Welcome to another Friday, chief!

In today’s edition — Silver is on a high, propelled by supply shortages and a demand for solar panels and new-age gadgets. With white metal prices climbing and investors lapping it up like hotcakes, one thing is certain: the silver rush is real, and it’s here to stay. Meanwhile, ‘pig-butchering’ scams in Southeast Asia are dishing out romance, deception, and financial ruin — in that very order.

Ag Ain’t Average Anymore

Vishwas Ved

Back in the late 1970s, two billionaire brothers from Texas — Nelson and William Hunt — tried to pull off the unthinkable. They set out to corner the world’s silver supply, quietly buying up huge amounts of the metal.

It was reported that at one point, the Hunts controlled more than a third of the global silver market, causing the prices to go significantly higher — from $6 to nearly $50 an ounce in less than a year. 

The commodities markets went crazy. Investors scrambled to get a piece of the action and traders were willing to keep bidding higher to make a quick buck. For a while, the Hunts looked unstoppable.

But not for long. Very soon, regulators caught wind of their activities. As a result, they raised trading margins, and tightened controls.

Then came the crash — Silver Thursday in 1980 — when prices collapsed overnight, and the silver market imploded. The Hunts lost billions, and their Mission Impossible-style exploits came to an end.

Rising Demand & Supply Deficits

Now, fast forward to 2025, and silver is once again making headlines, but this time, it’s not because of some shady market manipulation like back then. This time, it’s the real deal.

Prices this week hit a record high of ₹1.15 lakh per kilogram in India, while global prices are hovering around $38.50 an ounce, the highest level in 14 years.

So, what’s got silver sparking again? A simple answer to that is: demand. 

The metal has become a key component for some modern industries such as solar panels, electric cars, and fancy electronics. Around 60% of global demand now comes from these sectors. 

But while demand for silver has been booming, supply hasn’t kept pace. Years of underinvestment in primary silver mining — largely because it’s usually mined as a by-product of other metals like copper, lead and zinc — have led to a five-year streak of global supply deficits. 

In other words, the world is using more silver than it’s producing, and that imbalance is only growing. There simply isn’t enough of the metal being pulled out of the ground to match the growing appetite.

Global Reasons

Then there’s the geopolitical angle. The US has slapped 35% tariffs on Canadian imports and up to 50% duties on other nations, disrupting supply chains and making industrial metals even pricier. 

At the same time, the US dollar has weakened by about 10% over the past six months, giving silver prices another push.

Savvy investors aren’t missing these signs. Even with prices at record highs, there is considerable buying interest, which proves that silver’s rally is far from over.

India Warming Up to Silver

Indians have always had a soft spot for gold. But now, silver is quietly making its way into their portfolios, especially among urban investors who still see the potential for higher returns.

Retail investment demand in India has risen 7% in the first half of 2025, and silver imports have exploded — up 431% in May year-on-year, while gold imports have actually dropped. Clearly, the white metal is winning favour.

Part of silver’s charm is that it remains more affordable than gold, gram for gram. At ₹115 per gram, it’s still accessible to a wide range of investors. 

Plus, with silver ETFs and digital silver platforms making it easier to invest without worrying about storage, the barriers to entry have come down. 

According to a Reuters report, silver ETFs in India pulled in a record ₹2,004 crore in June 2025 alone, more than double the inflows from May. In the June quarter, silver ETFs attracted inflows of ₹3,925 crore, far outpacing the ₹2,367 crore flowing into gold ETFs.

Final Words

So, is silver back for good? Maybe. 

What’s clear is that this isn’t the kind of speculative madness we saw when the Hunt brothers’ game was at its peak. This time, it’s about real-world shifts — energy transitions, supply shortages, and an uncertain global economy.

Silver has always had a reputation for being unpredictable, but right now, it looks like the metal is getting its moment in the sun, and this time, it might just last a while.

The Decepticons of Southeast Asia

Forget everything you know about ‘pig butchering’ means — this one is not about meat or barbecues. 

It’s actually the name given to one of the nastiest cyber scams industry booming in Southeast Asia, where trafficked workers in countries such as Cambodia and Myanmar are forced to run deception centres that fleece unsuspecting victims, mostly in richer places like Singapore and Hong Kong. 

