The GOLD PRICE jumped again and silver continued its vertical ascent Wednesday, spiking within $8 of $100 per Troy ounce as base metals copper and tin also hit new all-time highs in what analysts in No.1 metals consumer China call a rush for "strategic" assets.

With gold setting new record prices for the 4th day running at $4640 today, silver hit a new London record for the 6th day in just 9 sessions so far in 2026.

That crushed the Gold/Silver Ratio of the two former monetary metals' relative pricing down to barely 51 ounce of silver per 1 ounce of gold.

The lowest price for gold in terms of silver since November 2012, that ratio is more than 13% beneath the GSR's long-term mean average.

Rising 25.9% from New Year's Eve, the price of silver in US Dollars has now made its fastest 2-week gain since August 2020, end of the industrially-useful precious metal's steep rebound and rally from that spring's Covid Crash and record-high Gold/Silver Ratio.

Prior to that, silver hadn't risen faster than it has so far in 2026 since February 1998. That was when news broke of investment legend (and famous gold naysayer) Warren Buffet accumulating nearly 130 million ounces of silver (over 4,000 tonnes) for his Berkshire Hathaway investors on a belief that the precious metal's industrial value was under-priced amid a deficit of supply versus demand. 

Here in January 2026, and with silver forecast to show yet another market deficit this year, "I have some silver which I bought because I thought that silver was underpriced and was going to pop," says 5-decade natural resources investor and trader Rick Rule, former President and CEO of North American asset managers Sprott's US division.

"Well, my reason to own it has taken place. The stuff goes from 25 bucks to 70, 80 bucks and I look at my thesis, and [the reason] why I owned it has occurred.

"I speculated in silver and I am likely very soon to sell what I bought in anticipation of just this event."

Silver has now doubled in price since late October, fixing above $90 at midday and then rising another $2 per ounce in spot market trade today.

"Just In: The US Mint has SUSPENDED ALL SALES of silver products. This is unprecedented," tweets one US pundit on X.com, misunderstanding both the words "unprecedented" (suspended ales have happened multiple times before) and "numismatic" (the Mint mentions only rarer collector coins in its note to distributors, not silver Eagle bullion coins).

Nevertheless, his tweet has been read over 194,000 times, liked by over 1,600 accounts, and re-tweeted by nearly 500.

"Under the current convergence of economic pressures, political changes, and technological revolutions," says Shanghai brokerage Huawen Futures' assistant manager Cheng Xiaoyong, "the trend of precious metals replacing some of the US Dollar's portfolio positions will continue, because gold and silver are increasingly favored by central banks and private investment institutions around the world."

With tin and copper also setting new highs today, "The escalating global geopolitical conflicts and heightened market concerns about supply chain stability are driving bullish funds to continue focusing on the non-ferrous metals sector, which possesses strategic resource attributes," says Gu Fengda, chief analyst at Guoxin Futures.