Jan 12 (Reuters) - Silver has hit an all-time high of $84.60, tracking unprecedented gains in gold as the dollar slid after the Trump administration threatened a criminal probe into the Federal Reserve chairman, and on tight supply and high industrial interest.
So how does silver trade?
OVER THE COUNTER
The biggest marketplace for physical silver - as well as gold - is London, where banks and brokers handle buy and sell orders from clients across the world.
Trading is done bilaterally over-the-counter
between financial institutions, and an investor must have a relationship with one of these to access the market.
The market is underpinned by bars of bullion which sit in the vaults of large banks such as JPMorgan and HSBC.
As of the end of December 2025, London vaults held 27,818 tons of silver.
FUTURES
Silver also trades on futures exchanges. The largest are the Shanghai Futures Exchange in China and CME Group's COMEX in New York.
Futures are contracts in which the seller pledges to deliver silver to the buyer on a later date. They are typically traded through a broker.
Most futures are not held until delivery but swapped for later-dated ones. This allows both buyer and seller to speculate on the silver price without the trouble of moving and storing metal.
Another advantage of futures is that the holder need not pay the full amount for silver, but instead a fraction of its value, known as a margin.
EXCHANGE-TRADED FUNDS
ETFs trade on stock exchanges such as the NYSE and LSE alongside shares in publicly traded companies.
They store silver for their investors, with each share in the fund representing an amount of silver stored in a vault.
Small investors can trade shares in ETFs easily via apps such as Robinhood.
If demand for the ETF is strong enough to push the price above that of the underlying metal, more silver is moved into the vault to allow new shares to be created, moving the prices back into line.
The largest is the iShares Silver Trust, run by investment manager BlackRock, which contains around 529 million ounces of silver worth some $39 billion at current prices.
BARS AND COINS
Smaller investors can also buy silver bars and coins from retailers around the world.
SILVER MINERS
Investors can also buy shares in companies that mine silver. Like ETFs, these are easy to trade on platforms like Robinhood.
Shares in these companies tend to rise and fall with silver prices, but many other factors such as the company's management, debt or performance also affect their value.
(Reporting by Anmol Choubey in Bengaluru; Editing by Jan Harvey)