The scam’s nickname comes from the way con artists “fatten up” their targets — emotionally and financially — before “slaughtering” them. It means draining their bank accounts, but not before teasing them fleeting flashes of a smouldering romance, and the promise of a steamy aftermath.

Charming, right?

This isn’t some small-time hustle; it’s a massive, industrial-scale operation causing billions in losses worldwide — $37 billion and counting, according to Fortune.

Thanks to Asia’s mobile-first culture and various chat apps like WhatsApp and WeChat, scammers have direct access to their victims. 

And now AI has joined the party. Now, the scammers working for these crime syndicates are multilingual charmers, luring people across languages and borders.

Thailand’s tourist scene is feeling the pinch this year after a Chinese actor was kidnapped and forced to work in a Myanmar-based scam compound, and Bangkok is now struggling to convince tourists it’s safe to come.

Some governments, as expected, are fighting back: Singapore recently passed an anti-scam law that allows law enforcement to freeze the bank accounts of scam victims. In short, touring these places is fraught with risks.

So next time you hear “pig butchering,” remember it’s less about farm life and more about a high-tech, high-stakes cybercrime buffet, with AI making the feast even bigger and messier. 

Bon appétit?

40,000

The number of taxpayers who have revised their income-tax returns in the past four months, withdrawing fraudulent claims worth ₹1,045 crore. The revision comes following a large-scale crackdown by the I-T department on bogus deductions and exemptions. The I-T department said it made a series of outreach efforts, including SMS alerts, emails, and physical programmes, nudging taxpayers towards voluntary compliance.

—Foreign ownership in Indian banks. Reserve Bank of India Governor Sanjay Malhotra has indicated that the regulator might allow foreign banks to own up to a 26% stake in Indian banks. “For foreign banks, they can go up to 100%. So, if you don't allow them even 26%, that seems to defy logic,” he said. In the past, the RBI had allowed foreign banks to take stakes in Indian banks. For example, DBS Bank’s India unit was permitted to acquire Lakshmi Vilas Bank, an old-generation private-sector lender. Similarly, Fairfax was allowed to acquire a 51% stake in CSB Bank.

—Wells Fargo cuts 400 jobs in India. Wells Fargo’s technology centre in India has slashed about 400 jobs in the last two months. This comes at a time when the fourth-largest US lender consolidates its operations in the country. The redundancies are mostly related to the bank’s engineering division with more than 300 people shown the door in June. Also, close to 100 people were dismissed from the chief administrative office this month.

 —US awards AI contracts to Google, OpenAI, xAI. Four of the top US artificial intelligence developers won contracts from the Defense Department aimed at accelerating the military’s adoption of the emerging technology. The Pentagon’s Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office said this week that it will grant contracts to Alphabet Inc.’s Google, OpenAI, Elon Musk’s xAI and Anthropic PBC. The exact dollar value was not disclosed, but the agency said each contract will have a ceiling of $200 million. 

—SpaceX valued at nearly $400 billion. Elon Musk’s SpaceX is planning an insider share sale that would value the company at about $400 billion. The deal marks a rapidly climbing value for Musk’s rocket and satellite maker, and cements SpaceX’s status as the most valuable private startup in the world. The per-share price of $212 is up substantially from the $185 set in a prior transaction that valued SpaceX at $350 billion in December.

—Nvidia: Chinese AI models 'world class’.  Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang described artificial intelligence models from Chinese firms Deepseek, Alibaba and Tencent as "world class" and said AI was "revolutionising" supply chains, at an exhibition in Beijing on Wednesday. Huang spoke briefly at the opening ceremony of a supply chain expo, one day after the AI giant said it would once again be able to sell its highly popular H20 chips in China.

ICYMI | Selling Stakes, Not Confidence

Missed last week's update? Promoters are trimming their holdings, but unlike in the past, nobody’s pressing the panic button or running for the nearest exit, reveals a latest report. The stocks are not tanking because institutions are stepping in. Meanwhile, Google’s AI now wants to design your medicines and cure you of several deadly diseases including cancer. 

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