Silver’s reputation is built on volatility. Three double-digit drops before March still stand out.
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Even for silver, this is weird.
The $45 billion iShares Silver Trust ($44.9 billion in assets) plunged 11% today, marking the third time this year it has dropped 10% or more in a single session. Since it started trading in 2006, that has only happened in one other year. That was in 2008. Now 2026 has tied that mark and it’s only February.
Over the last year, silver turned into a three-part trade. Some buyers came for the dollar-debasement angle, betting that big deficits and sticky inflation would keep eating away at the purchasing power of cash. Others showed up for the trend, chasing a price chart that kept going up and pulling in fresh money along the way. And then there’s the meme-stock element, with traders treating the shiny metal less like a long-term hedge and more like a liquid way to take a swing at the next hot thing.
It’s been a rewarding ride. Even with three one-day drops of 10% or more already this year, the silver ETF is still up 130% over the last 12 months. That kind of run tends to attract fast money, and fast money doesn’t sit still for long.
Marko Kolanovic, the former JPMorgan strategist, warned in a post on X (formerly Twitter) before the U.S. market opened Thursday that the next hot thing had already arrived.
“Korea $EWY is the new Silver $SLV, beware of the upcoming drop,” Kolanovic posted.
EWY is the iShares MSCI South Korea ETF. It has $12.9 billion in assets. It’s heavily invested in tech exporters and chip names, including memory giants Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix. With AI spending still driving market excitement, anything tied to the chip supply chain has been moving fast with the South Korean ETF having already posted a 34.5% gain in 2026.
Despite the swings, silver is still, surprisingly, ahead of the big indexes this year. The iShares Silver ETF is up 5% while the S&P 500 has been flat and the Dow Jones Industrial Average has gained 3%. But as 2026 has already shown, don’t expect a smooth ride. That’s never really been part of silver’s deal.
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