When I stepped onto the stage at the Australian Gold Conference in Sydney last year, silver was sitting at $50 USD an ounce, right at the edge of a 45 year cup and handle pattern. I told anyone who would listen that silver was about to make a huge move, and that it would be volatile when it did. A few people looked at me like I was crazy.
Twelve months later, silver has been to $120 and back to around $60. Plenty of people are now asking whether the precious metals bull market is over. I was back on stage at the 2026 conference on Thursday 15 October to answer that question, and this article walks through the charts and the reasoning from that keynote.
My short answer: I think we're mid-cycle, and for anyone who understands why these metals move, this pullback looks like a buying opportunity.
Silver's Run From $50 to $120, and the 38% Drop
At last year's conference, silver was breaking out of a pattern that had been building for 45 years. The 1980 and 2011 peaks both stalled just under $50 USD, and in October 2025 silver finally pushed through, printing an intraday high of $54.47.
When silver hit $100 USD an ounce, I put out a celebratory video. Everyone said we couldn't get past $50, and when I said we were going to $100, plenty of people told me we were heading back to $30. In that same video I said it had run a bit fast, that nothing goes up in a straight line, and that I expected a pullback within a week or two. To be honest, I didn't see it running all the way to $120. I wasn't bullish enough.
Then came 30 January 2026. Silver opened near $117, traded as high as $118.50 and fell as low as $73.31 in a single session, a drop of 38.1% from high to low in one day. If you hold a lot of silver, you remember that day very well.
Why I Think We're Only Mid-Cycle
Before getting into the charts, I asked the room a few questions. Who thinks the government is going to stop printing money? Who thinks inflation is about to come down and get a lot better? Nobody put their hand up. Gold and silver are long-term inflation hedges, and with money printing and inflation still running, I don't believe we've seen the top.
History backs this up. Last year was the first year of this precious metals bull market where silver outperformed gold. Through 2025, silver returned 148% against gold's 65%.
In the 1970s, gold led the first half of the bull market. From January 1970 to January 1975, gold rose 406% while silver gained 114% and platinum actually finished slightly lower.
Then the second half flipped. From January 1975 to January 1980, silver rose 730% and platinum 458%, while gold rose 283%. The same pattern played out in the 2000s bull market: gold first, then silver and platinum go ballistic.
In this cycle, gold has outperformed for around seven years, and silver has now outperformed for one. To me, that says we're midway through, at the point where investors start rotating out of gold and into silver and platinum.
How Gold and Silver Compare With Other Assets
To put the last five years in perspective, here are silver and gold against Australian property, the ASX 200 and the average industry super fund. Since March 2021, silver is up 166% and gold 153%, while the average industry super fund is up 46%, property 41% and the ASX 200 27%.
The longer view tells the same story. Starting with $500,000 on 1 July 2009, gold in Australian dollars averaged 10.1% a year, ahead of UniSuper at 8.5%, the super fund average at 7.8% and MLC at 6.6%. That's an asset you buy, put in the safe and leave alone. It pays no yield, and it still outperformed. I covered this data in more detail in gold vs Australian industry super funds.
How I Buy Bullion: Which Metal, and Bars or Coins
A gentleman came up to me at the conference and asked how to actually get started. It's straightforward, but there are a few key decisions to make.
The first is which metal, and in what proportions. For me personally, I hold 65% of my bullion portfolio in silver, 30% in platinum and 5% in gold. Gold is the least volatile of the three, which makes it the most suitable for people with a lower tolerance for risk. Silver is my favourite. Platinum is the most volatile, because it's an industrial metal rather than a monetary one, so it doesn't carry the same safety that gold and silver do. This is not financial advice. This is insight into what I do with my own money, not a recommendation for what you should do with yours.
The second decision is coins or bars. Our website has everything from coins to silver statues, and it's easy to get lost. For most investors, I think bars are the simplest choice: kilo silver bars, 1oz gold bars and 1oz platinum bars. You buy as close to spot as you can, and when it comes time to sell, we pay 100% of spot on those bars. Coins are wonderful for collecting and gifting, and I've built a coin collection I'll probably never sell, but for pure investment, bars keep your transaction costs down.
That exit price matters. When silver was running to $100 and $120, some American dealers were paying around 80% of spot. One of our clients sold us between $2 and $3 million of silver at around $110 an ounce, and we paid 100% of spot across the lot. You can read more about how that works on our sell your bullion page.
