Oil can scare the screen. It does not pay the ounce. The test is the cost the company printed, after the credit, the equivalent ratio, and the ounces the average left out.
This is not a recommendation to buy or sell any silver stock, silver bar, fund, or futures contract. It is not personal advice. It is not a silver price forecast. It is not a list of the best silver mining stocks. Costs, ounces, and guides change. Read the filing. A silver-equivalent ounce is not an ounce of silver. A by-product credit is not cash you mined.
The one idea is this. A percent is not a cost. The headline’s 3.6 percent is not even the day’s settlement. Rising oil prices and inflation fears can move the screen. They do not tell you what it cost the company to produce the ounce you own. Five names below fail that test in five different ways. None of them is a winner because silver fell.
Start with the settlement, not the headline
On October 22, 2026, Dow Jones Market Data said front-month Comex silver for October delivery settled at $54.764 a troy ounce. The drop was $2.658, or 4.63 percent. The prior settlement, on that arithmetic, was $57.422.
A 3.6 percent drop from $57.422 is about $2.07. That would have left the close near $55.35. The actual close was about 59 cents under that. The headline percent and the settlement percent are not the same fact. If a silver market outlook starts by repeating 3.6 percent, it has already left the tape.
Dow Jones called the move the largest one-day dollar and percentage decline since October 14, 2026. Silver was down for a second straight session. Over those two sessions it was down $2.942, or 5.10 percent. It was down three of the past four sessions. The close was the lowest settlement since November 26, 2025.
The same note put the close 52.41 percent under the January 26, 2026 settlement high of $115.08. That high is also the 52-week high and the record on that series. Year to date, the front month was down $15.37, or 21.92 percent. Month to date, it was down 8.88 percent. The close was still 17.62 percent above the 52-week low of $46.562, from October 27, 2025, and 12.96 percent above the close of a year earlier.
Hold those distances apart. A 4.63 percent day is silver price volatility. A 52 percent slide from the January high is a different silver price drop. A 22 percent drop from the start of the year is a third fact. A live screen on the same afternoon showed silver near $55, not $54.764. Use one series. The series in this piece is the settlement. Do not average it with a headline percent and call the blend a fact.
The same day, front-month gold settled at $4,042.80, down 2.12 percent, on the Dow Jones gold note. Divide that gold close by the silver close and you get about 73.8 ounces of silver for one ounce of gold. That ratio is a photograph. It is not a forecast. It is not a reason to prefer one metal, and it is not a cost.
What oil did, and what oil did not do
Dow Jones put the silver drop next to oil. Anthony Harrup’s note said silver closed at its lowest in almost a year as rising oil prices kept alive concerns about inflation and the prospect of higher interest rates. Naeem Aslam, chief investment officer at Zaye Capital Markets, said the weakness reflected rising U.S. Treasury yields, a stronger dollar, and renewed inflation concerns as Brent crude climbed above $110 a barrel. He also said silver’s industrial use leaves it open to weaker manufacturing.
A live screen that afternoon showed Brent near $111 a barrel and WTI near $99. Those are screen prices, not a settlement used here. The direction matches the note. Brent was above $110. That is the oil fact this piece needs. It does not need a forecast of the next barrel.
Here is the path people are describing. Rising oil prices lift the fear of inflation. Inflation fears, if they look sticky, can keep a central bank from cutting. That can lift yields. Silver pays no interest. A higher yield is a higher cost of holding the bar. A stronger dollar can add to that pressure, because the quote is in dollars. Gold took a smaller cut the same day, and the note said gold’s buyers, including central banks, were still there. Silver does not have that same official bid. It has factories as well as vaults.
That path can be true and still not be a silver price forecast. Aslam’s own line, as carried by Dow Jones, was that the next move depends on whether industrial demand and physical supply can offset tight U.S. policy. That is a condition. It is not a date, and it is not a price.
Fawad Razaqzada, a market analyst at Forex.com, said the same bind about gold. Persistent inflation should, in theory, support a metal people hold as a store of value. If the inflation is sticky enough to keep policy tight, higher yields make the metal less attractive at the margin. Silver sits in that bind, and then adds a second one. If high oil and high rates slow factories, the industrial ounce can weaken even while the fear trade is supposed to help.
None of that pays a mill. Diesel at a pit in Mexico, Peru, or the Yukon can rise because oil rose. That is a cost. The headline does not print it. A company cost that was built at a different diesel price, or a different silver price, does not update itself at 1:30 p.m. in New York. How rising oil prices affect silver prices is a rates story on the screen and a fuel story at the mine. How inflation fears affect silver investments is the same split. The fear moves the quote. The investment, if you own the miner, is the gap that is left after the quote moves.
