Welcome to SurvivalBlog’s Precious Metals Month in Review, where we take a look at “the month that was” in precious metals. Each month, we cover gold’s performance and silver’s performance and examine the factors that affected the metal prices.
WHAT DID GOLD AND SILVER DO IN APRIL?
The prices of gold and silver diverged from one another during April. Their price ratio (GSR) is still at a five-year high above 100:1.
Both metals started the month off slowly. After two uneventful days, on Thursday, April 3rd gold slid 0.8% and silver tumbled $2.07 lower (-6.1%). Friday, April 4th was an even sharper decline as silver lost another $2.26 and gold fell 2.5% on the day to $3,037 per troy ounce.
The next week brought the first signs of the divergence that later became a trend. Spot gold tanked 1.8% lower on Monday, April 7th, yet somehow silver gained 45 cents to stay a hair above the $30/oz mark. All of the metals (including platinum, palladium, and copper) jumped higher on Wednesday, April 9th. Gold rallied nearly $100 on three consecutive days between the 9th and 11th, and spot silver saw two days that it rose over $1 during that stretch.
Wednesday, April 16th was the most volatile day of the month: the gold price surged 3.3%, yet silver added a modest 40 cents. This wasn’t gold’s peak yet; after trading sideways for a few days, the yellow metal gained another 2.8% to a new record high above $3,420/oz on Monday, April 21st. (Silver rose just 15 cents the same day.) When gold corrected 2.65% lower on Wednesday, April 23rd, silver was actually up nearly $1.10. This divergent price behavior between the two metals isn’t unheard of, but it’s nonetheless curious how many times it showed up recently.
Silver and gold did both give back a good portion of their gains over the closing two weeks of April. Gold fell 1.3% on Friday, April 25th while silver shed 54 cents (-1.6%), repeating a pattern of closing sharply lower on Fridays. Both drifted lower on Tuesday and again on Wednesday, April 30th to close at $3,288/oz and $32.56/oz, respectively.
Spot gold was still up 5.2% on the month, but silver lost 4.1%. Much like in March, a lot of the losses came in the final days on the calendar.
For a sense of how the “paper market” for silver often runs way ahead of the spot market during particularly high-volume trading hours, consider that spot silver was down 34 cents (-1.0%) on April 30th while the futures market (COMEX silver) was down over 2.3%. Simultaneously. So, especially on the last day of the month when many options contracts and other derivatives expire, Wall Street can—and normally does—exert downward pressure on the actual silver price. Alas, it’s a short-term game built on leverage (that eventually blows up).
FACTORS AFFECTING GOLD AND SILVER THIS MONTH
Volatility for the precious metals cut in both directions this month, producing big swings up and down. Clearly, some of that is attributable to the trade war that officially kicked off on April 2nd. The stock market has similarly endured violent bouts of volatility based on the day-to-day shifts on trade policy. Notably, the Trump administration exempted gold, silver, platinum, and palladium from tariffs.
What really matters for gold prices is the high level of uncertainty created by all the back-and-forth over tariff rates and embargoes and new trade deals. I feel repetitive citing “uncertainty” again and again these days as an explanation for what’s driving prices, but it’s true. Economic anxiety is the dominant theme in global markets right now—on all sides of the trade war.
On the geopolitical front, save for a recent Easter ceasefire in Ukraine, much of the continent of Asia is still at war. An American aircraft carrier making a hasty evasive maneuver to avoid Houthi rebels in the Red Sea even lost an F-18 to the ocean.
The U.S. dollar got considerably weaker versus its peer currencies in foreign exchange during April, even as Treasury yields fell. There’s no doubt supply chains are deteriorating, or at minimum will be temporarily impaired. Recent economic data on consumer confidence and inflation expectations have been concerning enough to garner news headlines about a recession again. There’s an ongoing mismatch between demand for gold on international exchanges and the physical ounces available in London. These all point to the early stages of a perfect storm, more so for gold at the moment than silver.
While these dislocations across markets have undoubtedly underpinned the precious metals’ rally thus far in 2025, it’s applied far more to gold recently than the rest of the metals. Silver has apparently been more negatively affected by the economy being sluggish, the unpredictable tit-for-tat trade, and the other factors mentioned above. Lately, its price movements have more closely resembled copper, an entirely industrial metal, which similarly tumbled over 5% lower on the last trading day of the month. Copper had rallied 21% in the preceding three weeks of April.
