Live prices
Money tools
Metals · the precious-metals desk
Live spot, the last 24 hours at a glance, and the one number metals people actually trade on — the gold-silver ratio.
Gold-silver ratio
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1 oz of gold buys
— oz of silver
The two tiles above show the live spot price of gold and silver, quoted in US dollars per troy ounce — a troy ounce being about 31.1 grams, slightly heavier than the kitchen ounce you weigh food in. Spot is the price for immediate delivery of the raw metal in the wholesale market, and it’s the figure every dealer, refiner, and chart anchors to. It moves continuously while global markets are open, which is why the numbers here refresh and the 24-hour high and low shift through the day.
Spot moves for a handful of reasons. Gold tends to track real interest rates, the strength of the US dollar, central-bank buying, and demand for a safe haven when markets get nervous. Silver follows many of the same forces but carries heavy industrial demand — solar panels, electronics, batteries — so it swings harder and tends to react to the economic cycle. Like any traded asset, each metal has a bid (what buyers will pay) and an ask (what sellers want); the small gap between them is the spread, and the price you see quoted sits between the two.
One thing spot is not: the price you pay at the coin shop. When you buy a physical coin or bar you pay spot plus a premium that covers minting, distribution, and dealer margin — often a few percent over spot on plain bullion bars and more on popular coins like American Eagles. When you sell back, you usually receive close to spot, or a touch under. Knowing the live spot price first lets you judge whether a dealer’s premium is reasonable.
The headline figure in the panel above is the gold-silver ratio — simply the gold price divided by the silver price, or how many ounces of silver it takes to buy a single ounce of gold. It’s the one number metals investors lean on to judge which metal looks cheap relative to the other, rather than tracking two separate prices in isolation.
A high ratio means silver is cheap against gold; it takes a lot of silver to equal one ounce of gold. Traders often read that as silver having room to catch up. A low ratio is the reverse — gold looks relatively cheap. Over the past century the ratio has mostly lived between roughly 50 and 80, which is the shaded band on the scale above, though modern readings have frequently run higher. When it stretches well past its normal range, contrarian buyers start favoring the cheaper metal, betting the gap will eventually narrow.
Start with the two spot tiles to see where each metal stands and which way it’s moved over the last 24 hours — the small percentage and the high/low give you the day’s range at a glance. Then read the ratio panel: the large number is the ratio itself, the line beneath restates it as “one ounce of gold buys X ounces of silver,” and the marker on the scale shows where today sits against the historical band. The short verdict line translates that position into plain English. Tap through to the dedicated gold and silver pages for full charts and melt values.
Say gold is trading at $2,600 and silver at $30. Divide one by the other — 2,600 ÷ 30 — and you get a ratio of about 87. That’s toward the high end of the historical range, so on the numbers silver looks cheap relative to gold. A trader who believes in mean reversion might read that as a reason to favor silver, expecting the ratio to drift back toward the 50–80 band over time. Plug in the live figures shown above and you can run the same arithmetic yourself; the panel does it for you, but the math is no more complicated than that one division.
The first trap is confusing spot with the retail price. Spot is wholesale; the coin in the case costs more, and the difference is the premium, not a markup you can argue away entirely. The second is treating the ratio as a guaranteed signal. It’s a relative-value gauge, not a timing tool — the ratio can stay stretched for years before it reverts, and “historically cheap” is not the same as “about to rise.” Neither metal pays interest or dividends, so most people treat them as a small diversifier rather than a core holding. None of this is investment advice; it’s context for reading the figures.
The gold-silver ratio is how many ounces of silver it takes to buy one ounce of gold. If gold is $2,600 and silver is $30, the ratio is about 87. It’s the single number metals investors watch to judge which metal looks cheap relative to the other.
Over the last century the ratio has mostly swung between about 50 and 80, averaging in the high 50s. Modern readings have often run higher (80+). A high ratio is read as silver being relatively cheap versus gold; a low ratio, the reverse.
Many use it to decide which metal to favor: a historically high ratio suggests silver may have more room to catch up, a low one favors gold. Some even swap between the two as the ratio reaches extremes. It’s a relative-value gauge, not a timing guarantee.
Gold is far rarer above ground, denser in value, and is held heavily by central banks as a reserve asset. Silver is more abundant and has heavy industrial demand, which makes its price more volatile and tied to the economy.
Spot is the live wholesale price of the raw metal. When you buy a coin or bar you also pay a premium over spot to cover minting, dealer margin and demand — often a few percent on bullion and more on popular coins. When you sell, you typically get close to spot.
Over long periods gold has tended to hold its purchasing power, which is why it’s seen as an inflation and crisis hedge. Over short periods it can be volatile and pays no yield, so most people treat it as a small diversifier rather than a core holding.
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