The only subtraction that counts
Revenue on the silver you sell moves with the silver price, unless a hedge, a stream, or a contract sold it earlier. Cost does not have to. Profit is the gap. If the gap is wide, a 4.63 percent silver price drop is a small cut in profit. If the gap is a couple of dollars, the same day can erase it. That is operating leverage. At $54.764, some of the costs below are still in the first case. One of them is not.
Run one example before the names. Take a cost of $20 an ounce. At $54.764 the gap is about $34.76. The day before, silver was $2.658 higher. The gap then was about $37.42. The price fell 4.63 percent. The gap fell about 7 percent. The share can fall faster than the metal. It does not fall like a mine that used to earn $2 an ounce. The starting gap is still wide.
Now take a cost of $52. The gap at $54.764 is about $2.76. The day’s drop was $2.66. One session is almost the whole gap. That is the same silver price drop. It is not the same business. People who rank silver stocks by the day’s percent change are ranking the screen. The screen does not know the cost.
Three leaks sit beside that math.
The first leak is the credit. Many silver miners report a cash cost and an all-in sustaining cost after by-product credits. Gold, lead, zinc, and copper are subtracted from the silver cost. If those other metals were priced high in the quarter, the silver cost looks low. If they fall, the silver cost rises on paper and the rock has not changed. A negative silver cost means the credits were larger than the costs. It does not mean the company was paid to dig. Two companies can both say “all-in” and not mean the same thing.
The second leak is the equivalent ounce. A silver-equivalent ounce folds gold, and sometimes lead and zinc, into silver at a ratio the company chose. Endeavour’s 2026 ratio, in the filing used here, is 90 ounces of silver for one ounce of gold, plus set ratios for lead, zinc, and copper. If you divide a silver-equivalent cost into the silver price, you have mixed a blended ounce with a pure price. The result is not a margin.
The third leak is whose ounce it is, and when. A table can be 100 percent of a mine or 70 percent. A cost can exclude a mine that is still in the production total. A settlement pays ounces sold near that price. It does not pay ounces in next year’s guide, and it does not pay a development project that has not poured. Do not paste $54.764 into a footnote that assumed $70 silver, or into a January world of $115, and call it the same bet.
So the silver stocks to watch, in this piece, are not five tickers a model likes. They are five ways the phrase “watch now” can lie. A Canadian address is one of those ways. Four of the names trade in Toronto. One does not. A head office does not set the diesel price, the royalty, or the by-product credit.
Five tests, not five winners
The order is not a ranking of silver stock performance. It is not a buy list. It is the order of a question. How wide is the printed gap against $54.764? What did the cost leave out? Whose ounce is it? What already broke before this week’s oil headline?
Pan American Silver: the average is a blend, and the blend assumed $70
Pan American Silver trades as PAAS in Toronto and New York. It is a silver miner and a gold miner. If you came for a pure silver stock, you already have the wrong picture.
On the company’s second-quarter 2026 operating slides, the quarterly outlook table puts attributable silver production at 6.47 million ounces. The takeaway on the same deck rounds that to 6.5 million and calls it the high end of the quarter’s range. The range on the outlook page was 6.05 million to 6.55 million. Silver-segment all-in sustaining cost was $17.80 an ounce. The quarter’s own outlook range for that cost was $15.00 to $17.50. The result was 30 cents above the top of the range the company had set for the quarter.
That 30 cents is the quarter, not the half. First-half silver-segment all-in cost on the same deck was $12.64. The company said first-half silver costs were below the first-half range. Do not let one line, the miss, erase the other line, the half that came in under. Both are printed. Neither is the mine.
The full-year silver guide on that slide is 25 million to 27 million ounces. The full-year silver-segment all-in band is $15.75 to $18.25. At the October 22 settlement, a $17.80 cost leaves a gap of about $36.96. The top of the year band, $18.25, leaves about $36.51. A 4.63 percent drop in silver barely moves a gap that wide. On this one subtraction, Pan American is the sort of name people mean when they ask which silver stock holds up. Do not stop at the company line. And do not treat that gap as the margin the quarter earned. Silver sold in the quarter, on the deck’s realized-price table, was $70.97 an ounce. The footnote excludes ounces sold on the 44 percent Juanicipio interest. The first half realized $78.98. The $17.80 sat beside a sale near $71, not beside $54.76.
