From ₹60,000 to ₹2.8 Lakh: How silver’s lost decade broke investor patience, explains CA

For retail investors, the biggest enemy in markets may not be bad timing or flawed analysis — but emotional endurance. 

That is the core argument made by chartered accountant and market commentator Nitin Kaushik, who has drawn attention to how psychology, inflation, and long commodity cycles quietly break investor conviction, often right before returns materialise. 

Using silver as a case study, Kaushik traces how a generation of investors entered the market at exactly the wrong emotional moment — and exited just as the fundamentals finally turned in their favour. 

The 2011 Silver Mania 

In 2011, silver prices surged to a historic peak of $48-49 per ounce, fuelled by fears of currency debasement in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. The rally had all the hallmarks of a speculative mania: rapid price acceleration, widespread retail participation, and a narrative driven more by fear than fundamentals. 

Thousands of retail investors bought silver near the top of the cycle. What followed was not a dramatic crash — but something far more damaging. 

Silent erosion of a “lost decade” 

Silver entered a prolonged period of underperformance. Prices stagnated, but inflation did not. 

According to Kaushik, an investor who bought silver at around ₹60,000 in 2011 did not merely face flat returns. With inflation eroding purchasing power by 6-8% annually, the real value of that investment declined steadily. By 2024, the original capital had lost nearly half its real value. 

This slow grind, he argues, is where psychology takes over. 

“The math of a lost decade is a psychological grinder,” Kaushik notes, explaining that prolonged underperformance reshapes how investors mentally classify an asset. 

Relief, not greed 

When silver prices finally moved up to around ₹75,000 in early 2025, the dominant emotion among long-term holders was not excitement. 

It was relief. 

After more than a decade of disappointment, many investors no longer viewed silver as an opportunity. They saw it as a burden — a position they wanted to exit just to end the mental fatigue. 

“This is where most cycles break people,” Kaushik says, adding that the brain stops seeing the asset as an investment and starts seeing it as a hostage. 

Fundamentally different setup in 2026 

Kaushik argues that the macro environment driving silver today bears little resemblance to 2011. 

Unlike the earlier rally, which was driven by speculative fear, the current cycle is underpinned by structural demand. Industrial consumption — particularly from solar photovoltaic manufacturing and electric vehicles — has created a genuine supply deficit in the physical market. 

As silver prices crossed ₹1,00,000 and later accelerated toward ₹2,80,000, the move was not a short-term bounce, he says, but price discovery driven by scarcity and a weakening dollar. 

By then, most of the investors who bought in 2011 had already exited. 

Irony of “diamond hands” 

Kaushik also challenges the popular investing trope of “diamond hands” — the idea that holding through volatility is the ultimate virtue. 

“Most people only hold losing positions,” he argues. “They have discipline for pain, but lack conviction for the payoff.” 

True patience, he says, is not just about waiting. It is about being able to distinguish between a dead asset and a long-cycle commodity — and having the emotional stamina to stay invested once the original thesis begins to work. 

For many retail investors, the tragedy is not that they bought at the wrong time — but that they sold at exactly the right one.