Silver rally—fueled by Fed rate cut expectations and Chinese export restrictions—takes a breather.
Silver prices fell 6 percent to start the holiday‑shortened trading week, days after industrialist Elon Musk weighed in on China’s planned export restrictions for 2026.
On Dec. 29, silver plummeted more than $5, or about 6.7 percent, to around $72 per ounce on the COMEX division of the New York Mercantile Exchange.
The white metal had reached $84 an ounce for the first time in overnight trading before staging a massive reversal.
Over the past year, silver has been one of the top-performing assets in global financial markets, rising 145 percent.
Last week’s breakout performance was supported by posts circulating on social media indicating that China would impose export restrictions on silver, effective Jan. 1, 2026.
This caught the attention of SpaceX and Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk.
“This is not good. Silver is needed in many industrial processes,” Musk said in a Dec. 26 X post.
In October, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce published new rules on the export of silver, antimony, and tungsten for 2026 and 2027, “to protect resources and the environment and strengthen the management of rare metal” shipments.
Earlier this month, officials said they received and approved applications for some Chinese exporters for general export licenses.
Silver—both an investment and an industrial metal—has rocketed on a flurry of other tailwinds, including tightening global supply concerns, strengthening demand, and a weakening U.S. dollar.
“Dovish Fed policy bets paired with a lingering sense of macroeconomic uncertainty provided fundamental support and match the decisively bullish technical set up that emerged last week,” Tom Essaye, president and co-founder of The Sevens Research Report, said in a note emailed to The Epoch Times.
Following a better-than-expected November inflation report and solid third-quarter growth, the Federal Reserve is widely expected to keep cutting interest rates next year.
There has been a divergence in expectations between policymakers and investors.
Based on the Summary of Economic Projections, the Fed has signaled a quarter-point rate cut in 2026. The futures market is betting on two or three actions in the year ahead, according to the CME FedWatch Tool.
By Andrew Moran
