Silver looks to have largely shrugged off the effects of the CME’s decision to hike margin requirements twice over the Festive Season. Looking at a basket of silver-backed ETF holdings (iShares Physical Trust, ABRDN Physical Silver, Sprott Physical Silver Trust, and WisdomTree Silver ETC) holdings slumped 98Moz on the day of the CME action, only to rebound by almost as much.

Higher margin requirements and elevated volatility will reduce professional speculative positioning. But this doesn’t address silver’s long-running supply deficit, nor will it have a material impact on vault holdings available for lease.

To address silver’s fundamental supply deficit requires a rise in prices, encouraging supply, while driving demand destruction. And that takes time.