Silver to Gold Ratio for Last 5 Years

Silver : Gold Ratio

The silver : gold ratio tells us the proportional relationship between the silver price and gold price or, in other words, how many ounces of gold it is possible to buy with one ounce of silver. It is not a fixed ratio, and fluctuates constantly depending on the metals' current prices. While some of the same factors, namely inflation and the performance of the global economy, influence their prices, they don’t always change at the same rate. As such this ratio has changed a lot throughout history.

5 Year Ratio

Silver is certainly the more volatile of the two metals. Although it has always been cheaper than gold, the extent to which this is the case has varied wildly throughout time. Looking at the 5 year silver : gold ratio gives us an excellent example of this. In mid-2011, when the prices for both silver and gold peaked, the ratio was around 0.031, meaning that silver was approximately 30 times cheaper than gold. Just 5 years later, in early 2016, that ratio now stands close to 0.015, making silver nearly 80 times cheaper.

The chart is a useful tool for investors, as it can give them a important insight into which of the metals is better value for money at any given moment. We can see from the 5 year chart that silver has become incredibly cheap compared to gold and, with silver's volatile nature taken into account, could quickly become much more expensive in a more bullish precious metals market.