Silver and gold are among the asset classes that have seen particularly strong gains in 2025. Although there are still a few trading days to go before the end of the year, a very positive conclusion can already be drawn, as both gold and silver are currently trading very close to their all-time highs.
The gold price has formed several new all-time highs in 2025, while silver only managed to form a new all-time high in the fourth quarter. Subsequently, a consolidation set in, but this has already been overcome, at least in the case of silver, with the breakout above $54 and the subsequent rise to a new all-time high just below $59.
While gold has been in focus throughout the year, many investors only became aware of silver in the last two months. The reason is as simple as it is obvious: Although the price of silver has almost doubled over the last twelve months, the highest gains were only achieved in the last two months. It is therefore not surprising that many retail investors only became aware of silver relatively late in the year.
Many investors are only discovering silver now
Silver was helped by the fact that gold, while it was taking off, no longer made any major price jumps or was even still caught in a correction. The renewed interest of investors in silver can also be seen in the inflows into the exchange-traded gold and silver ETFs. In the first week of December, when silver advanced into the $58 to $59 per ounce range and formed a new all-time high there, holdings of silver-backed ETFs rose by almost 590 tonnes!
This enormous inflow in one week signals investors’ confidence in silver and at the same time shows that the rally still has further upside potential. With inflows of almost one billion US dollars, the iShares Silver Trust, as the largest silver ETF, rose to its highest level since the beginning of 2021. At that time, silver had briefly attracted the attention of meme stock traders and made a rapid rise from slightly above 20 to just under 30 US dollars.
It is also worth noting that inflows into silver ETFs in the first week of December were greater than the simultaneous inflows into gold ETFs. This enormous approval also took place at a time when the historic short squeeze in London is now over and only its after-effects are being digested by the market. The crisis in London has eased due to additional metal deliveries from other vaults.
The supply situation remains tense
This additional silver initially eased the situation in London and thus took the pressure off the market. In London, but also at other trading venues, including Shanghai, silver warehouses are still extremely empty. The metal exchange in Shanghai currently reports inventories at their lowest level in ten years. For investors, this means that the delivery situation for silver is still to be regarded as tense, which should continue to put pressure on the price.
Mike McGlone, Senior Commodity Strategist at Bloomberg Intelligence, recently pointed out how tense the situation is for silver, as the silver price is currently recording the most extreme deviation from this average since 1979, with a premium of 82 percent compared to the five-year average.
