There's a lot going on here and it's not just the price going up and then going down (see my other comments). Basically, the entirely silver market is dysfunctional at the moment. And it's all about bailing out banks who are getting wiped out by the silver rally.
So when you sell silver at a pawn shop or to a retail dealer, here's what happens in a normal market. You get an instant price, 5-10% off spot hopefully. That dealer then takes that silver and sells it to a refiner in higher volume with a lower margin (to spot). That's their profit. Refiners will convert that silver into bars and sell it to wholesalers and institutional buyers.
But instead what's happening is the refiner needs to hold onto the silver for 7-14 days before it gets smelted and processed. With high volatility, they're not paying out the dealers until it's processed and sold. That's a huge cash flow problem. Instead of instant money, it's money in 2 weeks and you have no idea how much money.
So the retail dealer has to wait and it could be 20% lower or 20% higher in the current market so instead of 5-10% they eitehr have to offer 30%+ less than spot price if they buy it at all. That money tied up has an opportunity cost.
Combine this with a shortage of physical silver to deliver on futures contracts and the refiners aren't really getting the silver they need to satisfy that demand.
So the spot price is fake. Nobody's buying anyway. Low wholesale supply means the prices continue to go up. Banks are haemorrhaging money because they have huge short positions. They have to borrow silver to meet their obligations and the silver lease rate (the price to borrow silver for a money has like 10x'ed) and this is where we are.
Thanks for that, that's a really good backgrounder on what's happening.
The banks are not getting wiped out by the silver rally. JP Morgan has not been engaged in shorting the silver markets for years. This is a baseless conspiracy theory, and JPM has also been accused of shorting BTC as well.
The entire narrative is made up and this is really just supply vs demand in terms of silver contracts and shares. I have been actively trading silver since last year and made over $100k and in precious metals (mostly gold) for 30+ years since I first graduated from college so I'm not just an idle spectator.
If the banks had massive short positions, why didn't they report huge losses in Q4?