If I'd invested in silver since 2012
$1,000 put into silver at the end of 2012 would be worth about $973 today — a 0.97× return, or roughly -0.2% a year. Change the amount below to run your own number.
You'd have
$973
from $1,000 invested — down 3%.
The story behind the number
Silver since 2012 has been a fairly steady climb. $1,000 put in at the end of 2012 shrank to $973 — a 0.97× return, or about -0.2% a year. The S&P 500 actually did better over the same years, turning that $1,000 into $5,209 — about 5.35× what this returned.
The ride mattered as much as the destination. The strongest single year was 2020, up 47%; the worst was 2013, down 35%.
Holding on took nerve: the position fell as much as 54% from its 2012 peak to its 2015 low and had not fully reclaimed that peak by the end of the window. Inflation takes a bite, too — consumer prices rose about 44% over the period, so in today's money the result is closer to 0.71× what you put in.
Common questions
- How much would I have if I'd invested $1,000 in silver in 2012?
- $1,000 invested in silver at the end of 2012 would be worth about $973 today — a 0.97× return, or roughly -0.2% per year.
- What were the best and worst years for silver since 2012?
- The best year was 2020, up about 47%. The toughest was 2013, when it fell about 35%. Across the window, 6 of 12 years finished lower than they started.
- What was the biggest drop along the way?
- The steepest decline was about 54%, from a peak in 2012 to a low in 2015, a level it had not fully recovered by the latest data.
- Would I have done better in S&P 500?
- Yes — the S&P 500 turned $1,000 into about $5,209, versus $973 for silver over the same window.
The chart above shows the whole journey, not just the destination. Try switching to a bit each year to see how spreading your buying would have changed the outcome — or skip the latte to find out what a small daily habit could have grown into instead.
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