Video News/Rule Symposium 2026

(Kitco News) Keith Neumeyer, the mining executive who predicted $100 silver back when it traded in the teens, says this year's spike to $121 exposed how close the physical market came to breaking down. Speaking with Kitco News at the Rule Symposium 2026, the First Majestic Silver CEO said surging lease rates, margin calls, and refiners' inability to finance purchases pushed the system to its limit. "The whole system was really on the verge of breaking," he said, explaining that a trader with a $250 million credit line can buy 10 million ounces at $25 silver, "but at $100 silver, they can only buy two and a half million ounces." Following a roughly 50% correction to around $60, Neumeyer said he believes the metal has bottomed, stating, "I think we've seen the lows," and described the market as "two years into a 10-year bull market." He credited silver's move partly to the US designating it a critical metal, and said the large short position that once capped prices, at one point as high as 800 million ounces, has largely unwound, with paper traders "now getting on the long side." Neumeyer added that with a decade of flat mine production, the deficit is now so wide "you would need 10 First Majestics just to fill" it.