Silver’s Two Peaks: January 1980 and January 2026, Side by Side

Silver set records in January 1980 and January 2026. From the SEC’s and the CFTC’s accounts of the Hunt episode, the Silver Institute’s data and our own price series, we compare who was buying, how much of the 1980 buying was borrowed, what the exchanges did, and how long 1980’s annual average took to beat: 31 years. History, not a forecast.

Published · 18 min read

Key Takeaways

Silver has twice set a record that stood far above the prices around it. On Thursday 17 January 1980 silver on Comex, New York’s metals futures exchange, reached an intraday high of $50.36 an ounce and closed at $48.70, according to the official accounts of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Ten weeks later, on 27 March, it settled at $10.80. On Thursday 29 January 2026 spot silver reached $121.64, Reuters reported, and by midday the next day it was down 11.7% on the day.

This article sets the two peaks side by side: what drove each, who was buying, how much borrowed money stood behind the buying, what the exchanges did and how large the market was. It uses the official accounts of 1980, the Silver Institute’s data for 2025 and this site’s own price series, and where the records do not allow a fair comparison, it says so. It is history, not a forecast. What followed 1980 is the record of one episode, and the record after January 2026 is eight months long.

The prices quoted here come from three markets, a futures exchange, the spot market and the London benchmark, and they are not the same number. How each is set, and why they differ, is the subject of our explainer on who sets the price of gold. Silver too has a Comex futures price, a spot price and a London benchmark, the LBMA Silver Price.

How High Did Silver Go in January 1980, and Who Was Buying?

Silver reached an intraday high of $50.36 an ounce on Comex on 17 January 1980, after members of the family of the late Texas oilman H.L. Hunt and entities related to them had built a position of more than 195 million ounces in physical silver and futures, according to the SEC staff’s 1982 report, The Silver Crisis of 1980. The price had been below $10 before 1 August 1979 and stood at $34.45 on 31 December 1979.

The SEC staff counted the silver controlled by Bunker and Herbert Hunt and by International Metals Investment Company (IMIC) at about 123 million ounces on 31 July 1979 and 195 million on 1 January 1980. IMIC, a Bermuda company created in July 1979, was owned half in voting terms by a company held by Hunt family trusts and half by two Saudi investors. At the January peak the Hunt position had an apparent value of more than $9.8 billion.

The CFTC’s later account calls the brothers speculators who “neither produced, distributed, processed nor consumed silver”. It quotes the government’s interagency study of the episode: the biggest single source of the change in demand for silver bullion in the second half of 1979 and the first quarter of 1980 “came from the silver acquisitions of Hunt family members and other large traders”.

The position rested on borrowed money. At the end of 1979 about half of it was in long futures contracts, the SEC staff found, and even at the highest margin rates then charged on either of the two main exchanges, a $30,000 deposit carried a contract for silver worth more than $170,000. The Hunts also borrowed against the bullion they owned. At six broker-dealers carrying their accounts, the silver had an apparent value of $3.35 billion at the end of 1979, against equity in the accounts of $1.1 billion.

The 1980 peak, from the official accounts

What Did the Exchanges Do in 1980?

The exchanges first capped how much silver one trader could hold, then allowed only trades that closed positions. The Chicago Board of Trade had introduced limits of 3 million ounces (600 contracts) per trader in late 1979, and on 7 January 1980 Comex, the larger exchange, imposed limits of 10 million ounces (2,000 contracts), with larger positions to be reduced by 18 February, according to the CFTC. The SEC staff describe the Comex limits as retroactive. Margin requirements rose sharply, particularly for large positions: on 4 February, Comex margins on positions the size of the Hunts’ at certain firms went from $30,000 to $60,000 a contract.

The price kept rising for ten days after the limits. On Monday 21 January Comex imposed an emergency rule limiting silver futures trading to liquidation only, and the next day silver fell about $10 to settle at $34.00. It traded between $31 and $38.50 until early March, then fell from $29.75 to $10.80 in the 14 business days to Thursday 27 March, the day later called Silver Thursday.

Falling prices brought margin calls the Hunts could not meet in cash. In the SEC staff’s words, for six days late in March 1980 it appeared that a default by a single family “might seriously disrupt the U.S. financial system”. Before 27 March, the staff found, there had been no public disclosure of the existence or size of the Hunt positions. The Hunts and others later alleged that exchange governors had voted for the higher margins, the limits and the liquidation-only rule out of self-interest, since some of them or their employers held large short positions; the SEC report records that the CFTC inquired into those allegations, and does not decide them.

The SEC staff also recorded how the rest of the market answered the price. As silver climbed, industrial demand declined rapidly and new supplies came into the market from holders lured into selling by high prices.

