What is the current price of silver per ounce today?
The price of silver opened at $30.62 per ounce, as of 9 a.m. ET. That’s down 0.59% from the previous day and up 27.99% year to date.
The lowest trading price within the last day: $30.35 per ounce. The highest silver spot price in the last 24 hours: $30.99 per ounce.
Silver spot price
The spot silver price reflects what traders buy and sell silver for immediately, or on the spot. In contrast, the futures price reflects the price for silver delivered in later months.
The spot price for silver in the foreign exchange market is denoted as XAG/USD. Traders buy and sell silver 24/7 globally, so its price fluctuates constantly.
The price of XAG/USD reflects the value of one ounce of silver in U.S. dollars, and it is traded like traditional currency pairs. Because silver trades occur globally, investors can also track the spot price of silver in other currencies, such as XAG/EUR for euros and XAG/GBP for British pounds.
Silver price chart
See the chart below for how silver spot prices have changed over the past year. The data is updated at 9 a.m. ET and doesn’t have intraday lows or highs.
Silver is up 27.99% over the last 12 months as of 9 a.m. ET. It reached a 52-week high of $32.51 on May 19, 2024. Its 52-week low was $20.69 on Oct. 2, 2023.
The spot price is the current market rate at which silver can be bought or sold for immediate payment and delivery. Spot prices for precious metals are expressed in troy ounces. One troy ounce equals 1.097 standard ounces. This unit of measurement is used almost exclusively to price precious metals.
Silver’s spot price is influenced by various factors and impacted by futures contracts.
Precious metals prices
You can trade four main precious metals via physical bullion, exchange-traded products or futures contracts. They are silver, gold, platinum and palladium. All trade 24/7 in various currencies.
Gold/silver ratio
The gold/silver ratio is the price of gold per ounce divided by the price of silver per ounce. Today, it’s 84.19.
The gold/silver ratio is significant because it is a tool for comparing the relative values of these two precious metals over time. This ratio helps investors and traders understand how the value of gold and silver fluctuates compared to each other.
The high ratio suggests that gold is more expensive than silver, indicating a market preference for gold as a haven, which can mean economic uncertainty. Conversely, a lower ratio implies that silver is gaining value or that gold is becoming less expensive.
This ratio can also indicate potential buying opportunities. For instance, if the ratio is historically high, some investors might see it as a cue to buy silver, expecting it to revert to a long-term average.
The gold/silver ratio is also used to gauge economic health. Shifts in the ratio reflect changes in market sentiment and economic conditions.
History of silver prices
Silver prices reached their highest peak in January 1980, at around $49.45 per troy ounce. Conversely, their lowest trough was in February 1993, at around $3.56 per troy ounce.
Silver prices fluctuate based on multiple variables, such as supply and demand, geopolitical events, currency strength, economic data, and changes in investment trends. The historical spot price of silver has been characterized by high volatility, with fluctuations over the decades.
1970 – 2005
In the mid-1970s, silver was valued at less than $10 per ounce. But it saw a sharp rise toward the end of the 1970s, peaking at over $49 per ounce by 1980.
Despite this sharp rise, the prices fell back down, and by the late 1980s, silver was trading under $10 per ounce again.
2006 – 2024
Silver prices didn’t surpass $10 per ounce until 2006.
The Great Recession marked another significant period for silver prices. In March 2008, the price nearly doubled to about $20 per ounce, potentially driven by the global banking crisis and subsequent economic measures like quantitative easing.
But this was followed by another sharp decline, bringing prices back to around $10 per ounce in October 2008. Silver experienced another historical climb, reaching above $45 per ounce in April 2011.
This history reflects the silver market’s deep drawdowns and high run-ups. Various factors, such as economic crises, market speculation and investor behavior, influence these market shifts.
Silver futures
Key global exchanges, including those in cities like Chicago, Hong Kong, London, New York and Zurich, facilitate nearly 24-hour trading of silver. The COMEX, a branch of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, plays a pivotal role in setting the silver spot price, using futures contracts to project silver prices.
Silver futures are a financial contract where a buyer agrees to purchase, and a seller agrees to sell, a specific amount of silver at a predetermined price on a specified future date. The standardization provided by silver futures makes the contracts easily tradable on exchanges.
Silver exchange-traded products
Do you want to invest in silver using your normal broker? Then you might consider exchange-traded products. ETPs have ticker symbols and trade like stocks on exchanges. They typically hold physical bullion stored in audited facilities. Shares represent ownership of a fraction of that silver.
Note that ETPs may have management fees. They may also have tracking errors relative to silver’s spot price.
Investing in silver
There are three primary ways to invest in silver:
- Bullion.Directly owning physical silver is a simple way to invest. But you’ll need a place to store it. You’ll likely want insurance too. These costs can eat into your returns.
- Futures. Futures contracts are a popular way to speculate on silver prices. They also let you hedge against price movements. Note that futures can be risky, especially if you’re trading on margin.
- ETPs. ETPs are available in most brokerage accounts, making them accessible. Their downsides include potential management fees and tracking errors.
Is silver a good investment?
Whether silver is a good investment depends on various factors. Your investment objectives, time horizon and risk tolerance play major roles in your investment decisions.
Investing in any commodity, including silver, can be risky. Prices are volatile. You should proceed cautiously and do plenty of research before jumping in. That said, silver is one way to diversify a portfolio of mostly stocks and bonds.
Frequently asked questions (FAQs)
Gold is rarer than silver.
A precious metal’s rarity can be understood through its mass fraction. This indicates how much of the metal can be found per billion kilograms of Earth’s crust. Gold is present at four parts per billion, compared to 75 parts per billion for silver.
Investors can gain silver exposure in their IRA through two main methods. One way is by including silver ETPs in their individual retirement account. This method allows investors to have an investment linked to silver without needing physical storage.
Alternatively, investors can use a silver IRA provider to open a specialized IRA that holds physical silver. In this case, the investor’s IRA invests in silver bars or coins stored in a secure, IRS-approved depository.
The process requires choosing a custodian that specializes self-directed IRAs to manage the purchase, storage and security of the physical silver.
