Silver Faces Billions in Forced Selling as Index Rebalancing Looms

Following a historic rally in 2025, the silver market is bracing for a wave of mandated selling that threatens to trigger significant volatility. The catalyst is an impending reweighting of the influential Bloomberg Commodity Index, which will compel passive investment funds to unwind billions of dollars in positions. Analysts warn that liquidating such a substantial portion of market interest within a short timeframe could lead to severe turbulence.

Key Market Developments:
* Impending Sales: Index-tracking funds are projected to sell silver futures contracts worth more than $5 billion.
* Price Retreat: The metal's price has already retreated considerably from its recent record peak.
* Weekly Performance: Silver has declined by 9.30 percent over the past seven trading days.

Despite the technical headwinds, silver's fundamental backdrop remains supportive. Recent escalations in geopolitical tensions between the U.S. and Iran continue to fuel demand for traditional safe-haven assets. Furthermore, the metal benefits from prevailing expectations for lower interest rates and a softening U.S. dollar.

Market experts also point to underlying physical scarcity. The United States now classifies silver as a critical mineral, and potential export restrictions from China could exacerbate an existing supply deficit. Robust industrial consumption, driven primarily by the solar panel and electric vehicle sectors, is seen providing a solid long-term floor for prices.

The coming sessions are likely to feature a tug-of-war between the mechanical selling pressure from funds and this fundamental buying interest. A key test will arrive with Friday's U.S. employment report. A figure showing approximately 50,000 new jobs added, in line with economist forecasts, could further influence interest rate expectations and, by extension, silver's trajectory.

Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying Silber Preis?

Index Rules Force a Multi-Billion Dollar Unwind

The primary source of market anxiety is a scheduled rebalancing of the Bloomberg Commodity Index, set to begin this Thursday. Due to silver's extraordinary price gains last year, its weighting within the index has ballooned disproportionately. The target allocation for 2026 now requires a sharp reduction from the current level of 9 percent to below 4 percent.

Daniel Ghali, a Senior Commodity Strategist at TD Securities, has quantified the risk. He estimates that passive funds must offload silver futures valued at over $5 billion. This volume equates to roughly 13 percent of the total open interest on the Comex silver markets. Absorbing such a significant amount of selling within the five-day rebalancing window is expected to pose a substantial challenge for market liquidity.

Margin Hikes and Technicals Add Pressure

Cracks in the bullish momentum began to appear even before the new year. After silver hit an all-time high of $81.66 on December 28, 2025, profit-taking emerged. In response to heightened volatility, the CME Group raised margin requirements to $25,000 per contract, a move that squeezed out more speculative positions from the market.

The current settlement price of $72.27 reflects this corrective phase. The metal now trades approximately 11.5 percent below its 52-week high. However, the longer-term uptrend remains technically intact for now. The price continues to hold comfortably—17.55 percent above the 50-day moving average of $61.48. The Relative Strength Index (RSI) has also retreated from extremely overbought territory, registering a reading of 62.0.