Wall Street banks cut their silver price targets in July, but none of them called the metal's structural supply deficit over. Silver trades below every 2026 target the banks have published, while the shortfall forecasts behind those targets have barely moved.
Silver trades near $58.24 an ounce, below every 2026 price target Wall Street has published, even after a cluster of downgrades landed in July. The gold-silver ratio sits around 69, close to the high end of its historical range, a level long-term buyers read as cheap for silver against gold.
The metal is up more than 50% from a year ago, yet remains about 52% below the record of $121.62 set on January 29. The Federal Reserve held its benchmark interest rate steady on July 29, its fifth consecutive hold, on a divided 9-to-3 vote. Silver has not opened above $60 since July 8, held down by a firm dollar, renewed Middle East tension, and questions about industrial demand.
Banks cut price targets, not their deficit calls
A price call is a bank's guess about where silver trades over the next few months. A balance call is a statement on whether the world produces enough metal to meet demand. In July, banks cut the first and left the second largely untouched.
JPMorgan cut its rest-of-year forecast to $60 to $65 on July 8, down from about $81. Gregory Shearer, who runs base- and precious-metals strategy at the bank, pointed to cooling investor and industrial demand at once, and named silverless solar technology as silver's largest long-term risk.
Other desks moved the same way. UBS cut its 2026 supply-deficit estimate by about 80%, from roughly 300 million ounces down to 60 to 70 million, while settling on a year-end call near $80. ING lowered its third- and fourth-quarter numbers on slower solar demand, higher yields, and a stronger dollar.
Commerzbank, updating its view around the Fed meeting, reiterated a silver target of about $67.
The official shortfall still exceeds the bearish estimate
Even UBS's lower estimate of 60 to 70 million ounces sits above the official 2026 shortfall of 46.3 million ounces from Metals Focus and the Silver Institute. The banks are converging toward that number, not away from it, and none has declared the shortage over.
The dispersion among targets remains wide. Citigroup still carries a second-half target near $110, Bank of America sits at a 2026 average of about $85.93, and Goldman Sachs models $85 to $100 if industrial demand holds. The LBMA's annual survey put the 2026 consensus at $79.57, well above where silver trades today.
Targets that follow price rather than lead it
One major institution held a $38 silver target for late 2025 and had to keep raising it as the metal climbed past it. The July cuts fit that same pattern: targets trailing the price rather than leading it.
The bear case still deserves weight: investment demand weakened after January, ETF holdings have fallen, and solar manufacturers are engineering silver out of each panel as fast as they can. UBS's steep deficit cut is a genuine narrowing of the scarcity story, not a rounding error.
Silver still runs its sixth consecutive annual deficit in 2026, and a round of price-target cuts does not add an ounce to the stockpiles covering that gap.
Source: Investing.com
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