Although it has historically taken a back seat in comparison to its more illustrious cousin, gold, silver has seen a barrage of renewed interest from investors in 2024.
Silver has actually managed to outperform gold the course of the year. At the start of the 2024, the spot price of one troy ounce of silver was $22.98 — by press time, prices had risen to $29.62, equating to a 28.89% year-to-date (YTD) return.
In the same timeframe, gold has netted investors a return of 26.55%. The underlying causes behind both surges are the same — both assets are proven stores of value, and as they’ve provided impressive gains recently, they’ve also drawn the interest of speculative investors.
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The shimmering metal is still far from a relatively recent high of $49 seen in 2011 — with this renewed bull run in full swing, investors are wondering if the commodity can breach that level and conquer new highs. Let’s take a closer look at how likely this is.
The odds of silver reaching $100 in 2025 are slim
For silver to reach $100, current prices would have to surge by 237.60%. The glimmering metal has provided a triple-digit return on an annual basis just once — in 1979, when it netted investors a 434.88% return.
That’s not going to happen again, however — the surge of 1979, also referred to as ‘Silver Thursday’, was caused by three billionaires, the Hunt brothers, trying to corner the market through the use of futures. At one point, they controlled a third of the worldwide silver supply that was not held by national governments.
The plan didn’t work — prices soon collapsed, regulators stepped in, and the Hunts faced civil charges that eventually led to their bankruptcy.
For the sake of comparison, silver’s second-best year, 2010, saw gains of 80.28%. Even if that success were to be replicated, the price of the commodity would only increase to $53.40.
While it is not theoretically impossible for prices to reach such high levels, even accounting for the tailwinds presented by steadily increasing demand for the metal, the possibility remains quite unlikely — there are simply no factors at play that would justify such a drastic move to the upside within a single year.
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