MSA Says the Bears Are Running Out of Time

Authored by GoldFix 

For much of 2026, precious metals investors have watched silver retrace sharply from its explosive move above $100 per ounce. The correction has been violent, frustrating, and emotionally exhausting. Yet according to Michael Oliver’s Momentum Structural Analysis (MSA), the most important question is not how far silver has fallen, but what has actually changed beneath the surface. The answer, in MSA’s view, is very little.

“Somebody is repeatedly buying into these selloffs each time silver gets into the $60s.”

MSA argues that the long-term silver bull market that began in 2016 remains fully intact. The firm points to a series of momentum-based buy signals issued in March 2024, June 2025, and November 2025, all of which preceded major advances. While silver has spent the past five months trapped in a broad consolidation zone, MSA views the correction as an intermediate-term reset occurring within a larger secular uptrend.

GoldFix Comment

The significance of this report is not the price target. It is the repeated observation that every attempt to break silver materially below the mid-$60s has failed.

MSA highlights three distinct downside waves since the January collapse. Each selloff has reached similar price territory, and each has been met with aggressive buying. The market briefly violated the February lows during the March Iran-war panic before immediately reversing and rallying roughly $20 within two weeks. Now silver has once again returned to the same area.

That pattern matters.

Markets that are truly weak generally make lower lows with increasing momentum. Silver has instead spent six months moving sideways despite persistent selling pressure. The implication is that strong hands continue accumulating metal while weak hands are repeatedly shaken out.

“Three waves is all you get.”

Why This Matters

What makes the current setup particularly interesting is that silver’s correction has occurred during a period when many of the fundamental drivers behind the precious metals bull market remain intact.

Central banks continue accumulating gold at historically elevated rates. Sovereign debt burdens continue expanding across the developed world. Government bond markets in Japan, Europe, and the United States remain under pressure. Meanwhile, investors continue searching for asets that exist outside the traditional financial system and outside traditional counterparty risk.

Silver occupies a unique position within that environment. It is both a monetary metal and an industrial commodity. Unlike gold, silver spent decades failing to sustainably exceed its 1980 peak, despite repeated monetary crises, aggressive central bank easing cycles, and waves of inflation concerns. That underperformance became one of the defining characteristics of the precious metals market for nearly half a century.

MSA’s argument is that the breakout above $56 in November 2025 represented something more significant than a speculative surge. The firm views that move as the beginning of a structural repricing, driven by a long-term breakout in silver’s performance relative to gold and reinforced by a series of momentum signals that developed over several years.

If that interpretation proves correct, the past five months may ultimately be remembered not as the end of the rally, but as the first major consolidation within a much larger move. Markets often spend more time frustrating participants than rewarding them. The longer silver absorbs waves of selling pressure without producing a sustained breakdown, the stronger the argument becomes that larger buyers remain active beneath the surface.

“The market is spending far more time refusing to go down than it is actually going down.”

For investors, that may be the most important takeaway from the report. Not the $300 to $500 target. Not the momentum indicators. Not even the technical trigger levels. The key observation is that after six months of selling, silver still has not done what the bears need it to do.

The Trigger Levels

MSA argues that momentum, not headlines, will provide the first signal that the consolidation is ending.

The firm identifies several key levels that would indicate intermediate-term momentum is turning positive again: