While sales of US Silver eagles declined substantially in February from January which notched the 2nd highest sales total in the history of the US Mint silver eagles production, slipping under the radar is the fact that US Mint silver sales surpassed US Mint gold sales for the month by more than $5 million. February US Mint silver sales totaled $51.614 million, vs $47.508 million in US Mint sales for gold.
As our friend Eric Sprott would say, it is not physically possible for the silver/ gold ratio to remain above 50:1 when the ratio of investment flows into the metals are 1:1.
With $5 million greater in investment flows into silver US Mint products than gold in February, this means investment flows in the US are purchasing approximately 60 times the volume of physical silver than physical gold, an astonishing and unsustainable number.
|
| Chart courtesy sharelynx.com |
15 comments:
Silver, bitches
This statistic, along with so many other data regarding silver and its attractiveness, belies the silver bears who continue to rant against the white metal.
If in the odd chance that silver goes below $30 or even into the mid 20's, that gift would be extraordinary.
As Anon 12.17 so eloquently puts it
Silver, bitches.
Anything less would be an acquiescence to those who wish to harm our positions and all the hard work we have done to assemble a Silver Army.
The G/S sales ratio speaks volumes, doesn't it.
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but are or are not aporox 12 primary dealers the only folks who can buy Eagles in bulk. The mint doesn't sell monster boxes to me. So the mints Eagle numbers don't tell much of a story, except that primary dealers are buying. And that could mean anything, not necessarily that the primary dealers are selling that many. I agree the numbers are impressive, but do they accurately reflect what man-on-the-street is actually stacking?
@Anon 1:59PM: I work for a bullion dealer in Sydney, Australia. We have just started stocking Silver Eagles and both Silver and Gold Maples, in addition to the Perth Mint coins we already sell, due to our retail clients and distributors demands (we act as a wholesaler as well). The demand is so strong we haven't even bothered to advertise them on our website yet as we know we can move all that we have in stock just by flicking an email to our existing client and wholesale base. The bullion business runs on extremely low margins, the primary dealers would not be buying from the mint if they couldn't immediately on sell the stock to retail/wholesale dealers. The costs of vaulting and credit is far too high to buy and sit on stock. Without turnover you earn no spread and increase your risk of being on the wrong side of a price swing.
ABC Bullion
http://www.abcbullion.com.au
"...in the US are purchasing approximately 60 times the volume of physical silver than physical gold..."
Put another way, for every 1 Oz of gold being bought, 60 Oz of silver are bought. And the natural ratio within the Earth's crust is 1 to 15. Therefore, silver is disappearing from the marketplace 4 times faster than gold is.
It's great to see that SD has an international audience!
That silver absortion rate is going to hit a wall with a supply crunch that will be more staggering that a shutoff of oil in the Straits of Hormuz
Well, maybe not THAT startling, but one which instantly be recognized by anyone with a news data source.
Any time a product is seen as scarce or in demand well beyond the supply, the people immediately run to it.
@Anon 6:49PM: I have a 3rd year geoscience Uni student as one of my clients and he is a huge silver bug. He has provided me the stats on silver occurance and mining rates. Silver occurence is roughly 17:1 to gold in the ground, but on average global and Australian mining rates have been 9:1 for the last 10 years despite an almost 800% rise in the US$ price during that time (Peak Silver is real). So at a sales rate of 60:1 this is isn't going to end pretty, not under $500/oz anyway.
ABC Bullion
http://www.abcbullion.com.au
So how long has this been going on and who has some fancy math to calculate when the above ground stockpile runs out. I've been reading these types of articles for awhile now. I don't discount the imbalance to be true I just wonder how long they (TPTB) can paper over the imbalance before actual metal is unavailable for purchase.
I might have mislead with my last comment, we are not running out of silver, Peak Silver does not mean that silver will be unavailable for purchase per se, just that it will be unavailable for purchase below a certain price, just like it is now. Everything is for sale, all that is ever in question is The Price.
Did I make a mistake? When I started accumulating silver I got Valcambi Suisse Kilo Bars. About 95% of my stash are these bars. The rest are silver Maple coins.
I notice most people on these boards are accumulating coins (ie. Maples, ASE, Philharmonics, etc). Is there a difference in what form of silver we stack?
anon 11:43- premiums may vary (likely higher for maples, ASE's, etc), but silver is silver.
No problem with 1kg Silver bars. Actually bulk buying of Silver coins seems to be a very US centric action. At ABC Bullion we mostly sell 1kg bars, the premium on coins turns off most, but not all clients. From memory we shipped out about 78,000 Swiss PAMP 1kg silver bars in 2011, in addition to a similar amount we held in secure storage on behalf of our clients. This is on top of the 5 & 15kg bars we sold and stored. Actually with Australia being the 4th largest silver miner in the world we have direct access to the huge NYSTAR refinery in South Australia which provides our industrial sized 15kg cast silver bars. They are about the size of a loaf of bread, but much tastier :-)
ABC Bullion
http://www.abcbullion.com.au
It seems to me that the main reason north americans focus on the smaller bars and coins is due to the fact that they are easier to sell or exchange for daily survival in a montary collapse situation. Stackin larger bars for pure investment purposes seems to be a secondary reason.
I have a nice variation 100oz bar being the largest.
Crazy Canuck
In addition, here in the UK there is no CGT to pay on gains if you buy the 1oz Britannia coin as this is still recognised as legal tender with a face value of £2!!
Post a Comment