Deutsche Bank Sees Silver's Deficit Turning to Surplus by 2027

Deutsche Bank's commodity research team is throwing cold water on one pillar of silver's bull case. The bank projects that silver's supply deficit could reverse into a surplus by 2027. Should that happen, it expects silver to struggle to keep pace with gold even if the overall precious-metals market stays strong.

Treat it as a forecast with moving parts. A surplus assumes mine supply grows and demand eases, and neither is guaranteed. For now the deficit is intact, and the supply side is still uneven.

Heraeus illustrated that with Mexico, the largest silver producer on the planet at around 20% of global mined supply — roughly 172.9 million ounces of an 846.6-million-ounce global total in 2025. July output there came in soft. Even so, Heraeus, citing the Silver Institute, expects Mexican supply to post modest growth in 2026 after a weak prior year. The extra metal chips away at the scarcity story, but it is trickling in rather than flooding the market.

The commentary arrived as gold itself pulled back, pressured by higher oil prices and climbing bond yields that pushed it through technical support. For US buyers, silver is priced in dollars, so Federal Reserve policy and the direction of real yields sit at the center of the picture. Higher yields raise the opportunity cost of holding metal that pays no income, and that pressure tends to hit volatile silver harder than gold.

The practical lesson from Deutsche Bank's call is about relative performance. The gold-silver ratio is the metric to track, because the bank's thesis boils down to silver underperforming gold once its scarcity premium thins out.