Silver's $60 Line Holds the Market's Gaze as Yields and Jobs Data Pull in Opposite Directions

COMEX front-month silver settled Friday at $60.71 an ounce, down 6.2% over seven days, as elevated Treasury yields and a firmer dollar weighed on the metal.

Silver futures are ending the week pinned near a round-number threshold that has become the focal point for traders on both sides of the trade. The COMEX front-month contract settled Friday at $60.71 an ounce, capping a seven-day slide of 6.2% that has left the metal roughly 50% below its 52-week peak. With that decline now in the books, the $60 handle has emerged as the key technical floor that bulls must defend.

A Yield Problem, Not a Demand Problem

The proximate cause of the recent weakness sits squarely in the US rates market. Reuters reported that the yield on ten-year Treasury notes climbed at one point to its highest level since June 2007, a move set off by inflation worries and firming crude prices after diplomatic talks between Washington and Tehran stalled.

Rising yields and a stronger dollar raise the cost of holding non-yielding assets, prompting short-term participants to trim positions. Hawkish signals from the Federal Reserve kept the pressure on through the week. Softer employment figures on Friday offered a brief reprieve and took some of the edge off rate expectations for upcoming meetings, but the bounce was not enough to erase the weekly loss.

That same tension between rate fear and monetary relief has been the dominant theme shaping silver pricing for weeks. Wednesday brought a measure of encouragement when the US Bureau of Economic Analysis reported that the August PCE price index rose 0.3%, with the core rate up 0.2%. Both readings came in below forecasts, briefly reviving hopes across commodity desks that the central bank might move less aggressively.

New York Fed President John Williams added to the calmer tone, remarking that policymakers are under no obligation to rush further rate moves. The market's response was muted: the front-month COMEX contract still closed Friday at $60.71 per troy ounce.

Payrolls Miss Fails to Spark a Rally

Fresh direction arrived later in the week with the September US employment report. According to Reuters, the economy added just 29,000 nonfarm jobs during the survey month, well short of the 90,000 economists surveyed by the agency had expected.

Even that miss failed to generate a durable lift for the precious metal, as persistently elevated Treasury yields continued to weigh on demand. The caution dominating trading desks traces back in part to the Fed's earlier tightening cycle, which has pushed non-yielding asset classes well behind fixed-income alternatives in recent weeks.

Geopolitics added another layer to the inflation debate. Media reports indicated that US President Donald Trump on September 28 rejected an Iranian proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. The resulting concern over higher energy costs kept the rate scenario alive and gave traders little reason to abandon their defensive posture.

China's Physical Flows Tell a Busier Story

Away from the western futures pits, customs data out of Asia offered fresh detail on physical metal movement. According to the Shanghai Metals Market, China exported 405.98 tonnes of refined silver in August. For unworked silver at 99.99% purity, that represented a 15.8% increase over July, though volumes ran 0.6% below August 2025 levels.

On the procurement side, Chinese industry imported 266,055.59 tonnes of silver ore and concentrate during the same month. The figures point to brisk industrial processing activity, even as slowing growth in Chinese industrial profits has been flagged as a demand risk.

Longer-Dated Targets Stay Ambitious

Despite the current consolidation, some market watchers are holding to constructive expectations for the quarters ahead. In its September 24 assessment, Swiss banking giant UBS maintained a forecast path that sees silver at $70 an ounce in December 2026. The institution penciled in $75 for both March and June 2027, followed by a target of $80 in September 2027.

Supply-side fundamentals lend additional support. Industry observers such as Zaye Capital Markets pointed to limited growth in mine output and the possibility of a sixth consecutive annual deficit in the physical silver market.

Before any of those scenarios can gain traction, the market must first work through the present consolidation. On a seven-day view the metal is down 6.2%, and it remains below its 50-day moving average of $65.51. Whether the recent signs of a cooling economy are confirmed by further US data will likely determine the near-term direction — and whether the $60 support zone holds.