AUSTIN, Texas — The price of silver hit a high of more than $30 Monday, a price not seen since 2013. Surging silver prices have been attributed to the Reddit group known as WallStreetBets, although many users on the online platform claim they're not the ones behind the precious metal's soaring price.
Increased silver prices sent the stock prices of silver mining companies through the roof on Monday, while small-time investors made a run on bullion dealers to try and get their hands on coins, bars and any other version of the shiny metal.
Bradley Goldsmith, founder of South Austin Coin Exchange, has barely had a chance to breathe. On Monday Goldsmith started taking calls before the shop opened for business. By noon, he had fielded roughly a hundred phone calls, more calls than Goldsmith typically takes in an entire week.
“[Sunday] night I was fielding calls starting at 6:15,” said Goldsmith. “We started placing trades on the phone. I think we sold 12,000 or 13,000 ounces just [Sunday] night on the open market."
Many large-scale bullion dealers, like Dallas-based JM Bullion, were forced to halt silver sales over the weekend due to the unprecedented demand.
Due to the pandemic, Goldsmith can only allow one customer at a time inside the Westlake store. Prospective buyers were jockeying for appointments, with some spending tens of thousands of dollars on silver.
The rush to buy silver is thought to be an attempt at another “short squeeze” — running up silver prices in the hopes of sticking it to institutional investors who are betting the price of silver will fall. However, there are several Redditors that insist this is not the doing of WallStreetBets but rather outsiders who may include the very institutional investors who are claimed to be being worked against.
While a short squeeze of silver seems to be more of a long shot than what was seen with GameStop last week, Goldsmith says he believes the rise in the price of silver has been a long time coming.
“I do think silver is undervalued, or it has been for years, and people believe that the physical price is pushed down,” said Goldsmith. “But you’re going to see a big disconnect between the price you see on paper and the actual physical price, because there’s only so much silver. You know, you can’t just make silver out of thin air. I think people are starting to realize that and they just feel safer having this in their hands.”
Silver prices have been much higher in the past, getting close to $50 an ounce back in 2011. While some of Goldsmith’s customers have decided to cash in on the high price of silver, the majority are just starting to buy it up with the hope of riding this silver surge.