English edition — German rules — Prices and metal data are global, but everything on tax, VAT and dealer practice describes Germany (§ 23 EStG, 19 % VAT) — those rules do not apply if you buy or sell elsewhere.
33 charts on price formation, supply, rates, risk, the futures market and reserves. Most of them are recalculated every day and therefore show today’s position, not the one from the day they were made. Each may be reused freely as long as PreciousMetalPrices.com is named and linked as the source.
All the gold ever mined (around 220,000 tonnes) fits into a cube of about 22 metres on a side — shown next to a bus and a person for scale.
Share of periods in which a gold investment was in the red after 1, 3, 5, 10, 15 and 20 years: the share falls with the holding period, but even after 20 years it remains above zero.
Fear and Greed Index for gold, silver, platinum, palladium and copper side by side, each as a semicircle from fear to greed.
The US gold reserves of 261.5 million troy ounces sit on the Treasury’s books at the price of 42.22 dollars an ounce fixed by law in 1973 — around 11 billion dollars of book value against a market value in the hundreds of billions. With the split across Fort Knox, West Point, Denver and the Federal Reserve.
Price ratios within the platinum group: one ounce of gold costs around 2.5 ounces of platinum today, while on average since 1990 both metals were about equally expensive — and palladium was at times even dearer than gold.
Gold-silver ratio as a gauge: how many ounces of silver one ounce of gold costs, with a historical range from 17 (1980) to 127 (2020).
Exchange rate matrix: how the gold price in US dollars and the exchange rate to the investor’s own currency combine, and what follows from that for the local gold price.
Annual return of gold in US dollars for every calendar year since 1971, colour-coded for winning and losing years.
Futures market positioning of gold, silver, platinum, palladium and copper, each placed within the range of the past ten years: palladium swings the widest, copper the least.
Typical daily range between high and low for gold, silver, platinum, palladium and copper since 2010: gold travels the least at around 1.3 per cent, palladium the most at around 2.5 per cent, and the biggest spikes hit several metals in the same month.
Distance of the precious metal prices from their respective all-time highs: gold, silver, platinum, palladium and copper compared, with the date of each record high.
Density of the thirteen metals tracked as the weight of one litre: iridium is the heaviest at 22.56 kg per litre, aluminium the lightest at 2.7 kg — the same cube ten centimetres on a side, eight times the weight.
Open futures contracts on gold, silver, platinum, palladium and copper in relation to one year of world mine production: for silver, in more than every second week there is more open paper in the market than the world’s mines produce in a whole year; for the other four metals, not once.
Annualised 30-day volatility of gold, silver, platinum, palladium and copper: palladium and silver swing the most, gold the least — and copper is currently the only one of the five sitting below its own normal level.
One million in thirteen different metals: in iridium the amount weighs only a few kilograms and fits into a small cube, in lead it comes to hundreds of tonnes — with the volume in litres for each metal.
Real rate against the gold price: line chart showing the largely inverse movement of the real rate and the gold price, and their current parallel rise.
Seasonality of the gold price: heatmap of average monthly performance, with January as well as August and September tending to be strong months.
Shortfall of the silver price against its respective all-time high since 1968: after the January 1980 high silver fell by more than 92 per cent, and it took over 45 years for the old peak to be reached again.
Stock-to-flow for gold: an above-ground stock of around 220,000 tonnes against annual mine production of only around 3,300 tonnes (about 1.5 %).
Trading hours in the gold market across 24 hours: Asia, London and New York, with the highest liquidity during the London and New York overlap in the afternoon (CET).
The copper-gold ratio as a growth barometer against the real ten-year rate since 2003: until 2015 both measures ran in parallel, since 2022 the relationship has inverted — the real rate rises, the ratio falls.
Price comparison of all thirteen metals tracked, per kilogram on a logarithmic scale: iridium and rhodium rank ahead of gold, while lead, aluminium and zinc sit at the bottom — a factor of 166,704 separates the dearest from the cheapest.
The price chain from the interbank spot price through the reference fixing and the refinery to the retail selling price: the final price consists of around 88 % material value and around 12 % premium.
Shortfall of the gold price against its most recent all-time high since 1968: after the January 1980 high it took until January 2008 — around 28 years — for that level to be reached again; the deepest shortfall was around 70 per cent.
Real yield of inflation-protected US government bonds across maturities from 5 to 30 years: at the 2021 low the whole curve was negative, today it runs above 2 per cent throughout — the opportunity cost of gold is fully back.
Typical price movement per hour of the day for gold, silver, platinum, palladium and copper: for all five metals the strongest movement falls between 16:00 and 17:00 CET, when London and New York trade at the same time.
The largest gold producing countries in the world: China around 380 t, followed by Russia and Australia (USGS, 2025 output).
Correlation matrix of the daily returns of gold, silver, platinum, palladium and copper over three years: platinum and palladium move together most closely at 0.70, copper goes its own way the most at 0.33 on average.
Melting points of the thirteen metals tracked compared: ruthenium melts only at 2,334 degrees, tin already at 231.9 degrees — more than two thousand degrees separate them.
Net position of non-commercial traders in the gold futures market as a share of open interest from 1986 to today: the area sits mostly above the zero line, with the gold price above it on a logarithmic scale.
Breakdown of global gold demand: jewellery around 45 %, investment around 25 %, central banks around 20 %, technology and industry around 10 %.
The largest central bank gold reserves by country: the United States at 8,133 t, followed by Germany at 3,352 t, the IMF, Italy and France.
The largest silver producing countries in the world: Mexico around 6,300 t, ahead of China and Peru (USGS 2024).
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Most charts calculate from our own price series — daily closing prices for gold and silver from 1968, for platinum and palladium from 1990. Added to that are freely usable sources: the harmonised index of consumer prices from Eurostat, the CFTC futures market reports, the real yield curve of the US Treasury and the production figures of the U. S. Geological Survey. Each chart states what it uses underneath.
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