Silver cost $56.71 an ounce at 7:15 a.m. Eastern time on Thursday, October 15. A year earlier the same quote was $53.04, so the metal is up $3.67, or 6.91 percent, over twelve months. The gain is real but modest next to the ground silver lost in the month before.
Those figures come from Fortune’s daily silver price table, which also lists $58.55 for Wednesday and $63.24 a month earlier. Both comparisons are down: 3.14 percent on the day and 10.32 percent on the month.
Up on the year, down sharply on the month
The year-ago comparison flatters silver. A buyer from last October is ahead, but a buyer from mid-September paid $63.24 for an ounce that now brings $56.71, a loss of $6.53 an ounce.
The dealer USAGold, in its daily market report for October 15, had silver at $57.55 an ounce later that morning, up $1.15 or 1.99 percent on the day. It described the move as a rebound from “Wednesday’s brutal 5.9% slide.”
The same report lists silver at $58.56 on October 14 and $60.53 on October 13. Read in order, the quotes show a metal that gave up ground on Tuesday and Wednesday before steadying on Thursday.
A holding of 100 ounces makes the numbers concrete. At $56.71 an ounce it is worth $5,671, against $5,304 a year earlier, a gain of $367. A month ago the same 100 ounces were worth $6,324, so the past month cost $653.
For retirees who own silver, or who keep coins and bars at home, that swing is the practical issue. A position that fell 5.9 percent in a single session on Wednesday can turn a planned sale into a guess about timing. Anyone who needs the money for living costs also has to know what the sale will cost in taxes, and silver coins are taxed differently from most investments.
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A metal that swings more than gold
Silver is a smaller market than gold, and a good deal of it goes into industry. Fortune’s table notes that silver’s widespread industrial use makes it more sensitive to economic trends, which is why its daily moves tend to be larger than gold’s.
The ratio shows the gap. USAGold put the gold-to-silver ratio near 72.6 on Thursday, meaning an ounce of gold bought about 72 ounces of silver. At Fortune’s 7:15 a.m. check, gold was $4,156.30, and the gold table about two hours later had it at $4,147, a move of less than a quarter of one percent.
Platinum and palladium, the other two metals in Fortune’s table, were at $1,616.90 and $1,118.58 an ounce at 7:15 a.m. Fortune says both share silver’s volatility because their markets are small.
How a silver sale is taxed
The IRS says net capital gains from selling collectibles, such as coins or art, are taxed at a maximum 28 percent rate. Stocks and mutual funds held more than a year are usually taxed at lower long-term rates. The IRS page gives coins as an example of a collectible and does not discuss silver bars or bullion by name.
The holding period works the same way as for other assets. A gain counts as long-term if the asset was held for more than a year, counted from the day after it was acquired through the day it was sold. A coin bought a year ago at $53.04 an ounce and sold at $56.71 would show a $3.67 gain per ounce, before any dealer premium or fee.
On 100 ounces sold at a $367 gain, the most the collectibles rate would take is about $103 in federal tax. A sale at a loss follows its own rules, and the IRS page was last updated September 24, 2026.
What the backdrop says about the next few weeks
Thursday’s rebound followed a hot inflation report. The Bureau of Labor Statistics said consumer prices rose 3.7 percent over the 12 months ended in September, with the monthly index up 0.6 percent. The energy index alone was up 20.4 percent over the year, which is the kind of reading that sends investors looking at metals as a hedge. USAGold’s October 14 report had silver at $58.56 after that release.
The next scheduled event is the Federal Reserve’s October 27 and 28 meeting. The October gathering is not one of the meetings that comes with a new set of Fed economic projections. USAGold said another interest-rate increase was still possible and that traders were waiting on remarks from Fed officials Austan Goolsbee and Kevin Warsh on Thursday. Silver, like gold, pays nothing while it is held, so rate expectations are part of what moves it.
The result is a metal with a good year behind it, a rough month just finished and a tax rule that differs from the one for stocks. Whether silver belongs in a retiree’s plan depends on what it would be sold to fund, and which account the money should come from first.
Selling silver to cover retirement expenses?
A silver sale lands on the same tax return as every other withdrawal, and a gain taxed at up to 28 percent can raise the bill on the rest of the year’s income. Selling at the wrong moment, or from the wrong account first, is a mistake that costs real money and cannot be reversed.
The Retirement Tax & Withdrawal Planner sets out the account withdrawal order, so a retiree can see which money to draw first before any metal is sold. It comes with four calculators covering provisional income, the IRMAA Medicare tier, required distributions and Roth bracket fill, which show how a one-time gain changes the numbers.
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This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