The same deck prints two different mine pages. One is the 2026 guide. One is the quarter that already happened. The guide is not the print. La Colorada, in Mexico, is guided at $33.25 to $35.75. The quarter printed $48.63, and the half printed $45.23. Huaron, in Peru, is guided at $27.75 to $29.75. The quarter printed $36.25, and the half printed $34.35. Juanicipio, Pan American’s 44 percent, is guided at $2.25 to $4.25. The quarter printed a credit of $6.14, and the half printed a credit of $4.50. Cerro Moro, in Argentina, is guided at a negative all-in cost, from about minus $25.75 to minus $21.75. The quarter printed a credit of $58.37, and the half printed a credit of $64.87. San Vicente, Pan American’s 95 percent, is guided at $41 to $43. The quarter printed $38.85, and the half printed $43.98. A negative cost is a gold credit wearing a silver costume. The company average is what you get when a $48.63 ounce, a mid-$30s ounce, and two large credits are poured into one number.
At $54.764, use the quarter, not the hope. La Colorada’s $48.63 leaves a gap of about $6.13. The guide top of $35.75 would have left about $19.01. That $19 is a plan. The $6.13 is the subtraction on the cost the mine already reported. Huaron’s $36.25 leaves about $18.51, not the $25.01 you get from the guide top of $29.75. San Vicente’s $38.85 leaves about $15.91. Juanicipio’s quarter was a credit of $6.14, not a cost of a few dollars. Cerro Moro’s quarter was a credit of $58.37, larger than the credit in the guide. The company gap of about $37 is none of those gaps. If you own the share, you own all of them, at 100 percent where the company owns the mine, at 44 percent at Juanicipio, and at 95 percent at San Vicente, plus the gold segment.
The gold segment is the other business. Second-quarter gold-segment all-in sustaining cost was $1,984 an ounce. The full-year gold-segment band on the slide is $1,700 to $1,850. The quarter was above the year’s band. The slide says attributable gold production is expected at the low end of 700,000 to 750,000 ounces, on shortfalls at El Peñon and Jacobina, partly offset by Timmins and Shahuindo. The same outlook says gold all-in cost is expected toward the high end of that $1,700 to $1,850 band. A silver price drop does not fix a gold cost that is already above its own guide, and it does not undo a sentence that points the year’s gold cost toward the top of the band.
There is a price inside the cost guide. The slide says the all-in forecasts assume $70 silver and $4,200 gold, plus stated prices for zinc, lead, and copper, and a set of exchange rates. The silver settlement is $54.764. That is about $15 under the silver price written into the cost guide. The quarter’s realized silver price, $70.97, was close to the $70 assumption. The settlement is not. Gold’s settlement of $4,042.80 is close to the $4,200 assumption, not the same number.
A lower silver price can cut royalties and profit-share that rise with the metal. It can also cut the revenue. Both can be true. Do not take a cost that was illustrated at $70 and pretend the margin at $54.76 is the margin the engineer drew. Do not take the $17.80 and pretend La Colorada costs $17.80. The quarter already said $48.63. The silver price forecast, whatever a desk publishes next, does not choose among those mines.
Endeavour Silver: the quarter is already above the year, and one mine is near the print
Endeavour Silver trades as EDR in Toronto and EXK in New York. The filing used here is the second-quarter report. Dollars in it are U.S. dollars.
In the three months ended June 30, 2026, the company produced 1,943,955 ounces of silver and 10,474 ounces of gold. Silver-equivalent production was 3,437,794 ounces. The footnote counts those equivalents at 90 ounces of silver per ounce of gold, 45 ounces of silver per tonne of lead, 61 per tonne of zinc, and 238 per tonne of copper. Those ratios are the company’s choice for 2026. They are not a law of the market. If gold is $4,043 and silver is $54.76, the market’s gold-to-silver ratio is about 74, not 90. An equivalent ounce built at 90 is a fatter ounce than an equivalent ounce built at 74. Do not compare last year’s equivalents to this year’s without reading the footnote.
Consolidated cash cost was $23.52 per silver ounce. Consolidated all-in sustaining cost was $36.89 per ounce. A year earlier those figures were $15.35 and $25.16. The all-in cost rose 47 percent. The first half was in the same place. Silver production was 3,819,329 ounces. Cash cost was $23.03. All-in cost was $36.96.
