Silver Speculators Beat a Retreat as Sticky Inflation Hardens Rate Expectations
Published on 10/18/2026 at 07:20 | Editorial boerse-global.de
Speculative money is pulling back from silver, and the trigger sits squarely in the inflation data. After a US consumer price report that came in hotter than forecast, traders have been scaling back their bullish exposure to the white metal, leaving the market to test whether the recent lows will hold.
The CFTC's positioning data for the week through October 13 lays out the shift. Among funds and asset managers, 15,802 contracts betting on higher prices stood against 10,183 shorts, leaving a net long of 5,619 contracts — a slide of 1,909 contracts in a single week. The caution was sparked chiefly by the US Labor Department's latest consumer price index, which showed September inflation running at 3.7% year on year, ahead of the 3.6% consensus. With core inflation also overshooting expectations, interest-rate markets are now pricing in a persistently restrictive Federal Reserve stance. For a metal that pays no yield, richer returns on fixed-income assets are a direct headwind.
Silver finished Friday's COMEX session at USD 57.13 per troy ounce. That leaves the price 11% below its 50-day average of USD 64.31 and 18% under its 200-day moving average, with the year-to-date loss at 19%. The September futures contract had already shed 9.6% the month before.
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Deliveries Slow Sharply at the Vaults
Physical activity at the New York exchange has cooled alongside the price. By last Friday, 1,286 silver futures contracts had been flagged for physical delivery in October, a fraction of the 4,529 delivered in September. CME Group put total silver held in COMEX depositories at 333.75 million ounces, of which 103.12 million ounces sat in the registered, immediately deliverable category. The exchange operator nonetheless pointed to physical supply that remains tight. A separate COMEX stock report dated October 14 showed a total of 333.2 million fine ounces, a build of 1.2 million ounces on the prior reporting period, with 103.1 million ounces deliverable.
Mine Reports Cut Both Ways
Third-quarter interim reports from producers painted a mixed supply picture. Guanajuato Silver booked output of 392,138 ounces, while Aya Gold & Silver logged record production of 1.50 million ounces at its Zgounder mine. First Majestic reported 3.4 million ounces from four Mexican operations but flagged operational interruptions. Endeavour Silver, held back by a mill repair in September, still brought in 2,096,545 ounces.
China Data and the Fed in the Crosshairs
Attention now turns to two catalysts. On Monday, October 19, Beijing releases September industrial production figures — a key gauge of demand from the world's second-largest economy, where silver feeds heavily into electronics manufacturing and industrial processes. A fresh COMEX inventory report is due Monday evening. Then comes the Federal Reserve's rate decision on October 27 and 28, with the accompanying guidance likely to determine whether the floor holds or the remaining longs head for the exit. Michael Blumenroth, commodities strategist at Deutsche Bank, has pointed to currency and interest-rate factors as the weights pressing on precious metals.
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