The retail trading herd has found a new favorite, and it isn’t Nvidia.
According to Vanda Research, retail appetite for silver has officially overtaken the technology sector. On Monday alone, individual investors net bought $171 million of the iShares Silver Trust (SLV)—nearly double the peak ($93M) seen during the infamous 2021 “Silver Squeeze.”
🚀 THE METRICS:
- Volume Explosion: Turnover in $SLV is running at 11x its usual pace, surpassing the turnover surge seen in Nvidia (~7x).
- Beating the S&P: Combined interest in the silver ETF has driven volume to several times that of the SPY (S&P 500 ETF) this month.
- The Price Action: Silver prices have tripled over the past year, exceeding $100 per ounce, driven by a mix of speculation and persistent physical shortages.
⛏️ THE SPILLOVER: The frenzy isn’t contained to the metal itself.
- Miners: Hecla Mining and Coeur Mining have cracked the top 50 most actively traded names.
- The Shorts: Contrarian flows are also spiking, with trading activity in the ProShares Ultrashort Silver ETF (ZSL) running at 4x normal levels as bears bet on a crash.
🗣️ THE QUOTE: “The chase in silver is now more intense than the classic AI trade.” — Ashwin Bhakre, Head of Product at Vanda Research.
💡 ANALYST TAKEAWAY: This is different from 2021. Back then, the “Silver Squeeze” failed because the market was too deep. Today, with prices at $100/oz and genuine physical shortages reported, the retail liquidity wall is hitting a market that is already structurally tight. When retail flows into a commodity ETF dwarf the flows into the hottest tech stocks, we are witnessing a historic asset class rotation.
👇 Commodity Traders: With silver at $100/oz, is this a “Super Spike” destined to crash, or the new floor for industrial precious metals?