Baird analyst compares surging silver prices to meme-stock rally
When gold topped the $5,000 per ounce milestone for the first time on Monday, it was another sign of the growing unease that investors feel about both geopolitical and market volatility across the globe.
Whether its President Trump threatening to impose new tariffs on South Korean imports, wars in Europe and the Middle East, another potential US government shutdown or concerns over eroding independence of the Federal Reserve, investors have numerous reasons to be concerned about the markets.
But while gold has long been one of the primary safe havens for investors along with US Treasuries, the surging prices of silver has been somewhat surprising.
In fact, on the same day that gold hit its milestone this week, silver also reached a record high of $117.69. With their new record prices on Monday, gold had risen 80% over the past year, while silver has surged 250%.
Analysts at Deutsche Bank and Societe Generale are now forecasting gold to reach $6,000 per ounce this year.
But despite its extended rally, there appears to be less confidence on Wall Street about silver sustaining its momentum through the rest of 2026.
In a thread on X, Baird market strategist Michael Antonelli expressed skepticism about the record silver prices, comparing it to other retail-driven rallies.
"How is Silver different than, say, GameStop?" he said. "Is this not a meme now?"
How is Silver different than, say, GameStop?
undefined Michael Antonelli (@BullandBaird) January 26, 2026
Is this not a meme now?
GameStop (GME) was of course at the center of perhaps the most famous (or infamous) retail investor-driven short squeeze during the Covid pandemic when the struggling retailer saw its stock price soar to over $500 in late January 2021 after trading at just over $17 per share at the beginning of the month. It eventually crashed back down to just above $50 about a week later.
What made GameStop's surge significant was that there were no underlying fundamentals driving the rally - something Antonelli is pointing to with silver's rally as well.
"Are there industrial uses for Silver? Sure, of course," he said. "But nothing has changed about that in the past month to make the price go up 65%."
"We live in an investing world where, when things move quickly, everyone piles on at the same time," Antonelli added. "No barriers at all."
The gold-to-silver ratio, which is the price of an ounce of gold divided by the price of an ounce of silver, has fallen below 50 for the first time since March 2012. This means that silver is trading at its highest level relative to gold in 14 years.
Silver prices have reached 'dangerous territory'
Rhona O’Connell, head of market analysis, EMEA & Asia at StoneX, warned that investors could get burned by silver’s rally.
“We are in dangerous territory as I fear that some people are climbing into the market at these levels without any solid grasp of the fundamentals,” O’Connell told pv magazine.
She compared silver to Cinderella, spending "a long time below stairs, usually when gold isn’t moving – but when she goes to the ball, usually courtesy of a rising gold price, she entrances everyone."
But then just as Cinderella disappears from the ball at midnight in the story, silver's rally also "leaves faster than she arrived."
"And that is almost always how the silver price works," O'Connell said. "When it starts coming off, it could be as precipitous as the rise – the near-vertical movements we are seeing now.”
Wall Street legend Marko Kolanovic, the former chief strategist and co-head of global research at JPMorgan Chase, echoed Antonelli's sentiments about the speculative nature of silver's rally, asserting in a post on X that it's been the result of “meme traders attempting to take over the market.”
And like O'Connell, he is also expecting a precipitous price drop to eventually hit the precious metal.
"Silver is almost guaranteed to drop ~50% from these levels within a year or so," Kolanovic said. "Historically episodes in commodities or various speculative assets point to that."
However, Antonelli would not be surprised to see silver continue its rally before eventually crashing.
"There’s literally nothing to stop Silver from going to $200, $300, $500 whatever," he said. "Just like there was nothing to stop GameStop from going vertical. It just has to play out."