Silver Crosses $100 Per Troy Ounce For the First Time Ever

 

Silver Crosses $100 Per Ounce; Gold Approaches $5000/ozt

(Bullion News Network) – The spot price of silver reached more than $100 per troy ounce on Friday, adding over $7/ozt to cross $103.50 an ounce to end the trading week. Gold prices also increased, with the precious metal adding nearly $50 per troy ounce and coming within just $13 of a historic high of over $5,000/ozt. Speculation and uncertainty trading continued to drive demand for safe haven assets, particularly gold and silver. The surge in precious metal prices coincided with a retreat on Wall Street; the S&P 500 moved little on Friday but logged its second consecutive week in the red.

Silver remained the major story in the precious metals market this week. The gold-silver ratio dropped by more than 3 points to close at approximately 48.27:1, its lowest rate since 2011. The spot price of silver is up 240% since this time last year, marking one of the metal’s largest yearly gains in history. Crossing the $100/ozt barrier is a major achievement for the precious metal. Until 2025, silver’s all-time high was $49.95 per troy ounce, a record set in 1980 as the Hunt brothers attempted to corner the silver market by amassing over 400 million ounces of the metal. Today, silver has more than doubled its 1980 high.

A combination of factors has converged to drive silver to a record high of more than $100 per troy ounce. Most notably, geopolitical uncertainty has become a significant driver of safe haven demand. 2026 began with news that the U.S. military had extracted Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, who is now facing charges of narcoterrorism in the United States. More recently this month, U.S. President Donald Trump escalated his attempts to acquire Greenland for the United States, an effort that began last year during the start of his second term in office. In a text message exchange with the Prime Minister of Norway, the American leader suggested that he may be willing to use military force to take Greenland, due in part to the Nobel Committee’s decision to award the Nobel Peace Prize to someone other than himself.

Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America.

The Federal Reserve is also facing a great deal of uncertainty as 2026 continues. Earlier this month, the Federal Reserve announced that it had received a subpoena from the Department of Justice related to the rising costs of its headquarters renovation. Trump repeatedly accused Jerome Powell and the central bank of overspending on the renovation throughout 2025, though President Trump and the White House denied knowledge of the ongoing investigation by the DOJ. In a statement following the subpoena, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell suggested that the investigation is part of a larger attempt to force the central bank to cut interest rates, something Republicans called for throughout 2025.

This new threat is not about my testimony last June or about the renovation of the Federal Reserve buildings. It is not about Congress’s oversight role […] Those are pretexts. The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the President.

Powell will leave office in May of 2026, at which point President Trump will be permitted to make his own nomination for the position of Federal Reserve Chair. Despite the investigation, the Federal Reserve looks unlikely to cut interest rates at its Jan. 28 meeting. CME FedWatch projects a 2.8% probability that the FOMC will vote to cut rates at the end of the month. This probability is down from 4.4% one week ago and 15.5% last month. Speeches from Federal Reserve officials in January reinforced a cautious approach by the central bank heading into 2026. Following three consecutive rate cuts at the end of 2025, FOMC voters appear willing to wait until inflation is fully under control before easing monetary policy further.

Although gold and silver have dominated headlines this month, platinum-group metals have also enjoyed an excellent performance over the past several months. On Friday, the spot price of platinum added more than $140 per troy ounce, crossing $2,750/ozt to close at approximately $2,785.20/ozt. Palladium prices lagged slightly behind, with the spot price of palladium gaining just under $97/ozt to close at approximately $2,036.50 per troy ounce. The price action extended the platinum-palladium price gap; platinum is now nearly $750 more valuable than palladium per troy ounce.

The major economic release scheduled for next week is the FOMC’s interest rate decision. The market has likely already priced in a no-cut decision, but Powell’s post-meeting press conference could reveal more about how the Federal Reserve plans to respond to accusations by the Department of Justice. Powell is notoriously talented at dodging political questions in his press conferences, so it is not likely that he will spend more than a couple passing comments discussing the controversy. Still, more information from Powell could directly impact markets.

Silver ended the week at more than $103.50 per troy ounce, and the spot price of silver is being quoted at approximately $4,987/ozt, within $13 of setting a historic record at $5,000 per troy ounce heading into the weekend. The gold-silver ratio closed Friday at its lowest point in over a decade.