Silver Investing 'Goes Mainstream' at Record Ex-Dollar Prices
Friday, 3/07/2025 19:37
The Economist magazine spots silver supply deficit...
With SILVER PRICES setting fresh record highs outside the US Dollar, investing in the precious metal "is inching towards the mainstream" reports
The Economist magazine as leading analysts forecast a wide deficit of supply to meet global demand for the 5th year running.
Yet another new record for silver industrial demand will help offset weaker jewelry purchases – dented by silver's strong price rise – according to analysis from specialist consultancy Metals Focus for the Washington-based Silver Institute.
Like silver's industrial and other productive uses – led by "ongoing structural gains in green economy applications" such as
silver's solar energy technology – silver bullion investing is forecast to rise 3% by weight in 2025, the Silver Institute says. Because "as Western investors adjust to new price levels, fresh investment is expected to improve, and profit-taking will also ease."
Mining output will rise 2% and scrap recycling will rise 5% on Metals Focus' outlook,
cutting the gap between total supply and global demand by 1/5th but "still sizeable historically".
Setting its highest annual average price since 2012 at $28.20 per Troy ounce last year, silver bullion set a new all-time annual high in UK Pounds and the Euro at £22.10 and €26.13.
Silver in February then set a new month-average nominal high in Pounds Sterling at £25.68 –topping April 2011 by 1 penny – and set its highest Euro-equivalent average since the historic peak of New Year 1980 (based on the Deutsche Mark conversion rate) at €30.91 per ounce.
That still left the precious metal far below those tops after accounting for inflation, at barely 1/3rd the month-average value of January 1980 in real terms.
For 2025, twenty-four of the 25 analysts entering their silver-price prediction into this year's
LBMA Forecast Survey are bullish. The other projects that silver's average price will match 2024's decade record in Dollar terms and also foresees an intra-year peak above $40, almost 25% higher than current levels.
"Silver is to outperform all precious metals in 2025," says the LBMA survey's most bullish silver forecaster, strategist Nicky Shiels at Swiss bullion refining and finance group MKS Pamp.
Predicting an average price of $36.50 per ounce – higher than silver's nominal 2011 record of $35.11 – Shiels points to "synchronised central bank rate cuts, a more supportive China and US macroeconomic backdrop, still strong solar demand, and ultimately a lower US Dollar."
Priced in the Dollar, silver has so far averaged $31.32 in 2025, and it's currently averaging £25.11 in Sterling and €30.08 in Euros.
Silver also set a new annual record in Indian Rupees last year, with a fresh month-average high of 900 INR per 10 grams in February.
Yet despite the industrially-useful precious metal's new price highs, Indian silver imports have jumped says Metals Focus, up 37% in January from 12 months before to the heaviest New Year inflows since at least 2008.
Boosted by last summer's
surprise cut to silver (and gold) bullion import duty, "This was fuelled by continued strength in investment demand," says the consultancy, forecasting in its latest India Focus Monthly that the subcontinent's investing should "remain robust" even as higher prices dent jewellery and silverware demand.
For silver investment, the "widening gulf between supply and demand
looks likely to keep the frenzy going," says this week's
Economist magazine, now with more than 1 million subscribers worldwide, noting the
recent dislocation between US Comex futures and London bullion prices.
BullionVault users as well as
AI silver forecasts for 2025 are strongly bullish, predicting year-end Dollar prices as high as $36 per Troy ounce .
Email us
