MEASURED · 5 OCTOBER 2026
Why is silver going up? How much of the move is gold, copper, rates and the dollar
Every explanation of a silver rally names a cause: solar panels, a supply deficit, the Fed, the dollar. This page measures how much of silver’s actual moves each of the things you can price accounts for, month by month since 1971, and how much of the 2025 run was left over after all of them.
The short answer
Silver’s monthly moves matched by gold’s
58%
2003 to 2021; 53% since 2022
Silver move per 1% gold move
1.58%
since 2022; 1.44% in 2003-2021
Run to the January 2026 record
+199%
gold and copper explain +138%
Since the record, to September 2026
−30%
gold and copper explain −9%
Silver goes up mainly when gold goes up, and by more. Copper adds a smaller part that has grown since 2022. Real interest rates and the dollar matter mostly through gold. In 2025 silver rose well beyond what gold and copper explain; by September 2026 it had given all of that back.
Gold first: how closely silver follows it
| ERA | SILVER PER 1% GOLD | MATCHED BY GOLD | WITH COPPER ADDED | SILVER SWINGS VS GOLD |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1971 to 2002376 months | 1.09% | 49% | 49% | 1.56× |
| 2003 to 2021228 months | 1.44% | 58% | 64% | 1.89× |
| 2022 to now57 months | 1.58% | 53% | 63% | 2.18× |
Changes in monthly average prices (World Bank). “Matched by” is the share of the variation in silver’s monthly change that a straight-line fit on gold’s change (and then copper’s too) accounts for. “Swings” is the size of silver’s typical monthly move divided by gold’s.
Roughly half of what silver does in a month is gold’s move, scaled up. The scaling has grown: before 2003 a 1% gold move came with about 1.09% from silver, since 2022 about 1.58%, and silver’s swings have gone from 1.56 to 2.18 times gold’s. So when gold is rising, “why is silver rising faster?” mostly has the same answer: it usually does. It also falls faster.
Copper: the industrial side
Copper is priced almost entirely on industrial use, and silver’s link to it has tightened: the monthly correlation was 0.29 before 2003, 0.45 in 2003-2021 and 0.68 since 2022. Once gold is accounted for, adding copper raises the share of silver’s moves explained from 53% to 63% since 2022 (from 58% to 64% in 2003-2021). Before 2003 it added nothing. Industrial demand is a real part of silver’s price, but a smaller one than gold.
Interest rates and the dollar
| ERA | REAL YIELD: SILVER / GOLD | DOLLAR: SILVER / GOLD |
|---|---|---|
| 1971 to 2002 | not available | -0.12 / -0.35 |
| 2003 to 2021 | -0.36 / -0.49 | -0.47 / -0.41 |
| 2022 to now | -0.28 / -0.45 | -0.41 / -0.54 |
Negative numbers mean silver tended to fall in months when the real 10-year yield (from 2003) or the dollar rose. Both links are there, but for real yields they are weaker for silver than for gold, and they largely run through gold. Once gold’s move is known, adding both of them raises the share of silver’s moves explained by only 3 points in 2003-2021 and 0.5 since 2022, less than copper adds. What rates and the dollar have and have not explained about gold since 2022 is in why is gold going up?
The 2025 run, and what was left over
We fitted silver’s monthly change on gold’s and copper’s over 228 months from 2003 to 2021 (silver 1.3% per 1% of gold plus 0.27% per 1% of copper; 64% of the variation explained), then applied the rule to what gold and copper actually did later.
| STRETCH | GOLD | COPPER | SILVER, IMPLIED | SILVER, ACTUAL | BEYOND GOLD + COPPER |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Since the end of the fitting windowDecember 2021 to September 2026 | +141% | +52% | +253% | +187%$22.50 to $64.60 | −19% |
| The run to the recordDecember 2024 to January 2026 | +80% | +46% | +138% | +199%$30.80 to $92.10 | +26% |
| Since the recordJanuary 2026 to September 2026 | −9% | +11% | −9% | −30%$92.10 to $64.60 | −23% |
| This year so farDecember 2025 to September 2026 | +0% | +23% | +6% | +4%$62.30 to $64.60 | −2% |
From December 2024 to January 2026 silver’s monthly average rose 199%. Gold’s +80% and copper’s +46% account for about +138% of that; the remaining +26% is silver on its own. A miss that large over 13 months happened in 5.1% of 2,000 resampled histories of the rule’s own 2003-2021 misses: unusual, about 1 in 20, but not unheard of.
The Silver Institute’s account of 2025 (its World Silver Survey 2026 release, 15 April 2026) puts the record prices down to high lease rates, tight supplies in some trading centres, falling inventories, metal moving into CME vaults, rising exchange-traded fund holdings and a 14% rise in coin and bar demand, in a fifth straight year of demand above supply. It also reports that industrial demand fell 3% in 2025. Those are their figures; we did not test them against the price. What the numbers here show is the size of the part gold and copper do not explain.
Then it unwound. From January 2026 to September 2026 gold and copper together implied a silver fall of about 9%; silver fell 30%. On daily prices the record was $118.45 on 29 January 2026, and 2 February 2026 brought silver’s worst day since April 1987, −20.6%. Over the whole stretch since December 2021 silver is now −19% against what gold and copper imply: the 2025 excess is gone.
