Alpha Report
Silver
Composite Signal
2022–2026

1. Executive Summary

Signal Coverage: Silver

Silver Macro Review:

• 2022: Silver futures peaked near $27 on 8 March after the invasion of Ukraine, then fell to a September low near $17.4 under the pressure of rate hikes and a strong dollar; a strong Q4 (+17%) left the year about 4% higher.
• 2023: About flat (−2%), in a $20–26 range: a March low, an April high, then a sideways middle of the year before a Q4 rally (+12%) on expected rate cuts.
• 2024: About +22%, rising with gold and on industrial demand from solar manufacturing, to a 12-year high near $34.7 on 22 October.
• 2025: About +141%, a historic run from about $30 to a record near $76 on 30 December, rising in every quarter and accelerating in H2 (Q4 +51%) on a persistent supply deficit, strong industrial demand and Fed easing.
• 2026 (to 28 Sep): About −16% after a speculative blow-off: silver peaked above $113 in our data on 29 January and fell 17% in a single session as the Warsh Fed nomination strengthened the dollar and exchanges raised margin requirements. Prices halved to a July low near $56 before stabilising in Q3.

Signal Performance Overview:

• 2022: +3.7% (Sharpe 0.30), with longs and shorts contributing equally and a −10.2% drawdown; the committee held a position in every slot.
• 2023: −2.1% (Sharpe −0.17) in a sideways market: shorts made +5.4% but longs lost, at a 50% hit rate.
• 2024: −2.1% (Sharpe −0.16) and a −11.9% drawdown; it did not profit from the year's +22% rise.
• 2025: +15.8% (Sharpe 1.42), driven by longs (+18.3%), following part of the historic rally, with a modest −5.8% drawdown.
• 2026 (F1, to 28 Sep): +33.5% (Sharpe 1.35), the best walk-forward return, almost entirely from shorts (+36.2%); nearly all of it came in 26Q1 (+45%, Sharpe 3.43) around the January peak and crash, while the Q2 slide was roughly flat for the signal. The −13.2% drawdown reflects the extreme volatility.

2. Trading Strategy

In order to produce the metrics below we use the signal in combination with the trading strategy below:

• Entry positions: every 5 minutes between 09:45 and 10:15 ET (7 possible openings per day) we take a long, short or no position. Each position is split into 5 parts, executed on each minute of the 5 minutes after the decision. No sizing adjustment.
• Exit positions: each decision's position is closed between 13:20 and 13:25 ET, its five parts over the five minutes.
• Costs: 1.50 bp per side, 3.0 bp round trip (SI). Extra exchange/clearing fees not included.
• Contract series & roll: Active silver delivery months only (Mar, May, Jul, Sep, Dec). Switch at the open 6 trading days before First Notice (the last business day of the month preceding delivery) and start trading the next active month.

3. Model Training Data and Timeframe

Each year of Section 4 is scored by the committee of its own walk-forward fold, trained and validated only on data before that year:

4. Performance Metrics: walk-forward, 2022 – 2026

4.1 Return and Risk Metrics

Quarterly and annual return, risk-adjusted performance and drawdown for the trading strategy defined in Section 2. Sharpe is per session on fixed capital. 2026 runs to 2026-09-28.

Table 1: Quarterly and Annual Metrics

Figure 1: Cumulative equity from $1,000,000, quarterly returns compounded from 22Q1 (out-of-sample)

The curve compounds the quarterly returns from $1,000,000 for illustration. The strategy metrics in this report assume fixed capital, so the ending value is not the sum of the quarterly returns.

4.2 Participation, Recall and Effective Leverage

Quarterly and annual view of how often the signal trades, how many of the realised moves it captures, and how much of the notional capital is deployed on average.

Table 2: Quarterly and Annual Participation, Recall and Effective Leverage

5. Next Steps

Download historical predictions using the Client API and confirm performance in your own test harness:

• Sign-up: Create account
• API Documentation: https://quantumsignals.ai/documentation

6. Contact

Please reach out with any questions or comments at: info[at]quantumsignals.ai