Stocks have been on a rocky path so far in 2025. Two days after Trump announced a new set of tariffs on April 2, the S&P 500 lost 10.5% of its value, its fifth greatest 2-day drop in the past 80 years, as reported by Yahoo Finance.
At the time of writing, the S&P 500 Index has declined by 3.77% yield-to-date (YTD) while the tech-heavy NASDAQ Composite has fallen by 7.16% YTD as the global economy continues to grapple with the US’s new trade policy. In contrast, gold and silver are up 25.05% and 13.22% YTD, respectively.
For many advocates, this performance reiterates why gold and silver are valuable as safe-haven assets during economic uncertainty and market downturns.
But is investing in silver a good idea? In other words, given that gold has been the better performer so far in 2025, should you just stick to knowing how to invest in gold in the UAE and ignore silver as just an inferior gold?
We will answer this question by considering the following:
Do you want to learn more about how to hedge your portfolio against market downturns and inflation? Subscribe today to Sarwa’s Fully Invested newsletter for regular insights that will make you a better investor.
Though silver has been proving its mettle as a haven against market downturns in 2025, some may question whether this is a fluke, a one-time performance that you can’t bank on.
So, in answering the question, “Is investing in silver a good idea,” we must look outside of 2025 to consider the historical roles that silver has performed as an asset class.
During the Great Financial Crisis and the European Debt Crisis, silver went up by 495% while gold went up by 238%, according to a study by Capitalight Research referenced by Investing.com.
Source: Investing.com
Also, silver went up 23.7% between January and June, 2023, when the collapse of Signature Bank and Silicon Valley Bank led to a banking crisis. Gold went up by the same percentage.
Source: Investing.com
“It’s clear from this analysis that silver’s role as a safe haven is underappreciated in the investment work, according to Investing.com. “Investors should consider holding silver in their portfolio to take advantage of its hedging properties.”
Furthermore, gold and silver were shown to provide a hedge during the COVID-19 period, according to an academic article published by PLOS ONE, an open-access journal. The study compared gold and silver performance to that of 13 stock indices between January 2020 and June 2022 and concluded:
“It appears that investors can use gold and silver to protect their portfolio from the effects of negative shocks to stock markets, which do not get transmitted to precious metals.”
Another academic article, published by SSRN, agreed that gold and silver provided a hedge during COVID-19, though they discovered that gold was a strong safe-haven asset while silver was a weak safe-haven asset.
Also, silver has done well in three of the last four significant recessions, according to a survey by BullionByPost, an online bullion dealer in the UK. As the chart below shows, silver’s price went up during or immediately after a recession in all recessions since the 1970s except the early-1990s recession.
Source: BullionByPost
The case for silver as a store of value rests on its limited supply and surging demand.
“Unlike fiat currencies, which can be printed at will, the supply of silver is inherently limited … In contrast, demand for silver continues to surge, creating a supply-demand imbalance that bodes well for price appreciation in the long run,” according to Steve Jones, a business development manager at The Royal Mint, the official maker of British Coins.
However, the high volatility of silver’s price means that it can only serve this function over the long term.
“Silver has historically been used quite successfully as a store of wealth, although in more recent times, we need to ask if this is even a good idea anymore,” said Monica Stankowski, the editor of MarketReview, a financial insights website.
She mentioned how the small size of the silver market makes it more subject to manipulation, contributing to its rapid fluctuations.
But this has not stopped investors from demanding silver as a store of value. The current surge in silver demand we have seen in 2025 is almost equally a product of both store-of-value demand and industrial demand, according to Christian Magoon, the founder of Amplify ETFs, an investment management firm.
Investors also consider silver to be an inflation hedge.
“I do see silver as an inflation hedge,” said Vince Stanzione, founder of First Information, a financial education website, quoted by US News. “As costs of mining the metal go up … this needs to be reflected in the price.”
When inflation was high in 1973/1974, the price of silver went up 66%, according to Better Financial Education, a financial planning and investment resource. If we consider the entire 1970s, when the Consumer Price Index rose by 7%, silver went up by 3,000% (gold was also up 2,000%), according to Markets.com, an online trading platform.
An academic study of the US, UK, and Japanese economy between 1926 and 2021, available on SSRN, confirmed that silver is a true inflation hedge. As the chart below shows, silver has provided a 12% average real return across multiple inflationary periods.
Source: SSRN
However, silver can best act as an inflation hedge during periods of low inflation, according to Abbas Valadkhani and Barry O’Mahony in a research paper published in the International Review of Economics & Finance and available on Science Direct. They expect gold to do better as an inflation hedge during periods of high inflation.
Adding precious metals to a portfolio can help reduce its risk exposure.
“Historically, a precious metals allocation increased efficiency in a diversified stock-bond portfolio,” according to Aberdeen Investments, an investment management firm. “They can also act as core risk-management tools for investors by providing effective diversification against risk assets. This may help reduce performance drawdowns during equity market volatility.”
An asset’s ability to reduce portfolio risk depends on its correlation with other assets in the portfolio. The chart below, provided by Oxford Economics, an advisory firm, based on data between 1999 and 2022, shows that silver has a low correlation to developed market and emerging markets equities and bonds.
Source: The Silver Institute
Is investing in silver a good idea?
We have answered this question by showing that the investment benefits of silver are historically grounded.
Now we move to the second aspect of the question: Is there any good reason to prefer silver over gold or is silver merely an inferior or cheaper gold.
Let’s answer that by considering some advantages silver has over gold.
The current state of the gold/silver ratio (which measures how many ounces of silver it will take to purchase one ounce of gold) bodes well for silver in the short-to-medium term.