The year’s guide, in that same filing, is silver production of 8.3 million to 8.9 million ounces from Terronera, Guanaceví, and Kolpa. Cash costs are projected at $12 to $13 per payable silver ounce. All-in sustaining costs are estimated at $27 to $28 per ounce, net of by-product credits. The quarter’s cash cost of $23.52 is not in a band of $12 to $13. The quarter’s all-in cost of $36.89 is not in a band of $27 to $28, and the guide adds the words “net of by-product credits.” Do not assume the two all-in phrases are the same object. Do notice that the cash-cost miss does not need that argument. The year-to-date cash cost is already about $10 an ounce above the top of the year’s cash-cost guide. The second half would have to be a different mine for the year to land inside $12 to $13.
The mines do not share the quarter’s average. Cash cost was $5.07 at Terronera, $22.23 at Kolpa, and $40.17 at Guanaceví. The filing’s mine all-in lines sit near $26.42 at Terronera, $29.40 at Kolpa, and $52.20 at Guanaceví. Weight those all-in figures by the quarter’s ounces, 608,347 at Terronera, 633,288 at Kolpa, and 702,320 at Guanaceví, and you get about $36.70. The consolidated line is $36.89. Close enough to trust the shape. Not a second official total.
At $54.764, Terronera’s $26.42 all-in cost leaves a gap of about $28.34. Kolpa’s $29.40 leaves about $25.36. Guanaceví’s $52.20 leaves about $2.56. The day’s drop was $2.66. On that one mine, the session was about the size of the remaining gap. The company all-in cost of $36.89 still leaves about $17.87. A buyer who stops at $17.87 thinks the stock “holds up.” The buyer who owns Guanaceví inside the same ticker is looking at a gap a single session can close. The silver price drop did not write Guanaceví’s cost. The cost was already there in the June quarter.
Bolañitos is not in that set. The company completed the sale of Bolañitos on January 15, 2026. A mine you sold in January cannot hold up your 2026 cost, and it cannot excuse it.
October brought a newer ounce count, not a newer cost, and the count used here is a news report of the company’s production update, not the company page itself. That report put third-quarter silver at 2,096,545 ounces and gold at 10,126 ounces. Year to date, silver was 5,915,874 ounces. Add the first-half table of 3,819,329 to the third-quarter 2,096,545 and you get 5,915,874. The addition checks. The report said the Guanaceví mill was taken offline on September 21 to replace the primary mill head and trunnion, that repairs were expected in the first half of October, and that the company would update full-year production and cost guidance with earnings on November 9, with production expected at or slightly below the low end of the range. Until that company page is the source, treat those sentences as reported, not as a filing you have opened.
To reach 8.3 million ounces, the low end, the fourth quarter needs about 2.38 million ounces if those reported year-to-date ounces hold. The reported third quarter was 2.10 million, with a mill down for part of it. The cost sentence is still the June page, until November 9 replaces it. A silver investment outlook that uses the old $27 guide and ignores the $36.89 result is using the hope and skipping the print.
First Majestic: $25.68 is not a silver cost
First Majestic Silver trades as AG in Toronto and New York. The ticker is AG. The cost is not per ounce of silver.
In the second-quarter 2026 MD&A, all-in sustaining cost was $25.68 per attributable payable silver-equivalent ounce. A year earlier it was $21.02. The company said the increase came from a higher cash cost, higher worker-participation costs tied to rising metal prices, more sustaining development, and higher equipment charges. It also said that if you applied the prior year’s equivalent-ounce assumptions, the second-quarter 2026 cost would have fallen 13 percent. Read that twice. Part of the increase is the metal price inside the formula, not a worse shovel. Part of it is a real cost. The company has told you both things. A reader who wants only one of them is shopping.
Year to date, the same page puts all-in cost at $27.67 per silver-equivalent ounce. That was two cents under the bottom of the revised full-year band. The revised band is $27.69 to $28.77 per consolidated payable silver-equivalent ounce. The original band was $26.15 to $27.91. The midpoint rose about 4 percent. The company tied that rise to higher-than-forecast silver prices and a stronger Mexican peso in the first half. The peso averaged 17.50 per dollar against an 18.25 assumption. Annual cash costs were tightened to $19.27 to $19.85 per silver-equivalent ounce.
None of those sentences is a cost per ounce of silver. Silver-equivalent ounces include gold, counted as silver at a ratio. If you subtract $25.68 from $54.764 and call the $29.08 a silver margin, you have done the leak this piece is about. The denominator is not the metal in the headline. A falling silver price changes the value of the gold inside the equivalent ounce, and it can change the price-linked costs the company already flagged. It does not turn an equivalent-ounce cost into a silver-ounce cost.