CENTRAL BANK GOLD PURCHASES
Note to readers: Most data about international gold reserves are delayed by a month. They are not typically reported to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and are instead compiled by private organizations such as the World Gold Council (WGC).
The People’s Bank of China bought 90,000 troy ounces (2.8 tons) of gold in March, adding 13 tons year-to-date. However, analysts at Goldman Sachs estimate that the 5 tons the PBoC reportedly bought in February was actually 50 tons of gold.
The Central Bank of Uzbekistan sold 11 tons of gold in March.
The National Bank of Kazakhstan will hold off on any more gold sales amid the uncertainty in international affairs. It also bought 11 tons of gold in March, its largest monthly purchase since 2014.
The Central Bank of Turkey added 1 ton of gold in March. It holds 624 tons total.
The Governor of the Central Bank of Kenya said they are actively considering adding to the bank’s gold reserves.
The State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan added 18.7 tons of gold to its portfolio during the first quarter.
Since 2018, the Polish central bank has accumulated more than 400 tons of gold.
According to data from the Federal Reserve and IMF, central bank gold purchases have been far exceeding their volume of buying Treasury bonds over the last decade.
ON THE RETAIL FRONT
During April the United States Mint sold 1.13 million American Silver Eagle coins. The March sales were updated to 972,500 Silver Eagles. The mint also sold 11,000 American Gold Eagles and 25,500 Gold Buffalos. In March, their respective totals were updated to 15,500 Gold Eagles and 12,000 Gold Buffalo coins.
Interestingly, there has never been a year in which the U.S. Mint sold more Buffalos than Gold Eagles since the former debuted in 2006. It’s never been remotely close, in fact. The Eagles normally outpace the Buffalos by a 2:1 margin. Yet the two coin series are selling surprisingly close thus far in 2025: roughly 100,000 Gold Eagles and 80,000 Gold Buffalos this year.
Year-to-date the mint has sold almost 6.6 million ounces of silver and 182,500 ounces of gold (in terms of bullion coins, not counting collectible sales).
There were reports this month that both the Royal Mint (U.K.) and Perth Mint (Australia) were out of stock of silver bars. We discussed similar shortages of silver bullion at mints in East Asia earlier this spring.
MARKET BUZZ
The Alabama state house unanimously passed a bill to recognize gold and silver as legal tender.
North Carolina’s legislature also unanimously approved a proposal called the Sound Money Act, which reaffirms silver and gold’s status as constitutional legal tender. Lawmakers in Missouri are including similar measures as part of a larger bill.
In Florida, another Sound Money Bill is slated for a vote by the state house.
Chatter about U.S. possible return to a gold standard continues to swirl. Some have speculated it could emerge from an anticipated Mar-a-Lago Accord.
15 out of 17 Fridays in a row have seen strong selling of silver futures when COMEX opens.
Switzerland’s “Big 3” gold vaults are running out of space to store it.
Billionaire investor John Paulson sees gold at $5,000 per ounce by 2028.
JPMorgan raises its gold price target to $4,000 per oz. Goldman Sachs says gold could plausibly reach $4,500 in 2025. UBS is urging investors to buy silver. Other banks have likewise raised their gold forecasts.
Retail gold-buying in Asia has been far heavier compared to the West.
Chinese gold ETFs see massive inflows in April, already more than in all of 2024. This broke a streak of eight straight quarters where these funds saw net outflows.
Net inflows to gold ETFs around the world are now 293 tons year-to-date, and still growing.
There are concerns within China that Chinese banks could hoard the silver supply.
The premium on gold on the Shanghai Gold Exchange relative to its global competitors is once again approaching 2%.
U.S. silver imports set a new all-time high in February. Gold imports were 275 tons, the second-highest month on record.
The ratio of gold to the money supply (the gold–M2 coverage ratio) is still historically low. When adjusted for the money supply, the gold price is actually 75% below its peak.
LOOKING AHEAD TO NEXT MONTH
The Fed will be meeting on May 6th and 7th. Both the Treasury market and the broader financial markets expect an interest rate cut. All else being equal, this would be good for the precious metals.
Beware of more economic (and political) volatility ahead. May will almost surely bring new surprises with tariffs, embargoes, sanctions, and the like. It’s easy to forget that Q1 was the best quarterly performance for gold since the early 1980s. There will be turbulence even amid the “perfect storm” conditions.
– Everett Millman of Gainesville Coins
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