devices attached to its hull. December Brent was heading toward $117.15, on track for a monthly gain of about 13%. Higher oil means higher inflation, and higher inflation means the Fed keeps leaning toward hikes. Futures priced about an 83% chance of a December increase.

The 10-year yield fell about 7 basis points to around 4.98%, and gold fell anyway. Falling yields were supposed to help. Not this week.

The Number Nobody’s Talking About

Metals Focus, via Kitco, lays out why silver is weaker than gold right now. Start with the stuff you can hold.

Primary silver bullion coin sales fell more than 80% in the second quarter versus the first. That’s the lowest quarterly level since the survey began in 2010. Third-quarter sales recovered a bit but were still 22% below a year earlier.

London vault inventories hit 932 million ounces at the end of September, the highest in nearly four years. Available inventories, excluding metal in physically backed ETPs, are around 267 million ounces, nearly double the October 2025 lows. Silver-backed ETP holdings have dropped about 60 million ounces since January.

Metals Focus says the gold-silver ratio rose above 76 on Thursday, the first time since December 2025. It was in a 60 to 70 range through the summer. Their line on investors: “a lack of investor conviction has prevented meaningful new investment.”

So Is This a Buying Opportunity?

Nobody gets to answer that honestly, including me. Metals Focus expects physical fundamentals to stay weak. High prices are hurting jewelry and silverware demand, and industrial users are cutting back or substituting, particularly in solar. It sees the global deficit narrowing this year and flipping to a surplus in 2027.

It also says silver likely keeps following gold over the next 12 months, with higher rates a near-term risk. And it doesn’t expect the underperformance to last forever. Read that twice. That’s a forecaster saying “worse now, not forever,” not “buy.”

Here’s what bothers me. Stackers like us love the shortage narrative. Fewer ounces mined, more demand from panels and chips. Then the data shows our own tribe posting the weakest quarter of coin sales since that survey began, with the price well off its highs. That’s a funny way to behave if you truly believe the story.

The Bottom Line

Silver’s problem this month isn’t mines. It’s that a lot of metal is sitting in vaults and not many people are paying up for it, while oil and the Fed keep pulling the price around.

If you buy monthly, nothing here requires a change. A lower price buys more ounces for the same budget, which is the entire point of buying on a schedule. What to watch: whether coin sales and ETP holdings stop falling. That’s the signal supply news can’t give you.