What it is
Silver: what is measured, and why it matters
What it measures
The monthly average price, in US dollars per troy ounce.
Why it matters
Like gold it is a precious metal, but about half of demand comes from industry (electronics, solar panels), so it responds to both the business cycle and safe-haven demand, and it usually swings more than gold.
Monthly average of the London afternoon fixing; before July 1976, Handy & Harman quotes.
Where it stands now
Position over time
coldcoolneutralwarmhotHatched = earlier periods that were also hot
When it was here before
Earlier hot periods (2), plus the current one
Silver after it began, cumulative1 yr2 yr3 yr
- Nov 1979–Jan 198115-month period, hot throughout · 1980 Oil crisis1 yr+11.4%2 yr−49.1%3 yr−41.3%
- Jan 2006–Dec 201284-month period, hot in 70 of those months · 2008 Financial crisis, 2009 Market bottom and 2011 Euro debt crisis1 yr+40.7%2 yr+74.7%3 yr+24.2%
- Jul 2025–now15-month period, hot throughoutStill under way
For each period, the changes 1, 2 and 3 years after it began are cumulative and measured from its first month; “What happened next” is measured from every hot month, so the two give different numbers. The events named beside each period are major events of that time, not necessarily related to the readings here.
What happened nextSample too small to draw conclusions (past hot months: 85; market episodes: 2).
Has hot or cold lined up with later returns?
No clear link in the past
1979–2021: average yearly change in Silver over the next 5 years
There is no clear relationship between hot or cold and what came next. The gaps between the bars are not consistent across months (rank correlation below 0.25); this is a record of the past, not a forecast.
What it is linked to
Links involving Silver
No tested links currently involve this indicator.
Values
Values over time
Data and sources
Where the data come from and how they are calculated
- Source
- World Bank Pink Sheet (CC BY 4.0)
- Frequency
- Monthly
- Positions start
- Nov 1979
- Method
- Ratio: this month ÷ the 10-year average; position = the percentile of this ratio within its own history
- Unit
- USD/troy oz
- License
- Open license, with attribution