How Long Did Silver Take to Get Back Above Its 1980 Price?

On annual averages, 31 years: 1980’s average of $20.98 an ounce was not exceeded until 2011, when silver averaged $35.12. Every year from 1981 to 2010 averaged less, although 2010 came within 4%, at $20.19, and the lowest, 1992, averaged $3.95, under a fifth of 1980’s figure. These are LBMA annual averages from this site’s own price series, the one behind The Long Shadow simulation in the Academy, which counts the same wait year by year.

31 years From 1980’s annual average to the first year that beat it. 1980 averaged $20.98 an ounce; 2011, at $35.12, was the first year to average more. Source: LBMA annual averages, as held in this site’s price series.

Silver’s annual average: the 1980 level and the years that measure the wait
  • 1980: 20.98 US$/oz
  • 1981: 10.49 US$/oz
  • 1992: 3.95 US$/oz
  • 2010: 20.19 US$/oz
  • 2011: 35.12 US$/oz
  • 2025: 40.03 US$/oz

31 years: Thirty annual averages in a row, 1981 to 2010, sat below 1980’s $20.98.

Each annual average from 1981 to 2010 sat below 1980’s; 2011, 31 years on, was the first above it.

Source: LBMA annual averages (the mean of each year’s daily LBMA silver prices), US$ per troy ounce, nominal, as held in this site’s price series, read from LBMA on 18 September 2026.

On daily prices the wait was longer still. Spot silver’s high of $51.24 an ounce on 9 October 2025 was a record at the time, Kitco News reported, and the highest since the Hunt brothers’ squeeze, according to Bloomberg as Kitco quoted it. Allowing for inflation, as a later section shows, even the 2026 record stayed below 1980’s.

What Drove Silver to Its January 2026 Record?

Silver’s 2026 record came after a year in which demand exceeded supply for the fifth year running, according to the Silver Institute’s World Silver Survey 2026, and in which buying of coins and bars rose while industrial use eased. In 2025 total demand of 1,130.6 million ounces (Moz) exceeded total supply of 1,090.4 Moz, a deficit the survey puts at 40.3 Moz from its unrounded figures. Industry used 657.4 Moz, about 58% of demand and 3% less than in 2024, while coins and bars took 217.7 Moz, up 14%. The annual average price rose 42%, to $40.03.

How that deficit arises, and what can close it, is the subject of our article on whether we use more silver than we mine; where the industrial demand goes is covered in our look at silver’s industrial engine. The survey’s 2025 figures show a smaller version of the response the SEC staff saw in 1980: in a year of rising prices, industrial use fell 3% and recycling climbed 2% to 197.6 Moz, a 12-year high, while jewellery and silverware demand fell 8% and 21%.

The steepest part of the rise came at the end. On the World Bank’s monthly averages, silver went from $30.4 in January 2025 to $62.3 in December and $92.1 in January 2026, up 48% in a month. Reuters, reporting on 29 January 2026, put the year’s gain so far at nearly 64% and attributed it to investors diversifying away from gold, with persistent supply deficits and momentum buying adding support. Spot silver set its record of $121.64 that day, and gold set its own, $5,594.82. In 1980 gold’s London afternoon fix reached its high for the year, $850, on 21 January, four days after silver’s Comex high.

On 30 January it fell hard. By midday spot silver was down 11.7% on the day, at $102.57, having touched $95.79, about 21% below the record. The analyst Ross Norman told Reuters that a significant part of the rise had been based on sound fundamentals, but that “there was clearly a speculative excess within the market”. By 6 February spot silver had slumped as low as $63.99, a near two-month low, Reuters reported: 47% below the record.

The 2026 peak, from the market record

What Was Different About the Two Peaks?

The clearest difference is who was buying. In 1979 and 1980 one family and its associates held a position of more than 195 million ounces, and the government’s own study named the purchases of the Hunt family and other large traders as the biggest single source of the change in demand. For 2025 the Silver Institute reports demand by category, from industry to coins, bars and jewellery, rather than by buyer; Reuters described January 2026’s buying as investors diversifying away from gold.

Two peaks, side by side

Read with care: The rows compare like with like only where the bases match: a stock of silver is not a year’s flow, and a futures price is not a spot price.

The two peaks share a month and a steep final climb; they differ in who held the metal, how far the price had run and what the exchanges did.

