Silver Price Slips to $59 Near a Two-Month Low as Fed's Waller Signals More Hikes

Silver slipped to a two-month low on Thursday, with December futures changing hands near $59.09 an ounce as of 6:53 a.m. Eastern, after Federal Reserve Governor Chris Waller signaled that more rate hikes are on the way until inflation is pinned back to the central bank's 2 percent target. The metal opened the session at $60.19, down roughly 0.2 percent from Wednesday's close, and kept sliding in early trading.

The driver is rates. Waller, speaking at the Central Bank of the Republic of Türkiye İstanbul Economic Forum, said that "if the economic data continue to come in as expected, I anticipate additional hikes to support a timelier return of inflation to our 2% goal." He softened it only slightly, adding that the hikes "do not need to come at consecutive meetings, but they should be in place in an acceptable period of time." Higher rates raise the opportunity cost of holding an asset like silver that pays no yield, and that logic has been pressing on the whole complex for weeks. Silver is a leveraged play on the same macro forces that move gold, which means it tends to swing harder in both directions when the rate outlook shifts.

Related reading: Gold and silver hold the line into the rate pullback; copper sits at the month high.

A few numbers put the slide in context. Silver is down 8.8 percent over the last month and 1.4 percent over the past week, according to Yahoo Finance data on Thursday. Its year-over-year gain has narrowed to about 25.7 percent, the smallest in the daily series Yahoo has kept, after reaching 173.3 percent on May 14. The metal remains far off its January 2026 record near $121.64 per ounce, and Thursday's low marks its weakest print since August. Compare that with gold, which has held up much better: gold sits near $4,147 an ounce after a far smaller pullback from its own highs.

Waller did not single out silver. He pointed to persistent inflationary forces, including hopes for a quick end to the Middle East conflict, warnings that low inventories and damaged infrastructure could keep oil prices high into 2027, an AI build-out that has pushed up consumer tech prices, and new tariff risks from continuing trade conflicts. Those same forces have kept Treasury yields elevated and the dollar firm, the two headwinds precious metals have leaned against all autumn. When the real yield on safe assets rises, an asset that produces no cash flow becomes less attractive to hold by comparison.

For the broader framework, see our gold coverage.

Related reading: Silver's 3.1% Advance and the Supply Through-Line Across Metals.

The gold-silver ratio is the tell. With gold near $4,147 an ounce, the ratio has widened to roughly 70 ounces of silver per ounce of gold, among the widest readings in months. Silver underperforms gold in a rate-driven selloff because it carries more industrial demand and more speculative positioning, and that is playing out now. Industrial users, from solar-panel makers to electronics manufacturers, buy silver for its physical properties rather than its store-of-value story, and that demand does not collapse overnight, but it does not cushion a rate shock either. For retail investors holding the metal, the two-month low is the headline; for the broader complex, what matters next is the Fed's calendar, with the next policy decision and the inflation prints that will frame it.

Related reading: Gold Holds Near $4,380 as the 10-Year Treasury Yield Pushes to 5%.

Related reading: Gold gives back the conflict bid: $4,303 and the support lines that matter.

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