Gold vs Silver: The DCA Backtest
The identical plan — $100 on the first trading day of each month — run on both assets over their shared history (Aug 2000 → Aug 2026, $31,300 invested each). Every number below is computed from real daily closes; nothing is annualized away or cherry-picked.
Verdict on this window: $31,300 invested into Gold grew to $180,024, versus $174,078 in Silver. Different start dates shuffle this result — the rolling analysis below shows how often.
The same $100/month, side by side
Both positions month by month across the shared window: the dashed line is cash paid in ($31,300 total), the two curves are what Gold and Silver were worth along the way. Where the curves separate is where the decade's story lives.
Does the winner depend on when you started?
One full-window result can mislead — maybe the winner just had a better final year. So we ran the head-to-head across EVERY possible 5-year start month in the shared history:
Side-by-side numbers
Data through Aug 2026, refreshed daily.
The monetary metal versus its industrial sibling
Same metal family, different jobs: gold trades on real rates, central banks and fear; silver adds an industrial demand engine (solar, electronics) that roughly doubles its volatility. The shared window since 2000 shows the pattern clearly — silver overshoots gold's rallies (2011, 2024–26) and overshoots its drawdowns too, spending most of a decade underwater after 2011 while gold recovered years earlier.
The win-rate table is the practical takeaway: gold wins more start months by simply not collapsing, while silver's wins are concentrated and violent. Both series are front-month futures (roll effects apply), neither pays a yield, and the usual portfolio answer is gold for the hedge, a smaller silver sleeve for the torque — sized, as ever, by the worst window, not the best.
FAQ
On the shared window measured here, Gold finished ahead (Gold: +475% vs Silver: +456% on identical monthly buys). "Better" is window-dependent — the rolling head-to-head above tells you how stable that verdict was. Past performance doesn't predict the future; this page tells you what happened, not what will.
Yes, and if the pair is highly correlated the blend will behave like either one alone — check how similar the two curves above are before assuming a split adds diversification. Our portfolio calculator lets you backtest any weighting of the two on the same real data.
Real dividend- and split-adjusted daily closes for Gold and Silver, compared strictly over their shared history (Aug 2000 → Aug 2026), refreshed daily and validated for gaps and staleness. Fees, spreads and taxes are not modelled — see the methodology page.
Run the plan on a real exchange
Five exchanges where DCA — and tokenized stocks & ETFs — actually work, each with a real discount. Pick one, copy the code, trade cheaper.
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