Silver price corrects 4% within 24 hours – what does that mean?
Silver swings harder than gold – that is not an exception but a property. What a correction of a few per cent really means for what you end up holding.
Why silver moves more sharply than gold
Silver is half investment, half commodity. Roughly half of demand comes from industry: solar panels, electronics, contacts, medical applications. Gold goes almost entirely into investment and jewellery.
That industrial side makes silver sensitive to the business cycle. If less is produced, demand falls – while investment demand for gold in the same circumstances may actually rise.
On top of that comes the size of the market. In money terms the silver market is a fraction of the gold market, and in a smaller market the same order sets off a larger movement. Four per cent in a day is therefore not a shock for silver but a normal swing.
What 4% actually is
Percentages sound more dramatic than they are in euros. At a silver rate of around 1.62 euros per gram, 4% is about 6.5 cents per gram.
- A silver ducat of 28 grams: about 1.80 euros difference.
- A complete canteen of cutlery of 2 kilos: about 130 euros difference.
- A kilo of fine silver: about 65 euros difference.
With an average parcel of jewellery or cutlery it therefore often comes to a few tens of euros. With a large parcel of bars it does add up.
Wait or not? We give no advice on rates – nobody knows where silver will stand tomorrow. What we can do is show you where the rate stands today, and how it moved this week and this month. That course is on the silver rate page.
Selling silver pays off from a certain quantity onwards
Because silver is worth little per gram in relation to gold, the processing weighs more heavily. A single silver ring therefore yields little; a full canteen of cutlery or a parcel of coins is another story.
If you are in doubt whether it is worth the trouble, bring it along when your gold is valued. Weighing costs us nothing, and you know at once where you stand.
- Troy ounce, gram and carat: the units side by sideThe world market reckons in troy ounces, your scales in grams and your jewellery in carats. With these three conversions you can check any offer yourself.Read on
- Krugerrand, Maple Leaf or Philharmonic: which one sells fastest?All three contain exactly one troy ounce of fine gold. What you get for them still differs – that lies in how well known they are, the fineness and how easily they scratch.Read on
- How does a buyer check whether gold is real?Magnet, acid test, specific gravity and X-ray. What each method does and does not prove – and why a stamp alone is never enough.Read on
Questions about silver price corrects 4% within 24 hours
Does a fall mean I had better wait?
Nobody knows. We deliberately give no advice on rates, because the direction of the silver price is not something we or anyone else can predict. What you can do is look at the course on our silver rate page, where the day, the week, the month and the year are all shown.
Why is silver so much more volatile than gold?
Two reasons: roughly half of silver demand comes from industry and therefore moves with the business cycle, and the silver market in money terms is far smaller than the gold market, where the same order sets off a larger movement. Together those two make four per cent in a day a normal swing.
Does the daily rate apply to plated cutlery as well?
No. Plated cutlery, often stamped EPNS, has a thin layer of silver over a base core and has hardly any material value. Solid silver carries a fineness stamp, usually 800, 833, 835 or 925. If you are unsure, bring it along and we will check the stamp for you.
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