How restless is each metal — measured against itself?
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.
How restless is each metal — measured against itself?
Volatility says how widely a price swings around its own trend: annualised, measured over the last 30 trading days in each case. The bar shows the range since 2006, the line the mean, the dot today’s level.
Calmest is Gold at 14.7 % on average, most restless Palladium at 29.7 %. The current reading is notable: four of the five metals are currently above their own normal level — only Copper sits below it at 20.9 % (21.9 % on average).
Own calculation on daily closing prices in USD: standard deviation of log daily returns over 30 trading days, annualised with 252 trading days. Period 2006-01 to 2026-11, 251 monthly values per metal. Volatility measures fluctuation, not direction of loss — it rises equally on strong upward and downward moves and says nothing about whether a metal is currently expensive or cheap. The values are comparable with one another because all five are calculated identically; a comparison with figures published elsewhere is not, since window length and annualisation factor may differ there. Copper is quoted in USD per pound in the market — for the range the unit makes no difference.
Where the numbers come from
This chart is calculated from our own price recordings. It is recalculated twice a day — after the daily close and after the London reference price at 16:30.
- our own measurement Our own daily closing prices for the metals — new values every trading day
The Chart view shows the most recently calculated state. The Image version — including the one for sharing and downloading — is a still image generated nightly at 02:30. Last generated on 11/09/2026 at 02:31.
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