Silver holds near £39 an ounce as the gold-silver ratio stays above 78 into the weekend

Silver ends the week at around £39 a troy ounce, or roughly £1.26 a gram before dealer costs. That is our approximate conversion of the $51.86 Kitco quoted in early US trading on Friday, when silver was up about 0.2 per cent while gold fell nearly 0.9 per cent to around $4,051.

Those two prices put the gold-silver ratio, the number of silver ounces needed to buy one ounce of gold, at about 78. That is well above the 60 to 70 range seen over the summer, which means silver is still lagging gold after October's heavy sell-off. Some buyers watch the ratio as a rough guide to relative value, though it does not predict where either price goes next.

The pressure on both metals came from a strong US jobs report. Kitco says employers added 165,000 jobs in October, which strengthens the case for another Federal Reserve rate rise in December. Higher rates tend to weigh on metals that pay no interest, and Kitco adds that silver is particularly exposed to worries about industrial demand and investor risk appetite.

The next test is US inflation data on 10 November. For UK buyers, most silver bullion carries 20 per cent VAT, unlike investment gold, so compare the all-in cost: spot plus premium, VAT and delivery. This is market information, not financial advice.