Silver Price Chart
Silver price per ounce, gram & kilo

What is a Spot Price?

The spot price of silver is the current price that one unit of silver can be bought and sold for immediate delivery. In other words, the spot price of silver is the price of silver today. Like other financial assets such as stocks, bonds, currencies and commodities, the spot price of silver fluctuates throughout the week.

Unlike a stock, which has a ticker symbol, the price of silver is often calculated from a futures contract price on the Commodities Exchange, or COMEX. A futures contract is a contract for delivery of silver at a future month. As a result, calculations are made to the futures price to determine the spot price or the price of silver today.

Silver Price in Ounces, Grams and Kilos

Depending on which country you are located in, the silver price is typically quoted in troy ounces, grams or kilos. Fortunately, it is easy to convert the silver price from one unit to another with the following conversion table.

In the United States, the silver price is typically quoted as a troy ounce. If the silver price were $25 USD per troy ounce and you wanted to convert the price to kilos, you would simply take the $25 price and multiply it by 32.150743 to get roughly $804 per kilo. Similarly, if you wanted to convert the price to grams, you would take the $25 and divide it by 31.103478 to get roughly $0.80 per gram.

Avoirdupois Ounce vs Troy Ounce

Not all ounces are the same. When people say "ounce" in their day to day lives, they are typically referring to the avoirdupois ounce, which is an Ancient Roman unit of measurement of approximately 28.3 grams. A troy ounce, on the other hand, is a unit of measurement used for precious metals dating back to the middle ages in Troyes, France. A troy ounce is heavier than an avoirdupois ounce and weighs approximately 31.1 grams.

An investor should note that when the silver price, gold price or platinum price is quoted in "ounces", the "ounce" refers to the troy ounce and not the avoirdupois ounce. In addition, the most popular silver coins and silver bars, such as the Silver American Eagle, Silver Maple Leaf, and APMEX Silver Bar, are weighted in troy ounces and will state their weight in "ounce" or "oz".

Silver Price in Different Currencies

Whether you're in North America, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Australia or another part of the world, there will likely be demand for silver in your country. Silver will have the same "spot price" in different countries around the world. What will change is the currency that the spot price is quoted in.

Fortunately, if you have the spot price of silver in one currency, it is easy to calculate the spot price in another currency if you have an exchange rate. For example, let's say the silver price is $25 USD and the EUR/USD exchange rate is 1.17. To calculate the silver spot price in Euros, you would simply take the $25 USD price and divide it by 1.17 to arrive at €21.37.

What is Silver?

If you look up "silver" in a dictionary or encyclopedia, you will likely get something like silver is a chemical element with symbol Ag and atomic number 47. Unfortunately, this is not very useful for an investor. For investors, silver is a commodity. Investors may choose to own commodities for a variety of reasons, including getting exposure to another asset class, diversification, or speculation.

What Makes Silver Valuable?

At over $20 an ounce in 2021, silver by weight is one of the most expensive metals. Why do investors value silver so highly? The reason is demand.

The US Dollar can be viewed as a just a piece of paper or digits on a computer screen. Similarly, silver can be viewed as just a shiny piece of metal. The US Dollar has value because people around the world want it. Without this global demand, the US Dollar would have no value. Similarly, countries and societies around the world want silver as well. This demand is what drives the price of silver.

The demand for silver began at the dawn of civilization. Since silver must be extracted from the earth and cannot be manufactured at will, people used precious metals to store their wealth due to their limited supply. This practice has continued throughout history and still to today. With silver being traded on the global market with no single country controlling it, silver's purchasing power has remained stable in the face of inflation.

But I can't spend my silver.

One of the common arguments against silver is "I can't spend my silver." Just because you cannot spend your silver, does not mean it does not have value. If you were in the United States and had Euros, you would not be able to spend them. But your Euros are definitely not worthless. Your Euros can easily be converted into US Dollars, which can be spent anywhere in the United States. Similarly, silver can easily be converted into any major currency in the world to be spent.

What Determines the Silver Price?

The demand for silver primarily comes from two areas, industrial and investment.