Source: Chards
This ratio is currently at 100. Given that the historical average of this ratio is between 50 and 60, Magoon believes that silver is undervalued at its current price. When the ratio was this high in May 2020, silver’s price increased by 37% over the succeeding six months, according to Adrian Ash, the director of research at BullionVault, a precious metals trading platform.
Ash believes that the current ratio means people are already pricing in a global recession, as they did in 2020. However, “whether or not a recession is coming, the ratio has moved so much higher so very quickly, the contrarian bet says the ratio will snap back,” he said. “If gold holds on to its recent move, that offers a big upside in silver prices.”
He also believes that if current panic about a possible trade war plays out like the COVID-19 crash, those who buy silver will outperform those who buy gold three times over when economic sentiment begins to rally again.
A resolution of the US-China trade war or the lowering of interest rates by the Central Bank can be the spur that provides this change in economic sentiment.
The historical episodes we have considered tell us two things about the relative performance of gold and silver: First, silver tends to outperform gold during market downturns; Second, silver has outperformed gold in more market downturns.
This is most likely due to the higher volatility of silver. Volatility is a double-edged sword because while it can amplify losses, it can also magnify gains.
However, when we look at the entire performance of both assets – in market upturns and downturns, when inflation is low and high – things are a bit different.
As the chart above, provided by Oxford Economics, shows, gold had a better compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) than silver between 1999 and 2022 (7.2% to 5.3%) while silver had a better arithmetic annual growth rate (9.9% to 9.5%). The sharpe ratio (a measure of risk-adjusted returns) shows that gold had the better risk-return profile (0.40 to 0.21), mainly due to the higher volatility of silver (31.2 to 15.6).
Similarly, silver outperformed gold between 2019 and 2024, while gold has outperformed between 2014 and 2024 and between 2009 and 2024, according to a study by Marc Guberti, a personal finance writer for Money.com, published by NASDAQ.
However, going forward, Guberti noted that silver’s industrial demand can drive higher returns for it over the long term and make it a superior long-term investment.
“Silver has more catalysts that can drive higher returns for long-term investors,” he said. “Artificial intelligence and tech products have stimulated the broad electronics industry, which has increased demand for silver. Those industries also have high projected compounded annual growth rates that imply a heightened demand for silver.”
US News shares the same sentiment: “Silver’s industrial uses offer an investment thesis that may provide more upside potential than gold, especially as a raw material in the energy transition away from fossil fuels.”
In other words, the increasing importance of AI, the growth of the electronics industry, and the global desire for renewable energy (manifested, for example, in interest in electric vehicles) will continue to increase silver demand and drive its price up.
The performance of silver has been better than gold’s during some market downturns, as we have seen. It also outperformed during the high inflation of the 1970s.
Yet, the outlay required to gain exposure to silver is far lower than gold’s. As we saw above, the gold-silver ratio is hovering around 100.
If silver can provide the haven and hedge that gold does at a cheaper price, then investors (especially retail investors) who purchase silver rather than gold don’t have to feel they are missing out on something significant.
The affordability of silver also has three advantages, according to GoldSilver, a precious metals trading and insights website:
So, is investing in silver a good idea in 2025? Yes, it is.
The long answer? Do a lot more research than just this article and figure out if this precious metal meets your unique risk and reward profile.
Now that we have established that investing in silver could be beneficial: what is the best way to invest in silver?
First, let’s consider the investment options available:
First, bullion coins and bars can be illiquid as it may be difficult to find a counterparty. Second, physical silver can be stolen. Third, keeping silver safe from theft may require paying high storage fees for a vault. Fourth, the brokers who facilitate silver trades charge high transaction costs. Fifth, silver bullions have price premiums that reflect the extra work that was done to produce, package, and ship them.
However, silver mutual funds are illiquid since they are only traded at the end of the trading day. Also, though they are cheaper than buying individual stocks, they are more expensive than exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
Investors who buy a share in these funds have exposure to silver’s price but do not take physical delivery of silver bullion. Also, when they sell their shares, they receive cash rather than silver bullion.
Since they are traded like stocks on the stock market (unlike mutual funds), ETCs have the same advantages as silver stocks.
Most financial advisors will agree that this is not a wise option for beginner traders to pursue.
Generally speaking, the best way to invest in silver (as a beginner) is to buy silver stocks or ETCs. Of course, this decision depends on your personal circumstances, and any conclusions here should be considered informational.
At Sarwa, we make it easy for you to purchase silver stocks and ETCs in the UAE.
We provide access to quality silver mining stocks like Silvercorp Metals Inc., allowing you to secure an indirect exposure to silver’s price.
In addition, we offer access to popular silver ETCs like iShares Silver Trust, so you can gain direct exposure to silver’s price.
You can start investing in and trading silver on Sarwa with just $1.
We offer low commissions and provide free transfers from your local bank account to Sarwa and vice versa. Our platform is secured with 256-bit encryption, and it is designed with an excellent user interface that makes it seamless to use.
Is investing in silver a good idea for you? What are you waiting for? Register an account with Sarwa to start buying and selling silver stocks and ETCs in the UAE in a safe, cost-effective, and convenient way.
The P/E ratio is one of the most popular but misunderstood financial ratios. When properly…
Think real estate is your ticket to wealth? Here are 10 reasons why that might…
The decision to rent or own a home remains a crucial one for many people,…
As economic uncertainty hits the globe, gold is surging again. Investing in it can be…
The debate between stocks and real estate usually boils down to which one provides superior…
AI stocks of all types thrived in 2024. What drove their performance and what does…
This website uses cookies.