The ounce guide did change, and it changed in silver ounces, which is the cleaner unit. Attributable 2026 silver production was raised to 14.6 million to 15.5 million ounces, from 13.0 million to 14.4 million. Gold was raised to 128,000 to 135,000 ounces, from 116,000 to 129,000. The page ties the silver increase to throughput work and a first half that ran ahead of the old plan.
Whose ounce is still the question. Los Gatos is held at 70 percent. The guide for that mine, on an attributable basis, is 5.1 million to 5.5 million ounces of silver. Santa Elena is guided at 1.4 million to 1.5 million ounces of silver and 72,000 to 76,000 ounces of gold. San Dimas is guided at 4.6 million to 4.9 million ounces of silver and 52,000 to 56,000 ounces of gold. The company total is not 100 percent of every tonne. Your share is the attributable ounce, after the partner at Los Gatos.
The MD&A also says Los Gatos was on track to sustain about 4,000 tonnes per operating day in the second half, and that Santa Elena’s silver was tracking toward the high end of 1.4 million to 1.5 million ounces. Those are operating claims. They are not a cash cost per ounce of silver. Until the company prints a silver-ounce all-in cost, the honest line is the one it printed: $25.68 per equivalent ounce, in a quarter, against a year band that is also per equivalent ounce. Watch that unit. Do not translate it in your head and then forget you translated it.
Silvercorp: the low cost is a credit, and the mines were stopped
Silvercorp Metals trades as SVM in Toronto. The quarter in the August 11, 2026 filing is the first quarter of fiscal 2027. That is the quarter ended June 30, 2026. Silvercorp’s year does not match the calendar. Do not line its “first quarter” up with someone else’s first quarter and call them the same three months.
Cash cost was $2.45 per ounce of silver, net of by-product credits. A year earlier it was $1.26. All-in sustaining cost was $13.94 per ounce, net of by-product credits, up from $10.10. The company said the cash-cost increase came from 15 percent fewer silver ounces sold, which raised the cost per ounce, and a 6 percent rise in the renminbi against the dollar, partly offset by $3.8 million more in by-product credits. The all-in increase also included a 68 percent rise in government taxes linked to higher revenue.
Look at the gap between $2.45 and $13.94. The cash cost, after credits, is almost a rounding item. The all-in cost is several times larger, and a stated piece of the increase is tax, not diesel. A silver stock screen that sorts on “lowest cash cost” will put this name near the top. The sort is using the credit. Lead and zinc paid for most of the cash cost. If those prices fall, $2.45 moves up and the ore is the same ore.
At $54.764, a $13.94 all-in cost leaves a gap of about $40.82. That is a wide gap. It is a wide gap on the ounces the company actually sold in a quarter when the mines were not fully running. Starting in mid-June, Silvercorp suspended operations at the Ying Mining District to finish the “Six Major Safety Systems” required by new Chinese rules. The filing says the same suspension hit the GC mine. The work was voluntary, in the company’s words, and it was done to comply. Five vendors were engaged. The budget given is about $11.5 million.
The production line matches the stoppage. The company processed 386,453 tonnes and produced about 1.5 million ounces of silver, 2,536 ounces of gold, 13.4 million pounds of lead, and 4.4 million pounds of zinc. It said the decrease was driven by the suspension. It also said production in the following quarter, the second quarter of fiscal 2027, was expected to be affected by 40 percent to 50 percent.
A low cost on a partial quarter is not a full-year cost. A 40 to 50 percent cut in the next quarter’s production raises the cost per ounce if the fixed bills remain, even if the silver price does not fall another dollar. The safety budget of $11.5 million is not inside the $13.94 as a completed item you can ignore. Some of it may be capital. The filing does not invite you to add it to all-in sustaining cost and invent a new metric. It does invite you to see that the ounce and the cost were reported in the middle of a stoppage.
Growth drilling in the quarter was 18,398 metres, capitalized at $0.6 million. That is a small line next to the safety work. It is still a reminder that “all-in sustaining” leaves growth outside the line. A silver price drop does not complete a safety system, and a safety system does not care what Brent did on October 22.
Hecla: the famous low cost leaves a mine out, and it is after the credit
Hecla Mining trades as HL in New York. It is not a Toronto listing. Putting it in a piece that also talks about Canadian silver stocks is a choice, and the choice has to be said out loud. The Canadian asset is Keno Hill, in the Yukon. The cost people quote is the one that leaves Keno Hill out.
The August 4, 2026 release, as quoted in the company’s results headline, reported a silver cash cost of negative $8.10 per ounce and an all-in sustaining cost of $6.07 per ounce. Both figures are after by-product credits. Both exclude Keno Hill. Both are from continuing operations. Second-quarter silver production was 4,208,827 ounces. Greens Creek was 2,051,022. Lucky Friday was 1,532,569. Keno Hill was 625,236. Keno Hill was about 15 percent of the ounces. It was none of the $6.07.