• Industrial Demand: About half of the annual silver supply is used in industrial applications. Silver is second only to oil in the amount of industrial applications used for our day-to-day conveniences
  • Photography and Solar Panels: As the most reflective metal, there is a high demand for silver for industrial purposes. Several decades ago, before digital cameras, silver's reflective properties were needed for photography. Today, silver is commonly used in the photovoltaic or solar energy industry.
  • Electronics: In addition to being the most reflective metal, silver is also the most highly conductive metal. As a result, silver is frequently used in electronics.
  • Medicine: Silver also has unique anti-bacterial properties, which makes it in demand from the medical industry. Silver is used to cure infections and prevent biological growth.
• Investment: The other half of silver's demand is for investment.
  • Alternative to Gold: With the gold price near $2,000 and the silver price being a fraction of the gold price, many investors turn to silver as an alternative precious metal.

What is the Gold Silver Ratio?

When deciding to purchase silver, some investors look at the gold silver ratio. The gold silver ratio is simply the gold price divided by the silver price. In other words, it is how many ounces of silver an ounce of gold can purchase.

Investors look at this metric to determine whether silver is undervalued or overvalued compared to gold. The idea is when the gold silver ratio is high, silver is undervalued and when the gold silver ratio is low, silver is overvalued. In the last several decades, the gold silver ratio has hit a low of 16 in 1980 and 32 in 2011. It also hit a high of 125 in 2020.

Some investors even trade the gold silver ratio to accumulate more ounces of precious metals. To do this, these investors sell gold and buy silver when the gold silver ratio is high. They will then sell silver and buy gold when the ratio is low.

Should I purchase gold or silver?

One of the reasons investors may purchase silver over gold is due to silver's volatility. Historically, gold and silver have been correlated assets, meaning they will typically increase in price and decrease in price at the same time.

Although they are correlated, an investor will not see the same gains and losses when investing in gold and silver. Silver has a higher investment beta than gold, meaning that it is more volatile. For example, let's assume the gold price increased by 1% during a trading session. The silver price would have likely increased by 2% during the same trading session. Similarly, if the gold price decreased by 1% in a trading session, the silver price would have likely decreased by 2%.

Due to silver's high volatility, investors who believe in owning precious metals often look towards silver because they believe it has more upside than gold.

What is the Silver Squeeze Movement?

Since 2013, the silver price has traded in a range between the mid-teens on the low side to the low 20s on the high side. Unlike gold, which made an all time high in 2020, silver did not make an all time high. This has led many investors to claim that the silver price is being artificially suppressed by traders and large banks, who hold a short position of silver that they do not physically possess.

The goal of the silver squeeze movement is to purchase as much silver as possible. The thought of the movement is this will force the traders to cover their short positions of silver. With a large amount of short covering, the silver price will likely spike upwards.

Is Silver a Good Investment in 2021?

Unfortunately, no one knows where the price of any asset will go in the short, medium and long term. It is possible that the silver price could increase. It is also possible that the silver price could decrease. However, this does not mean you should not buy silver.

Many seasoned investors believe in having an allocation to precious metals. As a negatively correlated asset to the S&P500 and dollar, holding an allocation of precious metals and silver may reduce an investor's portfolio volatility.

How do I Start Investing in Silver?

There are many ways to buy silver, such as physical metals, mining stocks, futures contracts, exchange traded funds (ETFs) and vaulted / digital precious metals. We have outlined more about each way to buy silver and the pros and cons of each option in our 5 Ways to Buy Gold and Buy Silver article.

What is OneGold?

OneGold is an online platform founded by APMEX and Sprott that allows users to buy, sell and own vaulted positions of physical precious metals. We offer gold, silver and platinum stored in various vaults around the world, including the US, Canada, Switzerland and the UK. If you want to take possession of your metal, you can redeem your positions for any of the 20,000+ products available at APMEX and your metal will be shipped the next business day.

OneGold offers the benefits of owning physical silver without any of the downsides. All positions are fully backed on an ounce for ounce basis. Metal is fully insured against theft and loss at secured facilities at Brinks, Loomis, The Royal Canadian Mint and APMEX. OneGold also offers the liquidity of an exchange traded fund (ETF) and pricing that is much more competitive than buying physical bullion bars and coins. If you want to dollar cost average into silver and silver like a corporate 401K plan, OneGold offers an AutoInvest feature where you can buy a set amount of silver and silver at regular intervals.