Silver Price Charts

Use the Silver price chart above to determine the current Silver Price in the UK and compare it with it’s Sterling price over various time periods.

As of February 2023, the silver price in GBP was around £19/oz.  Its price has lagged the rise of the gold price over the last few years due to gold’s direct appeal as a safe haven. The world-changing events of Covid, followed by the ensuing economic slowdown and high inflation, has caused a majority of precious metals investment to go to gold. This has widened the gold to silver ratio to a relatively high level of 85:1.

Despite silver somewhat lagging gold’s price, its approximate price rises as at February 2023 have been:

• 5 year + 60%
• 10 year unchanged
• 15 year +112%
• 20 year +550%
• 25 year +360%

Unlike gold prices, the price of silver is influenced by the mining of other commodities including copper. However, as a precious metal, it does (to an extent) follow the trend of gold prices. As a result, investing in silver is seen as a traditional bedfellow to investing in gold and further diversifies an existing investment portfolio. With the recent tumultuous activity of traditional paper assets, physical gold and silver are commonly being seen by many investors as a sensible way to create financial security by balancing an investment portfolio.

Silver is possibly one of the most complicated assets to value and predict. It’s price is impacted by supply & demand and sentiment, just like many other asset classes.

As a precious metal, supply is scarce, providing a great support level to the price, as more silver can’t just be found and made overnight.

But it’s the demand side which is particularly interesting. It can be argued that the silver price has risen in times of economic downturns as investors seek the security of tangible stores of value. Precious metals are perceived as safe haven’s due to their lack of supply and intrinsic value. However, it’s fair to say that silver isn’t quite regarded as the global sage haven in the same way as gold.

The flip side to this argument is that silver’s unparalleled conductive qualities makes it the go-to choice for any electronics. With the digital age upon us, silver is now being used industrially in a growing number of applications including mobile phones, electric switches and solar panels. In times of economic booms, consumption and demand for electronics rises and consequently so does the need for silver.

The silver spot price is based on supply and demand of 1 troy ounce of silver before being minted into a coin or bar. While it represents the price for immediate trade, the market participants strongly factor in future prices and contracts into the equation. This adds an element of future supply and demand to determine the current price.

The spot silver price is an almost constantly moving target, based on supply and demand and anticipated future dynamics. This is quoted in US Dollars, along with the daily silver price fix, derived from an electronic auction. This price is then converted into Sterling to produce the 3 silver spot price. To derive the silver price of coins and bars is more complex. A premium is added to the silver spot price to reflect production costs, desirability and rarity. The premium falls as higher quantities of silver coins or bars are sought. Most silver dealers will now quote a live price, updated every 60 seconds, on their websites.

The silver price should be higher from a precious metals perspective, with gold vastly outperforming it. It should also be trading at a higher price from an industrial usage point of view, especially when compared to other commodities. Price manipulation is the most obvious answer. Warren Buffet profited from creating an artificial shortage in 1998 and now it seems JP Morgan could be controlling the price.

With JP Morgan selling vast quantities of futures contracts, pushing prices lower is enabling them to continually accumulate silver at bargain prices. So far they’ve accumulated around 675 million ounces, 6 times the amount Buffet held in 1998. With a weakening Dollar, every other commodity has increased in value. Silver has been left behind, but when JP Morgan begins to unravel the manipulation, it’s likely to soar.

The current silver price per gram is around 60 pence, as of February 2023. The live price can be seen at the top of the website. This is the live spot price of silver. It’s derived from the US Dollar spot price per troy ounce, then converted into grams and finally into Sterling. This represents a benchmark rate from where physical silver is priced from.

Supply and demand make the silver price go up. As demand increases from industrial use and investment requirements, prices move up as supply is limited. Market sentiment also plays a role. If concerns over a global recession increase, then so does the demand for silver, pushing up the price. Silver futures traded on markets such as COMEX have a large impact on prices, with trading reflecting expectations of price increases or falls.

The highest natural silver price was in April 2011 when it reached $48.70, during the credit crunch and ensuing global recession. In Sterling terms, the peak was in the following July when prices hit 325 an ounce. The silver price hit an all-time high in 1979/1980 of just under $50 an ounce. This was due to market manipulation by a set of brothers by the name of Hunt. They focussed on both physical silver and futures to artificially move the market in their favour. After missing a margin call in 1980, the price plummeted to $11 an ounce.

The silver price doubled in 6 months by the time it reached April 2011 and $50 an ounce. The main driver of this steep price increase was the ongoing global credit crunch and bank crisis. After 2008’s mortgage market losses, 2011 threatened a European breakup with the ‘PIG’ members threatening bankruptcy. Silver prices benefited from safe-haven demand, combined with projections of silver shortages due to industrial usage of silver in the solar panel industry.

The silver price will receive a huge boost now the current equity market bull run has comes to an end. After a decade of stock market gains, a market correction was overdue and the post-Covid inflation figures have expedited this process. As a safe haven asset, silver will benefit from increased demand during a market downturn, pushing up its price. The precise timing of this is unknown, but recent job losses, high street closures and major company bankruptcies suggest it will be in the next 12 to 18 months.

The silver price is likely to rise from its current position as it benefits from two possible areas of demand. As the most conductive metal on earth, it’s the go-to choice for the electronics industry. In our technological age, constant increases in electronics will further increase industrial demand for silver due to its many uses.

With stock markets selling off in light of global interest rate hikes, the silver price will likely continue rising due to safe-haven demand. Investors fear losses during market downturns and switch their attentions to precious metals, pushing up prices of silver. If the suspected silver price manipulation eventually unravels, there are projections that the silver to gold ratio will close from current levels of 85:1 to its long term average of 15:1, dragging up the silver price in the process.

