by Dimitri Speck, Silver Seek:
Silver was among the best-performing asset classes of 2025, alongside platinum and gold mining equities. With gains of 148% in U.S. Dollar terms and 118% in Euro terms, the precious metal significantly outperformed equity markets as well as Bitcoin. The rally was particularly pronounced in December, when silver surged by 25% alone. Both December and the full year 2025 ended with silver priced at $71.50 per troy ounce.
At its peak, silver temporarily reached $84 per ounce, and in China even the equivalent of $89 per ounce. Notably, the previous nominal high from 1980 – $54.50 per ounce – had only been exceeded a few weeks earlier.
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This spectacular rally until shortly after Christmas was abruptly interrupted. On Monday, December 29, silver fell by nearly 10% within just over an hour during early morning trading in Australia. This sharp decline raises important questions, most notably whether the move may have been driven by deliberate price manipulation.
A Brief History of Precious Metals Price Manipulation
Price manipulation in the precious metals markets is not a rumor; it has been established repeatedly in courts of law. Fines and settlement payments in the tens and hundreds of millions of dollars have been imposed on institutions such as Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan, and Scotiabank. In several cases, multi-year prison sentences were handed down to individuals involved in the manipulation of precious metals prices. Most cases involved downward price pressure rather than upward distortion. In addition to private actors, government institutions have also influenced prices, most notably the gold price.
On August 5, 1993, the longest systematic suppression of the gold price began. It lasted for more than two decades. Initially, it prevented gold from trading above $400 per ounce until 1996 and subsequently pushed the price down to around $250 per ounce by 2001. Price interventions also occurred during the gold bull market after 2001, when prices eventually rose to nearly $2,000 per ounce by 2011. During that phase, the objective was not to stop the overall upward trend, but rather to prevent excessively rapid price increases occurring at sensitive times – particularly during crises, presumably to calm market participants.
One explicit motive for price suppression was articulated by then-Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan on May 18, 1993, nearly three months before the start of the suppression campaign. His statement can be found in minutes published five years later. He said the following in the context of inflationary risks, with the word “thermometer” referring to the price of gold: “If we are dealing with psychology, then the thermometers one uses to measure it have an effect. I was raising the question on the side with Governor Mullins of what would happen if the Treasury sold a little gold in this market. There’s an interesting question here because if the gold price broke in that context, the thermometer would not be just a measuring tool. It would basically affect the underlying psychology.” Greenspan was thus contemplating gold sales to prevent a rapidly rising price, as such a move would have signaled inflation. The intention was to dampen inflation expectations and, in turn, influence the behavior of savers, businesses, and workers.
Price manipulation can therefore influence precious metals markets for many years, making it one of the most important factors affecting the price. For investors, this raises the question of whether the late-December 2025 price decline was manipulated – and to what extent similar interventions could shape prices in the coming months. In recent years, such manipulations have become relatively rare, with only a few suspected cases. Notably, during silver’s surge to its 2011 high, prices were not suppressed; however, afterwards, the market was demonstrably subjected to systematic manipulation.
Unlike consumable commodities, precious metals can be suppressed for extended periods by influencing inventory and storage dynamics. In contrast, attempts to suppress prices in crude oil, for example, would quickly lead to increased consumption, thereby counteract the effect. I have discussed precious metals manipulation in detail in my book The Gold Cartel (Palgrave Macmillan). The Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee has been investigating gold price manipulation since 1998.
Intraday Price Action in Late December 2025
Let us turn to silver’s price behavior near its year-end high in 2025. The chart illustrates the intraday spot silver price movement from Tuesday, December 23, through the holiday-shortened session on Wednesday, December 24, and the subsequent trading day on Friday, December 26, extending to Sunday, December 28, 2025, when the price peak occurred. All intraday prices are shown in New York time. As a result, price data already appears on Sunday afternoon, corresponding to the start of Monday morning trading in Australia, while it is still Sunday on the U.S. East Coast.
