Gold to Silver Ratio Today
How many ounces of silver one ounce of gold buys — the oldest relative-value signal in precious metals, live from both spot prices.
Gold Silver Ratio Chart — 1970 to Today
Approximate annual averages of the gold-to-silver ratio since 1970, ending at the live reading. Intraday extremes (the 1980 and 2020 spikes) went further than the annual line shows — see the milestones below.
Record Highs and Lows in Gold Silver Ratio History
The free-floating ratio has swung almost tenfold — every extreme marks a precious-metals story:
| When | Ratio | What happened |
|---|---|---|
| 1792 | 15 : 1 | US Coinage Act legally fixes the ratio — the bimetallic standard |
| January 1980 | ~17 : 1 | Hunt brothers corner silver to ~$50/oz — modern low |
| February 1991 | ~100 : 1 | Silver bear-market bottom near $3.50/oz |
| April 2011 | ~31 : 1 | Silver nears $49/oz at the QE-era peak |
| March 2020 | ~125 : 1 | COVID crash hits silver hardest — all-time record high |
| Today (live) | 69.6 : 1 | Gold $4,102/oz vs silver $58.96/oz |
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How the Gold to Silver Ratio Is Calculated
gold_silver_ratio = XAU/USD spot ÷ XAG/USD spotRight now: $4,102 ÷ $58.96 = 69.6. Because both prices are USD per troy ounce, the currencies cancel — the ratio is the same number in every country and every currency.
Both live legs are on this site: the live gold rate and the live silver rate, each in 100+ currencies. For the long view of the numerator, see 100 years of gold prices; for the denominator, silver price history.
Reading the Ratio: What High and Low Actually Signal
The ratio is a relative-value gauge, not a price forecast. Above ~80, silver is cheap versus gold by modern standards — every sustained visit above that line (1991, 2003, 2008, 2016, 2019–20) was eventually followed by silver outperforming. Below ~50, silver is rich versus gold, as at the 1980 and 2011 silver manias. The mechanism is silver's dual nature: part monetary metal, part industrial commodity, it amplifies gold's moves in both directions — rallying harder in precious-metal bull runs and falling harder in liquidity crises, which is exactly what stretched the ratio to its 125 record in March 2020.
The classic ratio trade converts the signal into ounces: hold gold while the ratio is low, swap into silver when it is historically high, and swap back when it compresses. Done patiently, the stack grows in total metal without any view on dollar prices. It is not riskless — the ratio spent the entire 1990s "too high" before mean-reverting — but it is the discipline behind most serious two-metal portfolios.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the gold silver ratio today?
The gold to silver ratio is 69.6:1 right now — one troy ounce of gold ($4,102) buys 69.6 troy ounces of silver ($58.96/oz). The ratio updates every 60 seconds on this page as both spot prices move.
How is the gold to silver ratio calculated?
Gold silver ratio = XAU/USD spot price ÷ XAG/USD spot price. Both are quoted in US dollars per troy ounce, so the ratio is a pure number: how many ounces of silver one ounce of gold buys. No currency conversion is involved — the ratio is identical worldwide.
What does a high gold silver ratio mean?
A high ratio (above ~80) means silver is historically cheap relative to gold; a low ratio (below ~50) means silver is expensive relative to gold. Ratio traders treat extremes as mean-reversion signals: swapping gold for silver when the ratio is high, and silver back to gold when it falls — accumulating more total ounces without new money.
What is the historical average gold silver ratio?
Across the 20th century the ratio averaged roughly 47:1; over the last 30 years it has centred near 70:1. For most of pre-modern history governments fixed it near 15:1 (the US Coinage Act of 1792 set 15:1; geological abundance in the earth's crust is about 17.5:1). The modern free-floating ratio has ranged from ~17 to 125.
What are the record highs and lows of the gold silver ratio?
Record high: ~125:1 in March 2020, when the COVID crash hit silver harder than gold. Modern lows: ~17:1 in January 1980 during the Hunt brothers' silver spike, and ~31:1 in April 2011 when silver neared $49/oz. The 1991 silver bear market pushed the ratio to ~100:1.
What is the Dow-to-gold ratio?
The Dow-to-gold ratio divides the Dow Jones Industrial Average by the gold price per ounce — how many ounces of gold buy "one unit" of the US stock market. It is the equities cousin of the gold-silver ratio: high readings (~40 in 1999) mark stock-market euphoria, low readings (~1 in 1980) mark gold manias. Both ratios strip out the dollar and compare real assets directly.
How do traders use the gold silver ratio?
The classic ratio trade swaps between the metals at extremes: hold gold, switch to silver when the ratio is historically high (silver cheap), then switch back when it compresses. Executed patiently this grows total ounces held without predicting either metal's dollar price. Others use the ratio as a sentiment gauge — silver outperforming (falling ratio) typically marks risk-on precious-metal bull phases.
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