Silver's Big Chart and the $50 Retest
This is the big chart. Silver has come off from its highs, but it's still sitting above that old $50 resistance, which has now turned into support. In the short term it could very well come down to touch $50, or even wick slightly below to $48 or $49 to shake out traders who put their stop losses just under it.
A retest of a breakout level like this is completely normal in markets, and I think it's healthy. When silver was in the headlines and there were queues around the block outside the big dealers, it was getting hot in the kitchen. Now the sentiment has swung the other way, and if you believe everything on social media, silver is going to zero. As Warren Buffett put it, markets are a mechanism for transferring wealth from the impatient to the patient.
The Gold to Silver Ratio and the 100 to 1 Swap
We use the gold to silver ratio to decide which metal to favour. In March 2020 it went above 120 ounces of silver per ounce of gold, which is when I started buying silver. Last year it hit 100 again, and it has since collapsed to around 68.
My view is that this ratio ends this bull market somewhere around 20 to 1, possibly lower. In 2011 it fell to around 30, and in 1980 it hit roughly 16 intraday. I personally think this bull market will be bigger than the one in the 1970s. I could be wrong, but I doubt it.
So what if you had set up an SMSF, bought gold and simply held it, then came to last year's conference, heard me talking about silver, and swapped your gold for silver at 100 to 1? Starting from the same $500,000 in 2009, the gold swapped to silver reached $3.87 million on the chart I presented, against $2.62 million for gold held the whole way. Silver has come back since I made that chart, but the swap still leaves you well ahead of simply holding gold.
If you want to hold bullion inside your super, here's how a self-managed super fund can work. Speak with a licensed adviser and an SMSF specialist about your own situation first.
Why Platinum Has the Most Upside From Here
Platinum fell as low as $863 USD an ounce in April 2025 and ran to $2,882 by January 2026, breaking out of a 14 year downtrend along the way. That's an extraordinary move.
I said platinum is the most volatile of the three, and that's true. But on this pullback, it has actually held up better than silver. Since the close on 30 January 2026, silver is down 33% while platinum is down 25%. That relative strength is very bullish for platinum.
Now look at the gold to platinum ratio. Last year it hit 3.4, meaning it took 3.4 ounces of platinum to buy one ounce of gold. Back in 2008, the ratio fell to 0.44, when an ounce of platinum cost more than two ounces of gold. If platinum were simply back at twice the price of gold, it would be around $8,000 USD an ounce, roughly $12,000 AUD. Today it's trading near $1,600 USD.
My view is that this ratio returns to parity by the end of this bull market, and possibly beyond it. If you buy platinum at a ratio of 2.4 and it returns to parity, platinum gains 2.4 times as much as gold. I'm still bullish on gold. I just think there are higher-beta plays available, and I've increased my own platinum holdings on this pullback.
The TINA Trade: Stocks, Property and Real Assets
TINA stands for "there is no alternative". It's a process of elimination across the investment universe: stocks, bonds, property, commodities and crypto.
The US share market looks incredibly top-heavy. The index hasn't been this narrow since the 2000 tech bubble, a handful of companies are holding it up, and a large number of S&P 500 companies are trading below their 200 day moving averages while bond yields break out.
Australian property is where I've been loudest for the past three years. After the changes to negative gearing for existing dwellings, Sydney house prices have fallen around 20% over the past year according to Cotality, and most other capitals have dropped in recent months. Property is really a market for mortgages, so rising interest rates mean falling prices. I wrote about who carries that risk in who's really paying for Australia's property crash.
A personal example: I rent a beautiful new house that my landlords spent around $4 million building. I pay just over $100,000 a year in rent. That's a gross yield of around 2.5%, and they'd honestly be better off with the money in the bank, let alone in silver. To a room full of Sydneysiders, my message was simple: consider selling the $3 million dog box and buying some silver. Not financial advice, of course.
Bottle the Feeling
When silver was at $110 and $120, I told our clients to bottle the feeling they had right then, put it on the shelf, and pull it out after the pullback. At $120 an ounce everyone felt like Albert Einstein. At $60, some people are getting skittish.
So get that jar out, uncork it and take a swig. Governments are still printing, inflation is still with us, and I believe this bull market has a long way to run, with silver and platinum leading from here. If you'd like to start building a position, our team can talk you through it, and you can hold your metal in professional vault storage if you'd rather not keep it at home.
This is not financial advice. This is insight into what I do with my own money, not a recommendation for what you should do with yours.
What a time to be alive.
Sam from Liberty Bullion.
