by Bryan Lutz, Activist Post:
Yep, it’s official. Bank of America just told its institutional clients that silver could finish 2026 anywhere between $135 and $309 an ounce.
Michael Widmer, the bank’s head of metals research (not some guy on the YouTube circuit, not a goldbug newsletter, not us), got there using sixth-grade arithmetic on the gold-to-silver ratio. With gold near $5,000, he ran the 2011 ratio low of 32:1 and got $135. He ran the 1980 Hunt Brothers extreme of 14:1 and got $309.
That arithmetic was the same arithmetic in 2013.
TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/
And in 2018.
And in 2021.
The only thing that changed is who’s willing to say it on bank letterhead.
The exhibit
Here’s TheStreet’s coverage, lightly trimmed:
Bank of America just made one of the boldest silver price calls on Wall Street. Michael Widmer, the bank’s head of metals research, projects silver could reach anywhere between $135 and $309 per ounce before the end of 2026. With gold near $5,000, applying the 2011 ratio low of 32:1 puts silver at $135. Apply the 1980 extreme of 14:1, the level reached during the Hunt Brothers silver squeeze, and the number climbs to $309.
So… “The level reached during the Hunt Brothers silver squeeze.” That is the comparison BofA’s own metals chief reached for. Bank research notes don’t casually invoke 1980 unless somebody at the desk thinks 1980 is in the option set.
What we’re actually looking at
What changed isn’t silver. What changed is who’s saying it.
The structural case has been visible from any decent monetary-history bookshelf for a decade. The Money Bubble did this math in 2013 when gold was $1,300 and called silver a steal. Lips’ Gold Wars documented the suppression mechanics back in the 1990s. The Mises canon laid the framework a century ago. None of that is new. The new thing is that a TBTF bank with a desk full of derivatives just sent it to clients with a price target attached.
And note how banks behave…
They don’t forecast moves like this until they’re already underway. The book has to be repositioned first; then the research note hits the wire. Most of Wall Street consensus still clusters between $79 and $90 a year out. Bank of America just broke from the consensus, and they did it loudly. That isn’t a contrarian call. That’s a desk telling its clients what the desk has already done.
The math BofA finally did
The structural case is now embarrassing in its simplicity:
Six straight years of physical deficit. Cumulative shortfall since 2021: roughly 820 million ounces. That’s an entire year of global mine output, gone. The world has been short one full year of new silver for half a decade, and somehow the price is still only $81.
Mine supply is a brick wall. Production has plateaued near 813 million ounces a year. About 70% of newly mined silver comes out of the ground as a byproduct of copper, lead, zinc, and gold mining, which means miners can’t respond to silver’s price signal even if they wanted to. New mines take seven to fifteen years from discovery to first ounce. Fresnillo, the world’s largest primary silver producer, just cut 2026 guidance.
