US Mint Sells Out Of Silver Eagles Following "Tremendous" Demand

When it comes to buyers of physical assets as opposed to traders of paper representations of such assets, there is one key difference: the latter, more than anything, enjoy looking at "heatmaps", chasing trends and jumping on momentum, the result being the most recent massive selloff in such "paper" representations of precious metals as the GLD and SLV ETFs, and various gold futures.

On the other hand, those who prefer to hold the metal in their hands, as well as others such as China whose ravenous apetite for gold over the past 4 years has been extensively covered here in the past, take every advantage of selloffs, and - inconceivably - demonstrate how Econ 101, namely supply and demand, really works, leading to ever greater demand the lower the price. Demand so high, in fact, that the underlying commodity that is being sold through paper conduits, sells out.

This is precisely what happened at the U.S. Mint, which just sold out of all silver American Eagle silver bullion coins, following "tremendous" demand in the past several weeks, according to Reuters reports.

This should hardly come as a surprise: over the weekend we reported that "Silver Coin Sales At US Mint Soar To Highest In Two Years."

Sales surged to 5.79 million ounces, the most since January 2013, the month that set an all-time high at 7.5 million, Bloomberg reports. "Today, sales jumped 33 percent in one of the busiest times this year", Tom Jurkowsky, a spokesman at the Washington-based mint, said in an interview. Last month’s total was 4.14 million.

Just remember one thing: A buying opportunity consists of a “sale” which you can take advantage of, and, a subsequent condition in which the value of the item bought rises in value.

Will #2 happen? It may.

I own plenty of PMs but I could not be more neutral on them (opinion) I have endured mucho heat telling people silver would decline to 15-18.

I hear plenty of people claim that silver costs > $20 to extract from the ground, and I have to disabuse people of this. Silver costs NOTHING to pull out of the ground! There is no such thing as a silver mine. All silver comes about as a byproduct of zinc and tin (and other base-metals) mining. Yes, it costs money to assay, melt, and ingotize a chunk or strike an ASE. Not $20. Probably not even $10 and maybe not even $5.

Just sayin’. Not intending to rain on anyone’s parade. But I have traded silver for a very long time. And I don’t claim to know anything more than anyone else; but the amount of disinformation, or, information that nobody can really say is true, or information that could change by a lot tomorrow or next week; that the Chinese are buying everything in sight or JP Morgan wants to take over the world...is BS, IMHO.

The bullion companies keep pushing gold on their TV ads ‘cause `India & China are buying it all up’. Hmm......

There’s always peace dollars out there & Morgan cartwheels plus bags of junk silver. Much more fungible than gold for buy or barter, IMO.

The crash in gold & silver has to be a good sign, isn’t it? Maybe our growing energy independence in spite of Obama has something to do with that, too.

I think it’s 60% “strong dollar” and 40% “stocks to the moon” since every nation on earth is engaged in QE, even if we have ceased.

Anything you hear on the radio is BS. Period.

There is the discussion as to extraction/production costs as these metals; and, whether market prices should be this much or that much over production costs. Certainly, gold/silver prices should fall as fuel falls. Certainly, Au/Ag prices will fall as the USD strengthens. It is *possible* that other nations (and the people in them) will seek protection from declines in their currencies...by buying USDs in some cases, and once they have done that, they may buy gold or, US stocks.

Frankly, I believe that gold prices are much closer to production costs than silver prices. I think these items are much closer to bottoms than tops (that is the only opinion I have) but *IS THERE* a demand that is going to come along and make them pricier in times to come? I don’t know nor do I have an opinion. I am quite neutral on the sector. Hey, maybe the dollar weakens and they start upwards as measured in how many USDs it takes to buy them. I think silver is going to be troubled going forward because higher prices inevitably bring out supply; more so than gold. IMO, silver has gone lower than 95% of silver bugs thought it would, and believe me, I’ve had some very loud and vociferous arguments with plenty of weasels who try to sell me silver every other day. The truth is, nobody can predict the future. I think ALL world markets are somewhat spooked by the drop in oil and do not know quite what to make of it; whether it’s strong dollar or Euro recession. I can cite these factors without being able to construct a simple cause and effect relationship.

But I think that as investments, gold and silver go nowhere for a very, very long time. And higher rates do not IMO help them, as they have implied storage costs yet spin off no interest. As things that make you feel better holding them, fine, that isn’t addressable on an objective basis, IMO. You want ‘em, buy ‘em. They’re pretty cheap. There is no shortage. maybe Eagles are scarce but at the point where you paying $4 = 25% over face (that you will probably only get $2.50 or $3 for when you sell them, in other words, there is a built in 6-15% hit) there is only very slim justification for buying them when it’s not that feasible that stocks take a 25% hit (though they certainly could) and stocks just recently blasted away a 10% correction in 2 weeks.

Thanks for your time in posting this. I have learned a great deal. But if the strength of a national currency is based upon more than popular confidence/lack of panic, i.e., stable economy, production & cash flow, then are things as bad as the gold bugs argue? Is the yuan going to replace the dollar as a medium of foreign exchange? Only the mullahs in Iran hope so.

If things really aren’t as bad as all that, doesn’t the prepper movement start to look uh, kooky? Not talking about laying in supplies in case of natural disaster.

For example, food producers & the system that brings their goods to market are interested in their own economic survival. There’s symbiosis for all participants.

Hope this does not seem too Pollyannish.

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