At $54.764, a $6.07 cost leaves a gap of about $48.69. That is the widest printed gap in this set, and it is the easiest to misuse. The cost is after credits. The cost excludes a mine. A screen that sorts silver mining stocks by all-in cost will treat $6.07 as the company’s cost of silver. It is not.
The company’s September update shows the credit in the open, at Greens Creek. In the quarter column, cash cost before by-product credits was $27.05 per silver ounce. Credits were $44.16. Cash cost after credits was negative $17.11. All-in cost before credits was $33.45. All-in cost after credits was negative $10.71. The ounces on that page are 2.051 million, which matches the Greens Creek production in the quarter. The negative cost is the credit. Gold, lead, and zinc at Greens Creek were larger than the silver costs. That can be a wonderful mine. It is still a credit. If those metals fall, the silver all-in cost rises toward the $33.45, and the silver price did not have to change.
Lucky Friday is the other large mine, and it does not print a negative cost. The September update’s quarter column shows all-in sustaining cost after credits of $26.176 million on 1.533 million ounces, and it prints the per-ounce line: $17.08. That is the company’s figure, not reader arithmetic. Lucky Friday’s gap against $54.764, on that $17.08, is about $37.68. Greens Creek’s gap on the pre-credit all-in cost of $33.45 is about $21.31. The consolidated $6.07 gap of about $48.69 is a third thing, and it still excludes Keno Hill.
The same September page has a 2026 column for Greens Creek. All-in cost before credits is about $36.05 per ounce. Credits are about $40.25. All-in cost after credits is about negative $4.20, on 8.15 million ounces. The year’s negative number is smaller than the quarter’s negative number. The credit is doing less work in the year column, or the costs are higher, or both. A buyer who pastes the quarter’s negative $10.71 onto the whole year has not read the year column.
Lucky Friday’s year column on that page prints all-in cost after credits of $25.39 an ounce, on $128.2 million and 5.05 million ounces. That $25.39 is the company’s per-ounce line. A $25.39 cost against $54.764 leaves about $29.37. It is not $6.07. And Keno Hill’s 625,236 ounces in the quarter are still outside the famous line.
Put the gaps on one page
Use the October 22 settlement of $54.764. Use the cost the company printed. Round to the nearest cent. These are not targets. They are subtractions. Where the cost is per equivalent ounce, or after a credit, the table says so.
Pan American, silver-segment all-in cost of $17.80 in the second quarter. Gap about $36.96. That gap is a stress against the settlement, not the quarter’s realized margin. Silver sold in the quarter was $70.97, excluding Juanicipio. First-half silver-segment all-in cost was $12.64, under the half’s range, while the quarter was 30 cents over its own. Year band $15.75 to $18.25. The band assumes $70 silver. La Colorada’s quarter was $48.63, a gap of about $6.13. The year guide of $33.25 to $35.75 is the plan, not the print. Huaron’s quarter was $36.25, a gap of about $18.51. San Vicente, at 95 percent, was $38.85, a gap of about $15.91. Juanicipio, at 44 percent, was a credit of $6.14. Cerro Moro was a credit of $58.37. Gold-segment all-in cost was $1,984, above the year’s gold band, with the year pointed toward the high end of that band.
Endeavour, second-quarter all-in cost of $36.89 per silver ounce. Gap about $17.87. Year guide $27 to $28, net of by-product credits, against a quarter that already printed $36.89 and a cash cost of $23.52 against a cash-cost guide of $12 to $13. Guanaceví’s quarter all-in line is about $52.20. Gap about $2.56. The day’s drop was $2.66.
First Majestic, $25.68 per attributable payable silver-equivalent ounce. Do not subtract that from $54.764 and call it a silver margin. Year band $27.69 to $28.77 per equivalent ounce. Silver-ounce guide 14.6 million to 15.5 million, attributable. Los Gatos is 70 percent.
Silvercorp, $13.94 per ounce after by-product credits, for the quarter ended June 30, 2026. Gap about $40.82. Cash cost after credits was $2.45. Ying and GC were suspended from mid-June. The next quarter’s production was expected to be hit by 40 to 50 percent.
Hecla, $6.07 per ounce after credits, excluding Keno Hill. Gap about $48.69. Greens Creek’s all-in cost before credits was $33.45, a gap of about $21.31. Keno Hill’s 625,236 ounces are not in the $6.07.
