February 11, 2026 l Business Mirror
Silver has been in the news lately hitting an all-time high of $121.62/troy ounce or 31.1034768 grams on January 29, 2026, before crashing into an intraday low of under $75. Last year, silver went from about $29 to $70 for an annual return of more than 140 percent! Given the volatility of silver, is it worth considering taking a long position on this precious metal?
Traditionally, tor thousands of years throughout the world, silver has been used as coinage and currency. Silver shares many similar properties as gold but to a lesser extent such as rarity, malleability, durability, reflectivity and density. As technology advanced, so did the industrial applications of silver, due to their electrical and thermal conductivity, reflectivity and antimicrobial properties. Silver is widely used in solar panels, circuit boards, batteries, medical applications, photography and across many industries.
Due to the increasing demand for silver in coins, bullion, jewelry, technology and industry, there has been a constant shortage of silver for the last five years totaling 820 million ounces with declining output. It is also noticeable that prices of silver in China has also been increasing versus the prices in the US. This is due to a physical demand for silver in China where transactions are done based on actual deliveries; the ones in the US are paper contracts.
With demand increasing, supply tightness and a cumulative deficit of 820 million ounces, the rational expectation is that the price of silver has nowhere to go but up. Undoubtedly there would be volatility price swings but these are more due to artificial attempts by people and institutions who have taken a short position and have no actual silver on hand to try to influence the price of silver.
There is also a direct correlation between the price of gold and silver and this is known as the gold silver ratio, which is how much silver is needed to equal the price of gold. In the 21st century, this ratio has generally ranged between 50:1 to 70:1, with short bursts below 50 to as much as 100. At the current prices of gold and silver, this ratio is at 55.
Is there really a silver lining for silver? Compared to gold, we should note two things. First is that silver has higher industrial use and second is that while silver stockpiles are declining, gold is rising! You also need to consider in what form of silver should you keep your investment in?
Given a choice between a piece of paper saying you own so much silver, you would be much better off keeping it in physical form you can touch and have access to at any time. I think keeping it in common silver coins such as American Silver Eagles, Morgan or Peace Dollars, USPI Peso Coins and many others that are easily recognizable is practical.
While there are many fakes, check the dimensions of diameter, thickness and weight of the specific coin. More sophisticated methods to check if it is actually silver can be done, such as using the ping method, acid and silver testers.
Coins which are normally around one ounce are easier to transact and test compared to 1-kilogram, 10-kilogram or even larger ingot sizes. They also have numismatic value which may have a much higher premium over the silver spot price. While the supply of silver coins and bullion may not be readily available in the Philippines, they are quite common in other countries such as the US, Canada, UK and China where you can literally walk into bullion dealer or mint to buy gold and silver coins and ingots.
You may be concerned that keeping your money in silver does not earn you interest. You have to realize that gold and silver spot prices are quoted in dollars. Even with interest, the peso has not been able to keep up with the value of the US dollar plus you will most likely have a capital gain on silver.
The new age of silver has arrived!
***The views expressed herein are his own and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of his office as well as FINEX. For comments, email georgechuaph@yahoo.com. Photo is from Pinterest.