Poor UK jobs and wages data have undermined the pound, edging silver in sterling terms up above £27 per Troy ounce – it’s highest since the all-time spot-market top above £30 set in spring 2011.
By way of example, that’s taken the value of silver owned by users of leading bullion investment platform BullionVault above £1.0 billion for the first time in the platform’s 20-year history.
Silver had already set new month-average GBP records in February and then March. So, while the current move is dramatic, it comes off a strong underlying uptrend for the industrially useful precious metal.
Silver just keeps making higher highs and higher lows, the Liberation Day down-spike aside. Fellow industrial precious metal platinum has also leapt, peaking above £900 this week, close to its highest in four years.
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So, what’s the story with silver and platinum?
First, “alternatives to gold” is a good fit. The safe-haven precious metal has shot so much higher, so very fast, that hot-money traders both want a new next thing in tangible, shiny investment. And while gold has set record after record since January, the price of silver and platinum remain below their all-time highs, making them look “cheap” in comparison, even if their 2025 performance has now caught up with gold and beaten it year-to-date.
“Under-valued” also works, at least on relative terms again. Yes, the ratio of ‘safe haven’ gold to silver prices has now sunk to 90 from last month’s depression-era highs above 100. But that still makes silver cheaper in terms of gold than all but 3% of all trading days since 1970.
In real terms, adjusted for inflation, silver is still some 30% below its month-average high of April 2011 and two-thirds cheaper than its peak of New Year 1980.
Platinum is worth barely one-half what it was back at its monthly peak of March 2008. So “stockpiling” looks a possible reason for the current leap too, most especially in platinum as heavy imports to China signal re-stocking by the jewellery and auto sectors.
Silver supply is lagging demand globally
The speed and size of silver and platinum’s sudden catch-up with gold mean that both metals may well be due a pause short term. But with silver, like platinum, set for another year of global supply lagging demand, the fundamentals continue to improve even as Trump’s attack on the US trade deficit risks hurting economic growth and sentiment.
Any investor considering the white metals today should note that VAT sales tax applies to new coins or small bars bought for personal possession. Paying that tax would have more than erased silver’s year-to-date gain of 18% for UK investors, and it would have slashed platinum’s 23% rise to less than 3%.
Retail bullion outlets also carry further costs of 10% to 20% or more in the spread between prices to buy and to sell. UK investors can sidestep both that spread and VAT by choosing to own physical silver or platinum inside specialist custody or buying Exchange Traded Funds and housing them in a tax-free wrapper like an ISA.
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