Silver has gone crazy recently. On Friday night, futures surged by as much as 11%, with the price soaring close to $80. Even Elon Musk stepped out to express concern, saying this is not good news for industrial production.

To be honest, behind this fierce rally in silver, it's not just safe-haven sentiment at play. The deeper reason is a complete imbalance in supply and demand—physical inventories are rapidly depleting, and inventories at major exchanges are also shrinking significantly. These factors combined have directly ignited market enthusiasm.

Here's an interesting phenomenon: when industrial commodity prices soar to the point where companies can no longer bear it, substitutes often emerge. Who wants to be completely dominated by silver? It reminds me of the past oil situation, where tight supply caused international oil prices to spike to a record $147 per barrel. And then? Over the years, oil prices have not hit new highs. The reason is simple—costs are too high, and the market is starting to look for alternative energy sources, a trend that is still accelerating.

However, silver and crude oil are not exactly the same. The rise in oil prices is driven by factors like artificial influences and relatively ample inventories, whereas this wave of silver price increase is purely due to mining output lagging behind. Even if silver prices pull back in the future, it will be difficult to return to lows, and prices are likely to stay at relatively high levels for the long term. From this perspective, the fundamental nature of the two is quite different. I bring up this comparison mainly to say that silver's rally has indeed been somewhat overstretched and that the market needs to reassess.

So, the conclusion is: in the short term, be cautious about precious metals led by silver, and also pay attention to base metals. This surge in base metals was originally driven by precious metals, so at least avoid chasing highs blindly. It's important to guard against the risk of overextension—that's the lesson to learn right now.