Gold and silver: Why to buy in July

​Why buy in July? Because, historically, buying precious metals in late June or early July – and riding them out for the rest of the year - has worked out well for investors. While gold and silver don’t technically have actual “seasonals” like an agricultural commodity, they do have well-established price action patterns. And one of the most consistent of those patterns has precious metals making a significant low in June…and then rising substantially all the way to Christmas (or at least to Thanksgiving – sometimes there’s just a slight year-end dip between Christmas and New Year’s Day).

In 2025, gold prices zoomed up from around $3,300 an ounce in June to approximately $4,300 an ounce at year-end. Silver performed even better, approximately doubling from $35 per ounce to close out the year around $70 per ounce.Take a look at the silver seasonality chart below:

Chart images of silver and copper seasonality courtesy of EquityClock.com

The clear tendency is for silver to get smacked down and bottom out in late June, and then rally toward new highs for the year in late November/early December. Gold, historically, follows roughly the same pattern – although it tends to trade a bit sideways in July while silver typically enjoys a sharp July upswing.This “rising through the second half of the year” price pattern even extends to copper, as shown below:

Copper sits right behind silver as an indispensable industrial metal. And as silver prices go higher, users will likely look to substitute cheaper copper when and where they can. The supply and demand picture for copper, like that of silver, argues for higher prices. Projected copper demand by the year 2040 is estimated to be nearly 50% higher than current levels, at over 40 million tons annually. Copper may present an opportunity that gets missed by investors who only keep an eye on the precious metals.

Reasons to buy gold and silver in 2026

There are more – many more – reasons beyond just the strong seasonal tendencies - to consider buying into the precious metals markets in the latter half of 2026. Here’s a brief rundown on the major ones that I see at the moment.

1. Central banks continue buying gold and silver – Although the frenetic pace of central bank gold buying in 2024 and 2025 may have slowed just a bit, central banks all around the globe continue their push to increase their gold and silver reserves. And they’re probably not buying because they expect prices to fall. The U.S., Russia, and China, have all declared silver a key strategic reserve asset. Gold has overtaken U.S.  Treasuries as the most widely held reserve asset along with the U.S. dollar. And countries are also making strong moves to repatriate their gold reserves home from vaults in London, New York, or elsewhere.

A World Gold Council survey (see graphic below) reveals that 45% of central banks – the highest percentage in the last seven years – plan to increase their gold reserves in 2026 (only 1% plan to decrease their gold holdings). In just the past four years, central banks have added double the amount of gold to their reserves, as compared to how much they had added over the whole previous decade.

Graphic courtesy of gold.org

Compare the close numbers on these two statistics gathered from the survey:

- 74% expect reserves held in the form of U.S. dollars worldwide to drop

- 84% expect reserves held in the form of gold to rise

2. Market manipulation/suppression of precious metals prices is on the wane – For decades, major bullion banks artificially suppressed gold and silver prices by taking massive short positions in the futures markets in London and New York. But as market power has shifted east to Shanghai and Hong Kong, they’ve been burned by the continuing bull market in precious metals, and there are clear signs that those same banks are finally giving up the fight. JP Morgan – which, just a few years ago, had to pay a huge fine for market manipulation – in 2025 closed out a short position in silver totaling more than three million ounces.

3. The shortfall in silver supply vs. demand continues – And the supply/demand situation is only expected to get worse. The projected supply shortfall for 2026 is forecast to come in at around 40 million ounces. AI, humanoid robots, and military applications join solar panels, electric vehicles, medical devices, cellphones, and an ever-expanding list of industrial uses for silver to create more and more pressure, each year, on the available supply of silver. With the global mine supply sitting around 800 million ounces, just the EV and solar panel demand for silver alone are expected to eclipse 1.5 billion ounces by 2030. One relatively new demand arena - the fast-growing “electric vertical takeoff and landing” (eVTOL – air taxis) sector – is already projected to consume 12 million ounces of silver per year by 2030. In sum, we’re looking at 2+ billion ounces of annual demand against barely 800 million ounces of annual supply. That’s total annual mining supply meeting barely 40% of total demand.

Graphic courtesy of thesilveracademy

4. Inflation is untamed and on the rise - The $1 trillion+ that the U.S. has spent on the war against Iran isn’t doing anything to reduce the U.S. national debt. The new Federal Reserve Chairman has already signaled that he expects inflation to be a continuing problem for the near future. Inflation means the erosion of U.S. dollar purchasing power, and that means higher prices for real money – gold and silver.

Conclusion

Current analyst projections for per ounce gold and silver prices between now and 2030 range to $18,000 (or higher) for gold and $1,500 (or higher) for silver. Even conservative estimates see gold above $5,000 and silver above $100 per ounce in 2027.

Just one more note before closing: I haven’t forgotten the oft-repeated rumor that President Trump told his long-time economic advisor, Judy Shelton, that – as part of the America 250th anniversary – he plans to roll out a gold-backed Treasury bond and/or revalue the U.S. gold reserves. If either of those moves becomes a reality, it could easily act as a rocket launch for gold and silver prices. In any event, although of course I could be wrong, I’m looking for gold and silver to be trading at substantially higher prices as they close out 2026 and move into 2027.

We shall see…