If you rank them by the width of the printed gap, Hecla is first and Endeavour is last, and First Majestic cannot be ranked on this page at all because the unit is wrong. That ranking is the trap. Hecla’s lead depends on a credit and on leaving a mine out. Endeavour’s company gap is still wide, and one of its mines is not. Pan American’s company gap is wide, the quarter sold silver near $71, and La Colorada already printed $48.63. Silvercorp’s gap is wide, and the mines were stopped. “Best” depends on which leak you refuse to count. A silver price forecast does not settle that. Rising oil prices do not either.
What a larger drop would do, without calling it a forecast
This is not a silver price forecast. It is the same subtraction at two other prices, so you can see the gear. The January high of $115.08 is not used as a planning price. It was a settlement. It is gone.
At $45, Pan American’s $17.80 leaves a gap of about $27.20. La Colorada at the quarter’s $48.63 does not. It is about $3.63 under that price. Huaron at $36.25 still has about $8.75. San Vicente at $38.85 still has about $6.15. Endeavour’s $36.89 leaves about $8.11. Guanaceví at $52.20 does not leave a gap. It is about $7.20 under water on that all-in line. Silvercorp’s $13.94 leaves about $31.06, before you remember the credit and the stoppage. Hecla’s $6.07 leaves about $38.93, and Greens Creek before credits, at $33.45, leaves about $11.55. Lucky Friday at the printed $17.08 leaves about $27.92. First Majestic still does not belong in the column until the cost is per ounce of silver.
At $40, Pan American’s company gap is about $22.20. La Colorada at $48.63 is about $8.63 under water. Huaron at $36.25 still has about $3.75. San Vicente at $38.85 still has about $1.15. The year-guide top of $35.75 is not the cost to use. Endeavour’s company gap is about $3.11. Terronera at $26.42 still has about $13.58. Guanaceví does not. Lucky Friday, at the printed $17.08, still has about $22.92. Greens Creek before credits does not, once you are under $33.45. The thin gaps go first. That is what “holds up” means if you insist on a stress. It is not what October 22 did to the company averages. It is what one more large drop would do to the mines the averages hide.
The 52-week low of $46.562, from October 27, 2025, is already inside that stress. The close on October 22 was 17.62 percent above it. A person who says silver “cannot” go there is arguing with a date that is less than a year old. A person who says a fall to that low is certain is writing a forecast. This piece does neither.
Silver price volatility is not a broken mine, until the gap is gone
A drop of $2.66 feels large because silver is a small number next to gold. Gold fell $87.70 the same day and the percent was 2.12. Silver fell $2.66 and the percent was 4.63. The silver move was the sharper one. Against Pan American’s $17.80, $2.66 is about 15 percent of the cost and about 7 percent of the gap. Against Endeavour’s $36.89, $2.66 is about 7 percent of the cost and about 15 percent of the gap. Against Guanaceví’s $52.20, $2.66 is about the entire gap. The same dollar does three different jobs.
The January high is the other exaggeration. From $115.08 to $54.764, silver gave up about $60. On a $17.80 cost, the gap went from about $97 to about $37. That is a real cut. It is not, at the company line, a shut mine. Anyone who marks a silver stock from the January high and calls the whole path a failure is marking a peak. Anyone who marks it from a 3.6 percent headline and calls the whole path a bargain is marking the wrong percent.
Oil sits in both stories, and only one of them is on the screen. Brent above $110 can feed inflation fears, and inflation fears can feed yields, and yields can pressure a metal that pays no coupon. That is how rising oil prices affect silver prices in the note Dow Jones ran. The other story is the gallon. A cost guide written before this oil move does not contain Thursday’s diesel. Pan American’s cost page, in the lines used here, assumes metal prices and exchange rates. It does not, in those lines, assume a Brent price. Endeavour’s cash-cost miss was already on the page in June. Silvercorp’s stoppage is a safety rule. Hecla’s credit is gold, lead, and zinc. The mines moved, or failed to move, before the headline. The headline did not create them.
A Canadian listing is not a margin
If the question is “Canadian silver stocks” or “TSX silver stocks,” the honest split is this.
Pan American, Endeavour, First Majestic, and Silvercorp trade in Toronto. Hecla does not. Using Hecla as a Canadian stock because Keno Hill is in the Yukon would be a mistake about the listing. Leaving Keno Hill out of the Hecla cost, and then calling the company a simple low-cost silver miner, is a mistake about the ounce.
