They aren’t even trying to pretend to hide what they are doing. Everyone knows that the meteoric rise in the price of silver in 2025 has put an immense amount of stress on certain financial institutions. Of course nobody is publicly confirming how much damage has been done, but it must be pretty severe if CME Group is taking such extreme measures to force the price of silver down. For the second time in less than a week, CME Group has abruptly raised margin requirements on precious metals futures…
Gold and silver prices lost ground on Wednesday as investors booked profits after a historic annual rally and exchange operator CME Group hiked the margins on precious metal futures for the second time in the space of a week.
They probably thought that it was best to pull a stunt like this during the holidays while less people are paying attention.
A statement was released by CME Group which said that this latest move to hike margin requirements was done “to ensure adequate collateral coverage”…
CME Group, one of the world’s largest trading floors for commodities, said Tuesday that margins for gold, silver, platinum and palladium would increase again after the close of business Wednesday.
It said in a statement that the decision was made “as per the normal review of market volatility to ensure adequate collateral coverage.”
Give me a break.
We all know why this was done.
What we are witnessing is literally a conspiracy to force the price of silver down.
They knew that when they suddenly increased margin requirements, it would create a squeeze and force precious metals prices lower…
One reason behind recent declines in silver, including the stark fall on Wednesday, is changes to trading rules implemented by exchange operator CME Group, which hosts widely traded silver futures contracts.
Traders operating in CME’s derivatives market must put down cash to support their trades, with the exact amount or margin required varying. Amid volatile trading, the CME raised margin requirements effective Monday for precious metals including silver, and announced that margin requirements would rise again after Wednesday.
If traders cannot put up more cash, their positions are often forcibly closed, or sold, typically at unfavorable prices. This can cause a wave of selling that pushes prices down further, taking some of the shine out of silver—for now.
I am so disgusted by this.
The first margin hike didn’t get the results that they wanted, and so they did it again.
Shame on them.
We are supposed to be at least pretending that we have some semblance of a free market system left.
But even after this desperate attempt to stop the bleeding, the price of silver is still up more than 140 percent in 2025…
Even after sharp declines on Wednesday, silver prices have gained more than 140% this year and remain relatively close to all-time highs above $82 reached on Sunday.
And most analysts are still projecting that the price of silver will continue to rise in 2026 because the fundamentals for silver are exceedingly favorable…
Yet there are also fundamentals behind silver’s remarkable rally this year.
The precious metal, like gold—up almost two-thirds in 2025 to record levels—is considered a store of value and a hedge against the dollar, which weakened this year amid falling U.S. interest rates.
Silver also benefits from industrial demand typical of the current moment, including uses in solar panels, electric vehicles, and data centers powering artificial intelligence.
If the AI boom were to burst, that could change the outlook for silver.
But right now the AI revolution is steaming ahead.
And the U.S. dollar is probably going to continue to get even weaker in 2026.
In 2025, the U.S. dollar index has fallen by nearly 10 percent…
The dollar continues to face a challenging backdrop in 2026 following this year’s sharp depreciation, Charles Stanley’s Abbas Owainati says in a note. The dollar’s fall this year reflects concerns over long-term fiscal sustainability, an erosion of the currency’s safe haven status amid unpredictable policy, increased currency hedging by non-U.S. investors and changes in capital flows. The dollar could stay under pressure next year as the Federal Reserve is expected to cut interest rates further, he says. A weaker dollar could support emerging markets equities by easing external debt burdens, improving capital flows and boosting local currency returns, he says. The DXY dollar index trades flat at 98.008. It has fallen nearly 10% in the year to date.
The Trump administration doesn’t mind that the dollar has been getting weaker because it makes our exports more appealing to the rest of the world.
But when the U.S. dollar gets weaker, our purchasing power goes down.
A weaker dollar is one of the primary reasons why we find ourselves in an affordability crisis that never seems to end.
So if the U.S. dollar continues to lose value next year that will not be good news for millions of deeply struggling American households, but it will be great news for silver investors.
In addition, Martin Armstrong says that there are a number of geopolitical factors that will help move the price of silver higher during the months ahead…
When it comes to metal, Armstrong says, “People who know war and crisis are coming are buying metals. . .. We have creative destruction. You have AI coming in and you have unemployment rising and you have GDP rising. . .. You have shortages in commodities on top of this. . .. Then you have geopolitical nonsense. Anthony Blinken (Secretary of State in the Biden Administration) put sanctions on Russia. Look at the metals. What did it do? It cut off the supply of gold, silver and platinum coming out of Russia. Now, you have China putting in a ban on exporting silver as of January 1, 2026. This is rather important. China controls about 60% of the supply of silver. . .. This is one of the reasons why silver jumped up dramatically. This is a perfect storm. On top of all this, NATO is there only for war. That is it. . .. Socrates is still saying Europe will lose badly in a war with Russia.”
Armstrong sees a bull market for gold, silver and other metals for years ahead. One big reason is shortages in the metals. Armstrong says, “I don’t see these shortages going away. The bull market is more likely to go into 2032. It will be volatile, and then you’ve got war coming. Once you get into war, prices are going to go up even more. It’s all a mess. This is a perfect storm.”
Yes, we certainly are facing “a perfect storm”, and I am entirely convinced that the year in front of us is going to be absolutely nuts.
In the short-term, there will be plenty of opportunities for savvy investors to capitalize on all of the global chaos that we are witnessing.
Some people will make a lot of money, and of course others will lose a lot of money.
But in the end, the entire system is going to come crashing down all around us.
Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.
About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com. He has also written nine other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing. You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter. Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites. These are such troubled times, and people need hope. John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.