On Thursday in London, silver prices surged sharply, reaching their highest level against the US Dollar in 13 years. The precious metal climbed above $36 per Troy ounce, significantly outperforming gold and compressing the Gold-to-Silver price ratio, despite ongoing signs of weakness in global economic data.
Copper prices also rose to a two-month high, while crude oil prices remained steady at levels near the four-year lows seen in late March.
In equity markets, Japanese stocks fell, but Chinese and European shares edged higher. Meanwhile, Western government bond prices increased, pushing down long-term borrowing costs. This followed the European Central Bank’s expected cut to Eurozone interest rates, prompted by weak consumer and factory-gate inflation figures for May.
Silver’s midday price jumped 4.2% from Wednesday’s LBMA benchmark auction in London. This marked the sharpest one-day gain since October 21, 2024, when gold hit all-time highs ahead of the US presidential election and silver surpassed $34 per ounce for the first time in 12 years.
Thursday’s rally pushed silver to its highest price since February 2012. This surge caused the Gold-to-Silver ratio — which measures gold’s value relative to silver — to fall sharply to about 94. This is a drop of 10 points from the post-Covid peak of over 100, which coincided with gold’s record Dollar high near $3,500 in late April.
The ratio also hit its lowest level since April 2, 2018, when then-US President Trump announced his “Liberation Day” trade tariffs. That announcement had triggered a brief but sharp drop in industrial commodities and global stock markets.
Rhona O’Connell, a bullion-market expert at StoneX brokerage, noted there was “no specific reason for silver’s rise” but suggested that the metal’s recent underperformance compared to gold might be encouraging ratio-based trading now that silver has fallen below the 100 mark.
Since August 2022, silver prices have doubled in US Dollar terms, closely following gold’s 109% gain with a 104% increase. Year-on-year, silver’s price rose 21% as of Thursday, although this growth rate is below the 24.6% seen last month and the 40.2% peak recorded in late March.
Trading volume in the July Comex silver futures contract surged to match the levels seen at Monday’s New York market opening, when the price also rose by more than $1.
In British Pounds, silver peaked Thursday at £26.53 per Troy ounce, over £2 higher than last weekend, though still 30 pence below the 13-year high recorded last October. Euro silver prices reached a 10-week high of €31.51 per ounce, but remained 2.4% below the record set last October.
Before the tariff-driven slowdown in global growth forecasts, silver had hit record average monthly highs in both Pounds and Euros in February.
Meanwhile, gold briefly climbed above $3,400 per Troy ounce — a four-week high — while platinum rose to $1,138 in spot trading. Platinum’s price hit its highest level since March 2022, when palladium prices spiked above $3,400 amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
O’Connell explained that the platinum market remains very tight, with high borrowing costs following price spikes during London’s recent Platinum Week events. She added that strong physical demand from investors in the Middle and Far East is supporting prices. At the same time, London banks are cautious about hedging in New York futures markets due to concerns about US trade tariffs.
Palladium also increased alongside platinum and silver, reaching a two-week high of $1,025.
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