‘Fast and Furious’: Silver's historic meltdown fuels debate on next market casualty

A historic crash in silver prices has reignited a sharp debate over bubbles, excess leverage and which asset class could be next to face a brutal correction — commodities, tech or AI-led stocks. 

Managing Partner and CIO at Compcircle, Gurmeet Chadha, warned that after metals and crypto, AI and technology stocks could be next in line for a correction, arguing that markets inevitably flush out excesses — often suddenly. “After metals, crypto, the next correction (some price and more time-wise) will be in AI and tech stocks. Markets will always take out excesses in their own way… when it does, it’s fast and furious,” Chadha wrote. 

His remarks came as silver witnessed one of the sharpest collapses in modern commodity market history. On India’s Multi Commodity Exchange (MCX), March silver futures plunged ₹1,07,968 per kg, or 27%, to settle at ₹2,91,925, marking the steepest single-day fall ever recorded for the metal. The crash dragged prices below the ₹3 lakh mark just a day after silver had surged to an all-time high near ₹4 lakh per kg. 

Globally, the selloff was even more violent. Spot silver crashed as much as 37%, the largest single-day decline on record, while COMEX silver futures slumped over 30%, their worst fall since March 1980. Prices collapsed from record highs above $120 an ounce earlier in the week to nearly $80 in one trading session. 

ETFs wiped out as leverage unwinds 

The rout spilled into silver-linked exchange traded funds (ETFs), where leverage magnified losses. In the US, the ProShares Ultra Silver ETF plunged nearly 60%, while the iShares Silver Trust ETF fell 29%, both suffering their worst day on record. 

Market participants described the move as a classic “liquidity wipeout”, driven by a toxic mix of macro shocks, excessive speculative positioning and technical exhaustion after a parabolic rally. 

Tech bubble claim draws pushback 

Chadha’s comparison between metals and technology stocks, however, drew strong criticism from Akshat Shrivastava, entrepreneur and Founder of Wisdom Hatch, who rejected the idea that US tech and AI are in bubble territory. 

Shrivastava argued that earnings growth and valuations in global tech remain fundamentally strong, noting that US tech earnings are expected to grow at around 15% CAGR in dollar terms, translating to nearly 19-20% growth in rupee terms — a pace that even Indian small-cap stocks struggle to match. He also pointed out that mega-cap firms such as Meta, Amazon and Microsoft are already down over 20% from their peaks and are trading close to their historical average price-to-earnings multiples. 

Shrivastava stressed that the next wave of innovation — including robotics, autonomous vehicles and real-world AI applications — is still in its early stages, warning that investors could struggle to chase rallies once physical adoption accelerates. While acknowledging that tech stocks can and will see pullbacks, he called broad “bubble” comparisons with metals lazy and misleading.