Gold vs Silver: 20 Years of Swings and the Gold/Silver Ratio
Gold and silver are both precious metals traded as futures, funds and bullion, and they usually rise and fall together. The difference is the size of the moves: from 2006 to 2026 the silver fund SLV was 1.84 times as volatile as the gold fund GLD, and its deepest fall, 76.3%, was far larger than GLD's 45.6%.
Gold and silver are usually mentioned in the same breath, and in a large study of trading videos they mostly are: of 54 titles that pair the two metals, only 2 set them against each other as a choice. The daily record shows why they belong in the same sentence, since they move together, and why they are not interchangeable: silver’s moves are far larger, and the ratio between their prices wanders a long way.
What each one is
Gold is the steadier of the two precious metals. It trades as COMEX futures, as funds such as SPDR Gold Shares (GLD), and as bars and coins. The gold page covers it as a long-term holding and gold trading covers it as a trading instrument.
Silver trades the same three ways: COMEX futures, funds such as the iShares Silver Trust (SLV), and physical metal. The silver page covers what one SLV share holds and how silver futures are specified.
Both are quoted in dollars per troy ounce, which is what makes a ratio between the two prices possible. Physical metal adds a dealer spread on top of either price, which the bullion page measures.
Where they differ
Size of the moves. From 28 Apr 2006, the first day both funds traded, to 24 Sep 2026, GLD’s annualized volatility was 18.4% while SLV’s was 33.8%. SLV moved 5% or more in a day 163 times; GLD did so 17 times.
Depth of the falls. GLD’s deepest decline ran from its 22 Aug 2011 close to 17 Dec 2015 and took 45.6% off. SLV’s ran from 28 Apr 2011 to 18 Mar 2020 and took 76.3% off, nearly nine years from top to bottom rather than four.
How closely they track. The daily returns had a correlation of 0.798. Silver rarely falls hard alone: on the 85 days when SLV fell 5% or more, GLD also fell on 84 of them, usually by far less.
The same bad day, at different sizes. Both funds had their worst session on 30 Jan 2026. GLD fell 10.3%, and SLV fell 28.5%, two days after its record close.
The gold/silver ratio
The ratio is ounces of silver per ounce of gold: the gold price divided by the silver price. When it rises, silver is lagging gold; when it falls, silver is catching up. It is a relative measure, so it can rise while both metals fall.
It has no fixed level to return to. Across the 6,540 days both futures closed from 30 Aug 2000 to 24 Sep 2026, it spent 22.0% of days above 80 and 6.2% below 50, and the middle 80% of days fell between 52.0 and 86.3. Reading a “normal” ratio into that range means picking a period, and the answer changes with the period picked.
A worked example
Reading the ratio on one day. On 24 Sep 2026 gold futures closed at $4,298.00 and silver futures at $63.457. The ratio is $4,298.00 divided by $63.457, or 67.73: one ounce of gold was worth 67.73 ounces of silver.
The same arithmetic at the extremes. On 18 Mar 2020 gold closed at $1,477.30 and silver at $11.735, a ratio of 125.89. On 25 Apr 2011 the figures were $1,508.60 and $47.151, a ratio of 32.0. Gold’s price was almost the same on those two days; nearly the whole difference was silver.
A hypothetical $10,000 in each fund on 28 Apr 2006. At the 24 Sep 2026 close, the GLD holding was worth about $60,180 and the SLV holding about $41,720, price changes of 501.8% and 317.2%, with fund costs already inside the prices and taxes left out. Over those 20 years the more volatile metal returned less, and it got there with a 76.3% fall along the way.
Which one to use
Use gold when the depth of the worst decline matters most, as in a long-term holding. Its deepest fall on this record was 45.6% against silver’s 76.3%, and its volatility was a little over half of silver’s.
Use silver when you want larger moves for a shorter trade and can size the position for them. With 1.84 times the volatility, an equal dollar amount in silver carries far more day-to-day risk than it would in gold, so the same risk budget buys a smaller position.
Use the ratio as a description, not a signal. It tells you how silver has done relative to gold. It has run from 32.0 to 125.89 in this century, and none of the data here says where it goes next or which metal will rise.
The original data
The data: every daily close for gold futures (GC=F) and silver futures (SI=F) from Yahoo Finance, 30 Aug 2000 to 24 Sep 2026, and every daily close for GLD and SLV from 28 Apr 2006, downloaded on 25 Sep 2026. The 25 Sep session was still open, so the series end on 24 Sep. The ratio for each day is published as a CSV of the gold/silver ratio.
The ratio’s two extremes came almost nine years apart. The low of 32.0 on 25 Apr 2011 fell three days before SLV’s record high of that era, and the high of 125.89 on 18 Mar 2020 fell on the very day SLV hit the bottom of its 76.3% decline. The median across all 6,540 days was 68.4. In 2026 alone the ratio ran from 44.16 on 26 Jan to 71.72 on 17 Jul, a range of more than 27 points inside seven months.
Why the extremes line up with silver’s swings. Gold’s price changed little between the two extreme days, so the ratio mostly traces silver. When silver runs ahead, the ratio drops; when silver collapses, it climbs. That makes the ratio a compact record of silver’s volatility measured in gold, rather than a separate market with a pull of its own.
Both funds, side by side. The fund figures come from different instruments than the ratio: GLD and SLV hold metal in trust, while the ratio uses futures. The summary below is published as a CSV of the GLD and SLV figures, recomputed from the same daily closes.
In the 24,971-video search study, 54 titles pair gold with silver, from 45 channels, at a median of 1,383 views. Only 2 of them frame the two as a choice with “vs”; the rest discuss the two metals together.
When it fails
Treating silver as a cheaper gold fails. A lower price per ounce says nothing about value. The two behave differently: silver’s deepest fall on this record was 76.3% against gold’s 45.6%, and on 30 Jan 2026 silver lost 28.5% in a day.
Trading the ratio back to an average fails when the average is chosen after the fact. The ratio stayed above 80 on 22.0% of days since 2000 and reached 125.89 in 2020. A trade entered at 80 on the belief that it must fall could have watched it climb another 45 points first.
Comparing futures closes with fund closes fails. GC=F and SI=F follow the front futures contract, which rolls, while GLD and SLV hold metal and charge a fee. That is why the ratio here uses futures and the volatility and drawdown figures use the funds, and why neither should be spliced onto the other.
Assuming they diversify each other fails. A correlation of 0.798 and 84 of 85 heavy silver falls matched by gold falls say the two are one exposure at two sizes, not two separate bets.
And the figures age. Every number here ends on 24 Sep 2026. The 2026 swings alone moved the ratio from 44.16 to 71.72, so a statistic quoted months later without its end date may no longer describe the metals at all.
Related
The silver page covers how silver is traded and what an SLV share holds, while gold covers the steadier metal as a long-term holding and gold trading covers it as a trading market. Bullion measures the dealer spread that physical metal adds on top of both prices.
Size a silver position from its own swings, not from gold’s. I set the amount so that a 5% day in silver costs what I would accept on a normal gold day, because on this record silver moved that much on 163 days and gold on 17.
— Michael Whitman
This page is educational, not financial advice. Test every idea on your own charts before risking money.