Should You Buy Silver Right Now?

A reader sent this question in recently:

Can you write about Silver? Is it a good time to buy? If yes, physical bar or ETF? And, is it actually going to hit 2lacs/ kg very soon?

It’s a fair question. I’ll start by saying – Markets always find their flavour of the season. One year it’s gold, the year before it was crypto, and before that, it was the stock market.

Prices spike, WhatsApp forwards begin to circulate, and suddenly everyone wants to know: is this the moment to buy?

So let me answer the question, starting with silver as an investment.

Silver’s Role in a Portfolio

Precious metals like gold and silver aren’t meant to deliver double or triple digit returns. They’re meant to safeguard you from, or hedge risk.

Gold protects you against inflation, currency swings, and economic shocks. Silver has that same hedge quality, but with one important difference: it’s also an industrial metal.

Silver is used in solar panels, batteries, medical devices, and electronics. That means its demand moves not only with investor sentiment but also with industrial cycles. This dual identity makes silver more volatile than gold: it can rise faster, but it can also fall harder.

The takeaway? Silver is A, a hedge, and B, more volatile than gold.

The Numbers Behind Silver

In India today, silver trades at around ₹1,50,000 per kilo (September – October 2025 levels).

If you zoom out, the story is even clearer – bear with me as I share a slightly long table of silver prices over the last 20 years. And yes, 2006 was nearly 20 years ago.

So you can see that over 20 years, silver has appreciated more than 6x, but it hasn’t been a smooth ride.

For instance:

• It surged past ₹70,000 in 2011, only to collapse back near ₹38,000 within four years.
• In 2020, it dipped nearly 30% during the pandemic before bouncing back sharply.
• Since 1990, silver has shown the same volatility as the stock market, delivering 7.6% returns (compounded annually). Gold, for the same period has offered a far steadier return of 10.6%.

The takeaway: silver can outperform gold in certain cycles, but you have to stomach higher volatility.

Why Hype Cycles Are Dangerous

Back in 2021, I wrote about Sovereign Gold Bonds when the going rates of gold were around ₹4,700 per gram. It wasn’t because gold was trending. In fact, hardly anyone was talking about gold back then. My reasoning was simply that gold is an excellent hedge in any environment, and that gold bonds were an efficient way to do so.

That same philosophy applies today. If you’re buying silver because it’s “about to hit ₹2 lakh/kg,” you’re speculating, not investing. And the high-pitched buzz around investments like these – whether it’s real estate, crypto, or now, silver- encourage gambling disguised as investing. Eventually, these cycles will burst, and investors who usually have the most to lose are the ones left holding the bag.

Physical Silver vs ETFs

If you decide silver deserves a spot in your portfolio:

• Silver ETFs are the cleanest option. They’re easy to buy and sell, don’t require safekeeping, and track spot prices.
• Physical bars and coins appeal to those who like tangible assets, but they involve costs of storage, purity risks, and illiquidity when you want to sell.

For most urban investors, ETFs or mutual funds that invest in silver are far more practical.

So, Should You Buy Now?

If your goal is diversification and hedging, adding silver in small doses makes sense. A 5–10% allocation across gold and silver combined is usually sufficient for most portfolios.

But if your motivation is short-term price predictions, like silver “very soon” doubling, then pause. Nobody can forecast with certainty whether silver will jump to ₹2 lakh/kg or slide back to ₹75,000/kg first.

My View

Silver is not a lottery ticket. It’s a safety net.
Treat it like that, and you’ll never regret owning it.

Chase it for quick riches, and you’re likely to get caught in the same cycle of boom and bust that has burned investors time and again.

Do you have a question? Don’t hesitate to ask 🙂