🚨🥈CME RAISES MARGINS ON SILVER: WHAT'S REALLY HAPPENING 🥈🚨
Yesterday, December 26, the CME Group published Advisory No. 25-393, announcing a new increase in margins on futures, including silver, effective December 29.
In practice, for contracts expiring in 2026, the initial margin for non-members is pushed towards the area of $25,000 per contract (5,000 ounces), after the increases already seen in mid-December when silver reached new historical highs.
Officially, the CME justifies these moves with the need to "align margins with volatility," that is, to reduce counterparty risk in a market that has risen over 90% in 2025.
However, such closely spaced increases drain leverage, force liquidations among the most exposed traders, and can stifle a price squeeze in its infancy, as already happened in 1980 with the "Silver Rule 7" against the Hunt brothers and in 2011, when rapidly raised margins accompanied a collapse of over 30% after the peak at $49.50.
The current context makes these choices even more explosive: China has entered strong backwardation, with spot silver on the Shanghai Gold Exchange trading well above international futures, a signal of physical scarcity in Asia.
While the COMEX remains the center of the "paper" price, reports of market deficits exceeding 200 million ounces and declining stocks show that the real tension is on physical supply, not just on speculation.
The CME is drastically raising the cost of leverage just as silver enters a phase of structural scarcity: a mix that can generate extreme volatility but also prepare the ground for a price reset if the gap between paper and physical metal continues to widen.
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