What is the current price of silver per ounce today?
Silver’s price as of 9 a.m. ET was $30.98 per ounce. That’s up 2.55% from the previous day and up 29.47% since the beginning of the year.
The lowest price for the precious metal in the last 24 hours was $30.19 per ounce per ounce. The highest price in the past 24 hours: $31.09 per ounce.
Silver spot price
The spot price refers to the price at which silver can be bought or sold “on the spot,” or immediately. The futures price, however, reflects the price for silver delivered later.
Silver’s spot price in U.S. dollars is denoted as XAG/USD on the foreign exchange market. You can track silver’s spot price in other currencies, including XAG/GBP for British pounds and XAG/EUR for euros. Silver trades 24/7, so its price is always shifting.
12-month silver price chart
This chart shows how silver’s spot price has trended over the last year. The data is updated at 9 a.m. ET and doesn’t have intraday lows or highs.
As of 9 a.m., silver is up 29.47% since the beginning of the year. The 52-week high reached $32.51 on May 19, 2024, and the 52-week low dropped to $20.69 on Oct. 2, 2023.
The spot price of silver represents the current market rate at which silver can be exchanged and immediately delivered. Similar to gold, silver prices can be provided in troy ounces, grams and kilograms. Notably, a troy ounce, the standard unit for quoting silver prices, is slightly heavier than a standard ounce, with one troy ounce equaling 31.103 grams or 1.097 ounces.
The worldwide silver spot price calculation is a complex process, influenced by several factors and majorly impacted by futures contracts rather than physical silver trading.
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 an ounce of gold divided by the price of silver per ounce. As of today, the gold/silver price ratio is 83.39.
This is an important tool for comparing the value of gold to the value of silver over time. A higher ratio means gold is trading at a premium to silver. That can often be a sign of economic uncertainty. A lower ratio means silver prices are gaining on gold prices.
Silver price history
Silver prices hit their historic high of nearly $50 per troy ounce in January 1980. The lowest price was $3.56 per troy ounce in February 1993.
Supply and demand, economic data, currency strength, changes in investment trends, and geopolitical events affect silver prices. Thus, the spot price of silver has experienced significant fluctuations over the years.
1970 – 2005
Silver traded for under $10 per troy ounce in the mid-1970s. It peaked at $49.45 per troy ounce in 1980. By the late 1980s, silver spot prices had fallen back under $10.
2006 – 2024
Silver prices didn’t clear $10 again until 2006.
Another significant period for silver prices came during the Great Recession. The price spiked to about $20 per troy ounce in March 2008. But it slid back below $10 by October that year.
A historic climb followed, with prices clearing $45 an ounce by April 2011.
Silver future prices
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 ETPs
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
Investing in silver can be approached in several ways, each with unique benefits and considerations:
- Bullion. This direct method involves owning physical silver bars and coins. But investors must consider storage and insurance costs, dealer markups, and the bid-ask spread when buying and selling.
- ETPs. These are available in most brokerage accounts and offer a more accessible alternative. But investors face ongoing annual expense ratios and possible tracking errors relative to the spot price of silver. It’s important to note that redeeming shares for physical silver is only sometimes guaranteed.
- Futures.Futures allow for speculation or hedging against price movements. Trading these derivatives is done on margin, making it highly volatile and potentially unpredictable. It requires a thorough understanding of the market and its risks.
Is buying silver a good investment?
Whether silver is a good investment depends on an investor’s objectives, risk tolerance and the specific time considered. For some, silver can be a way to diversify a portfolio that already includes stocks and bonds.
But investors must be aware of several factors: the limitations in accessing silver in different forms, its high volatility, and the potential for extended negative or flat return periods.
It’s also important to understand that investments in silver can experience multiyear troughs and may not always align with broader market trends or inflationary pressures.
Frequently asked questions (FAQs)
Gold is rarer than silver. The rarity of these metals can be understood through their mass fraction, which indicates how much of the metal can be found per billion kilograms of Earth’s crust.
Gold is found at a rate of four parts per billion, while silver is more abundant at 75 parts per billion. This means that while there is a significant amount of gold in the Earth’s crust, it’s much less than silver.
Silver’s effectiveness as a hedge against inflation is mixed and varies by time and location. Some studies indicate that silver does not correlate well with consumer price movements in the U.S. But there has been some correlation in the U.K. market over the long run.
But for a more reliable hedge against inflation, investors might consider other commodities like energy and agricultural products. These often have a more direct and consistent relationship with inflationary trends.
