Silver traded above $70 this morning. Only tonight's settlement counts.

Daily Take

Silver closed Thursday at $69.43, up about 2 percent, and this morning it was trading above $70, the price test we fixed in advance for the strategic silver story: the case that a persistent supply deficit and firm industrial demand argue the metal recovers the ground it lost this spring. Nothing has been decided yet. The morning print shows proximity; only tonight's official front-month COMEX settlement can score the price test, and it is the closest that test has come since the line was set. The day around the move refused to explain itself: gold rose a quarter of a percent, the dollar was flat, Treasury yields were flat, so no textbook channel claims a 2 percent silver day. Crude, meanwhile, settled back above $88 one session after closing below it, and Chair Warsh speaks at Jackson Hole at 10 this morning, after our figures were captured. Prices keep visiting the lines. Settlements decide what they mean, and silver's comes tonight.

For paying subscribers below: the rule that can fire silver's $70 test today, and what a pass would and would never prove; why Thursday's lopsided silver and gold move weakens the clean shared-driver story; and how crude's return above $88 keeps both the war-premium and de-escalation readings alive, with $92 as the next reversal line.