New York, January 21, 2026, 17:07 EST — Trading after hours.
Spot silver (XAG/USD) slipped in late U.S. trading Wednesday, retreating from earlier gains this week. It last traded down 1.4% at $93.12 an ounce, having fluctuated between $90.26 and $95.61 during the session.
The pullback comes at a time when silver is far from a dormant metal. It’s drawing safe-haven interest amid political noise and industrial demand as growth shows strength — those forces are now intersecting.
Spot silver slipped 3.6% to $91.17 earlier in the session, after soaring to a record $95.87 on Tuesday. Investors pared back bets following U.S. President Donald Trump’s retreat from some of his toughest Greenland-related tariff threats. “You had a liquidation event,” said Bob Haberkorn, senior market strategist at RJO Futures. ANZ commodity strategist Soni Kumari noted that a jump to triple-digit silver prices remains “quite possible,” though she cautioned it wouldn’t be a straight climb. Reuters
Markets turned on a dime. The dollar jumped sharply versus the euro and Swiss franc after Trump announced that the U.S. had agreed on a framework for a future Greenland deal with NATO and would scrap the threatened tariffs. StoneX’s Matt Weller described the move as sparking a “relief rally” in risk assets. Still, EU leaders are pushing ahead with an emergency summit scheduled for Thursday. Reuters
Silver proxies followed the move lower. The iShares Silver Trust (SLV) ended the day down 1.66% at $83.97, then nudged up 0.53% to $84.41 in after-hours trading. U.S. Comex silver futures, which set prices for future delivery, dropped 2.1% to $92.66. The dollar index, measuring the greenback against other currencies, ticked higher by 0.16% to 98.60. Meanwhile, the U.S. 10-year yield dipped to 4.251%.
Physical markets told a different story. In India, silver premiums hit as much as $8 an ounce above official domestic prices. Traders are betting the government might hike import duties to rein in imports before the Feb. 1 budget announcement. The rupee touched a record low at 91.7425 per dollar. “People are speculating that the government may raise import duties on gold and silver,” said Chanda Venkatesh, managing director of bullion merchant CapsGold. Reuters
Silver swings between a safe haven one moment and a growth asset the next. That back-and-forth fuels sharp moves whenever the trade gets crowded and the headlines shift.
Yet those very headlines that drove the rally could just as easily reverse it. A further easing of tariff threats or continued strength in the dollar might trigger sharp profit-taking in silver, particularly after its recent record surge.
Rate expectations are creating another crack. If the Fed takes a more hawkish route, the opportunity cost of holding non-yielding metals will rise, despite ongoing geopolitical tensions.
Attention turns to the Federal Reserve’s meeting on January 27–28. The policy statement drops January 28 at 2 p.m., followed by a press conference at 2:30 p.m., per the Fed’s official calendar.
At the moment, silver is moving as if the market is voting on what Washington will do next — and just how much of this week’s panic will linger.