Four of those comparisons are weaker than they look. The 1980 buyers’ figure is a position held at one date, and the 2025 figures are a year’s demand. The market’s size in 1979 is likewise a stock: the silver held in the United States, and an estimate for the world that Handy & Harman, in the SEC staff’s description the leading source of information on the silver market, built from reported and “conjectural” holdings. The 2025 figures are a year’s flow of mine output and demand. The prices are on different bases, a Comex futures price in 1980 and a spot price in 2026. And this article found no public account of 2026 positions like the SEC staff’s reconstruction of the Hunts’ accounts, so how much borrowed money stood behind January 2026’s buying cannot be set beside the 1979 figures. The margin rates themselves were not far apart: under 18% of a contract’s value at the end of 1979, at the highest rates then charged, and 9% to 18% in early 2026.

Nor did the exchanges answer in the same way. The accounts read for this article record margin increases in 2026, not the position limits or the liquidation-only trading that Comex imposed in January 1980.

Was the 2026 Peak Higher Than 1980’s Once Inflation Is Counted?

No. Adjusted by the US consumer price index, January 1980’s average silver price of $38.9 an ounce was worth about $162.6 in January 2026 dollars, against January 2026’s actual average of $92.1. On intraday highs, a Comex price in 1980 and a spot price in 2026, the gap is similar: 1980’s $50.36 is about $211 in January 2026 dollars, against $121.64. In nominal dollars January 2026’s average was more than twice January 1980’s; in real terms it was about 57% of it.

January’s average silver price, as paid and in January 2026 dollars
  • Jan 1980: 38.9 US$/oz
  • Jan 1980 in 2026 dollars: 162.6 US$/oz
  • Jan 2026: 92.1 US$/oz

In nominal dollars the 2026 peak month averaged more than twice 1980’s; in real terms it averaged about 57% of it.

Source: World Bank, Commodity Price Data (the Pink Sheet), monthly averages, release of 2 October 2026; US CPI-U, all items, not seasonally adjusted (Bureau of Labor Statistics, via FRED): 77.8 for January 1980 and 325.252 for January 2026.

The consumer price index is one measure of inflation, and a different index would give a somewhat different figure.

What Happened in the Months After Each Peak?

The first fall was the deeper. On the World Bank’s monthly averages, set out below from a year before each peak month to eight months after it, which is as far as the 2026 record goes, September 1980’s average was 49% below January’s and September 2026’s was 30% below. The 1980 record continues for decades, and its later years are counted above. The 2026 record stops in September 2026, and nothing in the first says how the second continues.

Months from the peak month1979–80US$/oz, 1979–802025–26US$/oz, 2025–26
−12January 19796.2January 202530.4
−6July 19799.1July 202537.7
−3October 197916.6October 202549.4
−1December 197922.5December 202562.3
Peak monthJanuary 198038.9January 202692.1
+3April 198014.9April 202675.9
+8September 198019.9September 202664.6

Source: World Bank, Commodity Price Data (the Pink Sheet), monthly average silver prices, US$ per troy ounce, release of 2 October 2026, rounded to 10 cents.

The Bigger Picture

The two peaks share a month, a steep final climb and a sharp fall within days of the high, and in both, gold peaked within days of silver. They differ where it matters most for reading them. In 1980 a single family’s leveraged position sat at the centre of the market, and the exchanges answered by restricting trading. In 2025 and January 2026 the record shows a fifth annual deficit, rising coin and bar buying and investors diversifying away from gold, and the exchange answered with higher margins. On annual averages the 1980 level took 31 years to beat, and in real terms January 2026 stayed below January 1980, on monthly averages and on intraday highs alike. That is the record of one episode, and this article draws no line from it to the second.

How silver’s price has moved against gold’s over the same decades is the subject of our explainer on the gold-silver ratio.

Sources and Methodology

The 1980 account rests on two official documents. The SEC staff’s report The Silver Crisis of 1980 (October 1982) gives the Hunt positions, the margin terms, the exchange measures and the prices to 27 March. The CFTC’s account, in its proposed rule on position limits (Federal Register, 12 December 2013), draws on the CFTC’s 1981 report to Congress under section 21 of the Commodity Exchange Act and gives the position limits and the closing prices. The two agree on every date used here. The 2025 market data are Metals Focus’s estimates in the World Silver Survey 2026, already used on this site. The 2026 prices and margin changes are Reuters reports carried by Kitco, and the October 2025 price is Kitco News’s. Monthly averages are the World Bank’s, annual averages are this site’s LBMA series, inflation is the US CPI-U, and the 1980 gold fix is from a published table of London fixing prices. Ratios, percentages and real-terms figures are our arithmetic.

Conflicts of interest: the Silver Institute is an industry organisation, and the World Silver Survey is sponsored by mining, refining and precious-metals companies; Metals Focus conducts the research. Kitco, which carries the Reuters reports and publishes Kitco News, is a precious-metals dealer. The SEC report records the Hunts’ allegations against the exchanges without deciding them. No dealer or product is recommended here.

Primary sources