Silver: The Old Pricing Regime is Breaking Down

What Does It Mean When Physical Costs More Than Paper?

Silver is trading at ~ $92 per ounce in New York while physical metal in Shanghai commands ~ $101. That $8-$10 premium should arbitrage away in hours, yet it has persisted for weeks and is widening. This is not a quirk of currency conversion or a temporary dislocation. This is the moment when physical markets stop pretending that paper prices represent reality. When you control the refining capacity and impose export controls, you get to discover what the metal is actually worth to the industrial user who needs it now. And that user, facing solar panel lines going dark or chip fabrication plants shutting down, will pay $100 when futures markets say $93 is fair. The divergence is not an anomaly. It is price discovery migrating from derivative exchanges to delivery markets, and it is happening in real time as China rewrites the rules of the global silver market through simple economic leverage.