Toronto does not make the mine Canadian. Pan American’s ounces in this piece are in Mexico, Peru, Argentina, and other places, including Canadian gold ounces at Timmins that sit in the gold segment. Endeavour’s ounces are at Terronera and Guanaceví in Mexico and at Kolpa in Peru. First Majestic’s guide is Mexico, and Los Gatos is 70 percent. Silvercorp’s mines are in China, and they were suspended under Chinese safety rules. A head office on a Canadian exchange does not set the peso, the renminbi, the royalty, or the permit.
The industrial ounce and the investment ounce are also not the same object. Aslam’s point, that silver can fall when factories slow, is a demand point. It can be right on the price and still be silent on whether Guanaceví’s cost is $52 or Terronera’s cash cost is $5. A silver investment outlook that stops at “industrial demand” has not opened a filing.
How to watch without turning the list into a purchase
Write five lines. Not a price target. A cost, a date, and a leak.
Pan American. Second-quarter silver-segment all-in cost $17.80, 30 cents above the quarter’s own range, beside silver sold at $70.97, excluding Juanicipio. First-half silver-segment all-in cost $12.64, under that half’s range. Year band $15.75 to $18.25, drawn at $70 silver. Leak: La Colorada printed $48.63, not the guide of $33.25 to $35.75. Huaron printed $36.25. San Vicente, at 95 percent, printed $38.85. Juanicipio, at 44 percent, and Cerro Moro printed credits. The gold segment is a second business already above its cost band, with the year pointed toward the high end of that band.
Endeavour. Second-quarter all-in cost $36.89, cash cost $23.52, against a year cash-cost guide of $12 to $13 and an all-in guide of $27 to $28 net of credits. Leak: Guanaceví at $52.20. A news report of the production update, not the company page itself, also described a mill offline from September 21 and a November 9 update framed as at or under the low end of production.
First Majestic. $25.68 per silver-equivalent ounce, not per silver ounce. Year band $27.69 to $28.77 per equivalent ounce. Silver guide 14.6 million to 15.5 million attributable ounces. Leak: the unit, the peso, and the 30 percent of Los Gatos you do not own.
Silvercorp. Quarter ended June 30, 2026. All-in cost $13.94 after credits. Cash cost $2.45 after credits. Leak: the credit, the tax inside the all-in number, and a suspension that the company said would cut the next quarter’s production by 40 to 50 percent.
Hecla. $6.07 after credits, excluding Keno Hill, from the August 4 release. Greens Creek all-in cost before credits $33.45. Lucky Friday’s printed all-in cost after credits was $17.08 in the quarter and $25.39 in the year column. Leak: the credit, and the 625,236 Keno Hill ounces that are not in the cost people quote. Not a Toronto stock.
Then write the silver price from one series. The settlement used here is $54.764 on October 22, down 4.63 percent, not 3.6 percent. If the next report replaces a cost, your old gap is over. If a desk publishes a silver price forecast, it is their forecast. It is not a cost. It is not an equivalent ounce. It does not pay the partner, the tax, or the safety retrofit.
The answer the headline does not want
The headline says silver fell 3.6 percent because oil fueled inflation fears, and it offers five silver stocks to watch. The useful answer is that the settlement fell 4.63 percent, to $54.764, and that oil explains a mood, not a margin.
Rising oil prices can lift inflation fears. Inflation fears can lift yields. Yields can pressure a metal that pays no interest. Silver also sells into factories, so the same oil shock can hurt demand while it is supposed to be helping the fear trade. That is the macro sentence. It was true enough for Dow Jones to lead with it. It does not contain La Colorada, Guanaceví, a silver-equivalent formula, a Chinese safety stoppage, or a by-product credit at Greens Creek.
On the printed costs, against $54.764, the company-level gaps at Pan American, Endeavour, Silvercorp, and Hecla are still wide. First Majestic’s number cannot be dropped into that sentence without changing the unit. Inside the wide gaps, Guanaceví’s quarter is close to the price, Hecla’s low number excludes a mine and depends on a credit, Pan American’s average hides a La Colorada quarter of $48.63 while the year guide assumed $70 silver, and Silvercorp’s low cash cost is what the credits left behind while the mines were being refit.
None of that is a silver price forecast. None of it is a list of silver stocks to buy. A stock that falls less than its peers tomorrow can still be the one whose cash-cost guide was already broken in June. A stock with the lowest all-in cost can still be quoting a figure after credits, with a mine left out. Brent above $110 will not choose between them. A headline that says 3.6 percent will not either.
If you need one line, keep this. The percent is not the cost. Watch the ounce you own, the credit that made the cost look small, and the mine the average hid. Do not watch the rank.