The silver price reached an all-time high of just under $50 an ounce in late 1979 and into 1980 after the Hunt brothers successfully cornered the silver market. They mopped up both silver futures and physical silver in an attempt to propel prices upwards. This soon collapsed in the spring of 1980 when the brothers overstretched and failed to meet a margin call. Prices quickly fell to $11/ounce.

The spot silver price is the price of silver for immediate delivery before being manufactured into individual bars or coins. The market is open (and the spot price fluctuates) on a near to 24-hour basis as silver is traded over-the-counter (OTC) rather than within set exchange times. In 2015 the London Gold Fix was replaced by the LBMA Gold Price which is a daily spot price fixing derived from an electronic auction.

Over the long term, silver has proved to increase in value, albeit with spikes and troughs along the way. With its current undervaluation, especially compared with the gold price, it is more likely to rise from its current price than fall. The extent of future price rises will depend on the timeframe, industrial demand, the global economy and whether price manipulation is unwound.

Silver price forecasts vary dramatically from analyst to analyst. Many believe price forecasts for silver are bullish with its undervaluation being realised with strong price increases. More visionary market participants predict massive silver price increases due to unforeseen events caused by the rapidly evolving digital age and our growing exposure to intangible risk.

With the primary aim of silver investment being capital appreciation, price forecasts and tools could help in the timing of your purchase and sale.

The Sterling silver price is around £19/oz as of February 2023. This spot price of silver is a benchmark from where various physical silver items are priced. Higher quantities of silver coins and bars can be purchased closer to the benchmark silver price than single items. Silver coins and bars are sold close to the spot price.

The silver price could continue to fall for an indeterminate period. Much of the silver found comes as a by-product of mining for alternative metals. With continued supply, sentiment could push silver towards 311-12/oz. However, the silver price can never fall towards zero like paper assets due to its intrinsic value. As a physical metal, there will always be a price the market will pay for silver, especially with its many industrial uses. The current digital age continually produces new electronic demands of silver which will prevent the price from falling too low.

It’s very possible that the silver price could go considerably higher to levels of $100 an ounce or more. Its current gold ratio signifies that its price has huge upside potential and represents very good value. Suspicions of JP Morgan controlling the market could prevent the price from reaching these highs, but similarly, the current price suppression could be unwound, propelling the price skywards. With its unrivalled conductivity, the silver price could be propelled upwards with increasing industrial demand for silver. Some analysts predict silver could reach incredible highs of $300 or $500!

It’s possible that the silver price could fall further from its current level. There’s no fixed ‘floor’ to the price, so in theory, the price of silver is free to fall and rise with supply and demand. Most analysts, even those bearish on silver, only anticipate a limited potential fall to around $11/oz. However, the upside potential is huge with many market participants expecting silver to increase by multiples of its current price. The biggest factor protecting the silver price from dropping too much is its tangible nature. Unlike paper assets like stocks, which can be deemed worthless overnight, physical silver benefits from an intrinsic value which prevents it from ever becoming of no value.

It’s difficult to predict ‘what ifs?’, but a majority of silver buyers and sellers suspect the price is artificially low, in the same way, it was manipulated upwards in the late 1970s. The silver market is far smaller than its gold counterpart, so the scope for manipulation is high. On a simple calculation, if silver was to naturally trade at it’s historical ratio to gold of around 15:1, then its current price would be around $360/oz, a 500% increase on its current ‘manipulated price’.

The dynamic between silver and inflation has evolved. For the first 175 years of silver price tracking, its value remained relatively constant as it was predominantly controlled by Western Governments as it was the preferred choice for coinage. This has changed over the past 50 years as only small quantities of silver are now used in currency, while fiat money supply has increased at a far greater pace than actual economic growth. During this period silver hasn’t consistently kept pace with inflation and has witnessed periods of declines, non-movement and spikes.

Silver currently trades around 5 times higher than the copper price. The two don’t trade completely together so this ratio can vary over various periods. Both are used industrially and frequently both are mined together, with silver discoveries occurring as a consequence of copper mining.

Generally, both stock markets and silver prices will rise over the long term. Recent years have witnessed tremendous stock market growth, coming soon after the 2008 credit crunch and global recession. In the same period, the silver price increased dramatically from 2010 – 2012 and has fallen away somewhat since. Rather than considering silver and equity markets as two mutually exclusive asset classes, we feel both can work in tandem.

All assets experience cycles so by owning physical silver and stocks, the downsides can be diluted, with silver performing well when stocks flounder. Most analysts anticipate a stock market crash in the next year or so, which would likely propel precious metals prices skywards.

Generally speaking, the silver price will rise with the oil price. With many of the oil-producing nations being situated in areas of conflict, an increasing oil price is sometimes a reflection of rising political tensions. Safe havens such as silver and gold tend to benefit in such circumstances, with increased demand pushing up the price of silver. High oil prices can also increase inflation and put pressure on global economies due to higher transport costs. Both can boost silver prices. Clearly, this isn’t a hard and fast rule, but more a common occurrence.

One of the most talked-about aspects of the silver price is it’s changing ratio to that of gold’s price. The fascination of this ratio stems from a significant change in recent years, coupled with the knowledge of the history of silver investment that the price ratio has been steady for decades previously. Both suggest that silver is significantly undervalued. As of 2023, the Silver to Gold price ratio stands around 85:1. This compares to an average of 47:1 over the past century and a modest 15:1 historically.

Silver’s price is far more erratic than gold’s, so its comparison to the US Dollar is more difficult. While the silver price has witnessed extreme peaks and troughs, the Dollar has steadily depreciated as more money supply has weakened its value. As a store of wealth and hedge against a declining Dollar, gold represents a more obvious choice, while silver offers higher risk-takers the opportunity for higher returns.

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