What is the Current Gold Silver Ratio?
Set your own switching rule
What is the Gold Silver Ratio and Why it Matters?
Most people watch the price of gold and silver in dollars, and most people buy at the wrong time. The gold silver ratio ignores the dollar. It asks one question: how many troy ounces of silver does it take to buy one troy ounce of gold?
When the answer is high, silver is cheap against gold. When it is low, gold is cheap against silver. Because the ratio measures one metal against the other, it still works when both prices are rising, falling or going nowhere.
The chart above shows every swing of the ratio since 1971 and the switches an investor would have made under the best-known rule of thumb, the 80/50 rule: move into silver when the ratio rises to around 80, and back into gold when it falls to around 50.
The Gold Silver Ratio
indicates how much silver it takes to buy gold.
Right now silver is 52.84 USD and gold is 4,121.19 USD per troy ounce, so the ratio is 78.0.
In other words, one troy ounce of gold buys 78.0 troy ounces of silver today.
The Gold Silver Ratio Chart
shows when each metal was cheap, and when it was dear
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Below the lower line (around 50), gold is cheap compared with silver: the time to hold gold
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Above the upper line (around 80), silver is cheap compared with gold: the time to hold silver
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Since 1985 the ratio has swung between the two lines roughly every three to five years, and each swing has been an opportunity
A Gold Silver Ratio Switching Rule
multiplies your ounces by always holding the undervalued metal
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The 80/50 rule is simple: switch into silver when the ratio reaches around 80, and back into gold when it falls to around 50. One decision every few years, and nothing in between.
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Every round trip adds about 60% to the holding in ounces, because 80 divided by 50 is 1.6. Since 1985 the actual switches have added between 62% and 70% each time, and there have been eight of them.
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The rule counts ounces, not dollars. It takes profit from the metal that has run ahead and moves it into the one that has lagged, so you sell into strength and buy into weakness without ever having to call the top or the bottom.
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It also takes the emotion out of the decision. When silver is soaring, selling it feels like missing out; when it has halved, buying it feels reckless. The ratio is a published number, not a mood, and it has pointed the right way at exactly those moments.
The 80/50 Switching Rule Example
Two investors each bought one troy ounce of gold for 304 USD in January 1985. One held it. The other followed the 80/50 rule. Here is where they stood on 3 November 2026:
- Holding gold: 1.00 oz x 3,904 USD = 3,904 USD (12.8 times the investment, a return of about 1,180%)
- Following the 80/50 rule: 7.41 oz x 3,904 USD = 28,931 USD (95.2 times the investment, a return of about 9,400%)
The second investor made eight switches in 41 years. The ounce became 80 oz of silver, then 1.68 oz of gold, 136.4 oz of silver, 2.74 oz of gold, 221.2 oz of silver, 4.47 oz of gold, 358 oz of silver and finally 7.41 oz of gold. Same starting point, same metals, same prices. Seven times the result.
Past performance is not a guarantee of future returns, and the figures are before dealing and storage costs. The principle of switching into the relatively undervalued metal has nonetheless held for four decades, and the ratio is updated on this page every day.
The Gold Silver Ratio Strategy Explained by Gregor Gregersen
