Silver had a much superior performance compared to nearly all other major asset classes in 2025. Silver outperformed not just gold but also stocks and real estate in 2025. Silver is expected to finish the year with an increase of over 160%, significantly outperforming gold. Silver has more than doubled its return so far in 2025, compared to 70% for gold.
Silver is increasingly seen as a valuable investment, akin to gold, leading to a heightened fear-of-missing-out (FOMO) among retail investors. Remember, no investment decision should be based on the FOMO factor; however, if you believe investing in silver will diversify your portfolio for the long term, consider the following methods to invest in silver.
Physical Silver
Buying silver coins, jewelry, or bars will give you exposure to silver metal. However, you need to keep it safe at home or in bank lockers. The purity is also an issue that not all investors may be familiar with. Genuine investment-grade silver typically has a purity of at least 99.9%, although verifying this purity can be challenging for average buyers.
Most importantly, there are making charges, wastages, etc. that are associated with silver jewellery. Even at the time of selling, some charges will eat into your returns. The actual selling price may differ according to cities and jewellers, thus impacting your returns.
Silver Exchange Traded Fund
Silver ETF, or the Exchange Traded Fund, is a much simpler and cheaper way to own silver. ETFs work like a mutual fund; a silver ETF holds physical silver and silver-related instruments, just as an equity mutual fund holds stocks in the portfolio.
How to buy Silver ETFs
There are 9 Silver ETF’s in India. You need to have a Demat account to buy silver ETFs. The same Demat account opened with a stockbroker that you use for buying stocks can be used for buying Silver ETF units. There is no minimum investment required, and one can start buying with as little as Rs 500.
Silver ETF units can be bought and sold during trading hours on NSE and BSE. But here is a big difference. The AMCs will declare the NAV of the silver ETFs at the end of the day, but the market price during the next day’s trading may differ from the actual NAV. There is a possibility that the Silver ETF units trade at a premium.Silver Returns in 2025
In the international markets, silver trades around $76, after falling from a high of $84. In the Indian markets, 1 kg of silver costs Rs 2.4 lakh.
Silver ETF tracks the price of silver. Silver is an internationally traded commodity. Silver price in India is influenced not only by what’s happening globally but is also subject to import duty and taxes. Additionally, a domestic premium is added before the Silver ETF price is calculated.
Silver is already up over 160% this year. The average return of silver ETFs is also round 160%. If you want to know what’s behind the silver price surge and what to expect in 2026, click here to read. It will also help you decide how much exposure you may consider in silver, provided you want to ride the silver’s golden run in the months ahead.