Does gold tell you where silver goes next?
No. On month-end London prices from August 1971 to September 2026, the correlation between gold’s move one month and silver’s move the next is 0.027; shifting one series against the other at random produced a link at least that strong 42.9% of the time. Silver’s own last month says as little (0.009, 79.6% by chance). The two metals move together in the same month (correlation 0.717), so by the time gold has moved, silver usually has too.
Silver, gold and copper, year by year
| YEAR | SILVER | GOLD | COPPER |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (to September) | +3.7% | +0.2% | +22.8% |
| 2025 | +102.3% | +62.7% | +32.2% |
| 2024 | +28.9% | +30.7% | +6.1% |
| 2023 | +2.6% | +12.7% | +0.3% |
| 2022 | +3.6% | +0.4% | −12.3% |
| 2021 | −10.0% | −3.7% | +22.9% |
| 2020 | +46.2% | +25.6% | +27.9% |
| 2019 | +15.5% | +18.3% | 0.0% |
| 2018 | −8.6% | −1.1% | −11.1% |
| 2017 | −1.2% | +9.2% | +20.7% |
| 2016 | +16.3% | +7.5% | +22.0% |
| 2015 | −13.5% | −10.4% | −28.0% |
| 2014 | −17.3% | −1.7% | −10.7% |
| 2013 | −38.2% | −27.5% | −9.4% |
| 2012 | +5.3% | +2.7% | +5.3% |
| 2011 | +3.4% | +17.9% | −17.3% |
| 2010 | +66.5% | +22.6% | +31.0% |
| 2009 | +70.9% | +39.1% | +127.3% |
| 2008 | −28.0% | +1.6% | −53.4% |
| 2007 | +7.5% | +27.5% | −1.3% |
| 2006 | +54.7% | +23.5% | +45.8% |
| 2005 | +21.1% | +15.4% | +45.5% |
| 2004 | +26.8% | +8.6% | +42.9% |
| 2003 | +21.7% | +22.6% | +37.9% |
| 2002 | +4.5% | +20.3% | +8.4% |
| 2001 | −4.3% | +1.8% | −20.5% |
| 2000 | −11.5% | −4.2% | +4.9% |
December monthly average to December monthly average (World Bank); the current year runs to the latest month. Daily prices and calendar-year closes are in silver price history.
What to watch, in practice
- Gold first. About half of silver’s monthly move has been gold’s move, scaled up by about 1.58.
- Copper second. It has added about 10 points of explanation since 2022.
- Silver’s own extra can reverse. The 2025 excess over gold and copper was gone within eight months of the record.
- No head start. Last month’s gold move did not tell you next month’s silver move.
Whether silver has been a good holding is measured in is silver a good investment?, and silver against gold in the gold-silver ratio, tested. This page is a measurement of the past, not a forecast or personal advice.
How we measured it
Prices: World Bank Commodity Price Data (the Pink Sheet), monthly averages for silver, gold and copper, September 1971 to September 2026, release of 2 October 2026; LBMA month-end fixes for the lead/lag test, because lagged monthly averages are linked to each other by construction. Rates and dollar: FRED 10-year TIPS yield (from 2003) and the broad trade-weighted dollar (the older index to 2005, the current one scaled to it after). Fits: ordinary least squares on monthly log changes. Checks: the 2025 residual against 2,000 resamples of the rule’s own 2003-2021 misses in 12-month blocks; the lead/lag correlations against 2,000 random circular shifts of at least a year.
Common questions
Why is silver going up?
Mostly because gold is. Since 2003, gold's monthly move accounts for about 58% of the variation in silver's, and silver has moved about 1.44 times as far as gold. Copper adds a little more, and that share has grown since 2022. In the run from December 2024 to its January 2026 record silver rose 199%, about 26% more than gold and copper explain.
Why is silver going up faster than gold?
Because it usually does, in both directions. Since 2022 silver's monthly moves have been 2.18 times the size of gold's, and a 1% gold move has come with about a 1.58% silver move on average. A gold rally tends to be a bigger silver rally; a gold fall, a bigger silver fall.
Why did silver fall after the January 2026 record?
Gold fell 9% from January to September 2026 on monthly averages, which with copper's move would on its own have taken silver down about 9%. Silver fell 30%: the extra it had gained beyond gold and copper went, and more.
Do interest rates and the dollar move silver?
Yes, mostly through gold. From 2003 to 2021 the month-to-month correlation of silver with the real 10-year yield was -0.36 (gold -0.49) and with the broad dollar -0.47 (gold -0.41). Once gold's own move is known, the two together add only about 3 points to the share of silver's moves explained.
Does a rise in gold mean silver will rise next month?
No. On month-end prices since 1971, last month's gold move and next month's silver move have a correlation of 0.027; random shifts of the data produced one at least that strong 42.9% of the time. They move together in the same month (0.717), not one after the other.
Is there a silver shortage?
The Silver Institute reports that demand exceeded supply for a fifth year in 2025 and expects a sixth deficit, of 46.3 million ounces, in 2026. It also reports that industrial demand fell 3% in 2025 while coin and bar demand rose 14%. We cite these figures; we did not test them against the price.