Silver prices opened higher and moved upward this week. Spot silver ingot premiums were quoted relatively small compared to pre-holiday levels at the beginning of the week, with suppliers holding back sales and adopting a wait-and-see approach. After the physical delivery of the February futures contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange was completed, the supply of circulating spot cargo increased, leading to a gradual decline in market premium quotes. However, there remained significant price differences among different brands of silver ingots. As of Thursday, the premium quotes for national standard silver ingots in the Shanghai market had dropped to 1,600-1,800 yuan/kg, while premiums for ingots from large manufacturers were still maintained at 1,700-2,000 yuan/kg with limited sales. In the Shenzhen area, some small manufacturers offered premiums of 1,400-1,500 yuan/kg for silver ingots against TD. After the holiday, large and medium-sized downstream enterprises showed a slight wait-and-see attitude, completing only just-in-time procurement. However, small and medium-sized enterprises demonstrated higher enthusiasm for stockpiling due to expectations of rising prices or depletion of pre-holiday inventories, leading to a gradual warming of transactions in the spot market.
On the inventory side, total social silver inventory saw a slight increase this week. On one hand, downstream processing enterprises were generally closed during the Chinese New Year holiday, while silver smelters maintained normal operations, resulting in the customary inventory buildup during the holiday period. On the other hand, imported crude silver and large ingots entering the domestic market before the holiday temporarily alleviated the previous supply deficit of silver ingots. After the Chinese New Year holiday, smelter inventory was transferred to social inventory or quickly destocked through long-term contracts and spot orders. Due to relatively strong demand from downstream industrial and investment sectors after the holiday, domestic social inventory recorded only a modest accumulation.
