Many of us today are absorbed with what the market is doing today. Computer monitors and screens across the world display price tickers. Trading is rampant and speculation frenzied. The desire to get the next hot tech stock or the promising biotech is obvious. The internet chat rooms are looking for the next heavily shorted stock to profit from. The appetite to find the next cryptocurrency to replace the dollar is headline news. To the smart investor, these are all red flags: Red flags that eventually lead to the outcome of devalued paper assets. Those that are looking to put their money in places set for logical gains over the coming years and looking for safe preservation of capital are flocking to gold and silver. Yes, owning gold and silver in their physical form is a long-term strategy with a holding term of years not days like some internet stocks. However, if you are seeking to benefit from the historically loose monetary policy, massive debt, and fiscal irresponsibility of the government, you better consider owning precious metals now before very little supply is left.
Bullion coin orders spike at US Mint due to gold demand
American Silver Eagle coins at the US Mint have always been heavily sought after. On February 1 alone, authorized purchasers placed orders for 1,571,000 silver American Eagles. In total, for all of February 2020, sales reached 650,000 silver American Eagles. The US Mint January sales were 4,775,000 pieces, which is 929,000 coins more, or 24.1 percent higher, than January 2020 sales. According to Coin World, the silver boom also benefited American Eagle gold bullion coin sales, which reached 344,000 total ounces in January 2021, with 16,000 more ounces added on February 1. Another 65,000 ounces in US gold coins were sold in January 2021 in the form of American Buffalo 1-ounce $50 coins, with another 6,500 of those coins sold on February 1. This was a 210% increase in Gold Buffalo demand from 2020. The February 1 totals in 2021 sales for Buffaloes was a 560% increase from 2020. On February 11, 2021, the Proof 2021-W Silver American Eagle sold out in three minutes. The US Mint also said it will have a limited production window to produce current design American Eagle gold and silver coins, as it’s scheduled to start production of redesigned coins in the summer of 2021, and coins for that program must be produced in advance of the launch date. The US Mint said in late February that it was still rationing its silver coins sales due to strong demand, while distributing its gold and platinum coin sales to authorized purchasers only, with the policy in place for the foreseeable future. All signals point to an increased demand swallowing up all available supply.
Get those Eagles and Buffaloes while you can.
Perth Mint minted product sales for both gold and silver soared during February
According to the Perth Mint, minted product sales for both gold and silver soared during February, with more than 124,000 troy ounces of gold, and more than 1.8 million troy ounces of silver sold during the month. Relative to February 2020, sales increased by more than 400% for gold and 200% for silver, as investors took advantage of lower precious metal prices.
A large spike in demand for Perth Mint coins and minted bars pushed sales of physical gold to a new monthly record in February 2021. The Mint shipped 124,104 troy ounces of gold product, up 63% on the previous month and an enormous 441% on February 2020. Sales of silver bullion coins also jumped sharply to 1,830,707 troy ounces, up more than 57% on the previous month and 202% ahead of February 2020. Some of the Perth Mint’s most popular products included the Kangaroo, Dragon, Kookaburra, and Koala. The demand for Kangaroo minted gold bars, made in 1 oz and 10 oz sizes, was also historically strong. Get those Kangaroos and Kookaburras while you can.
Royal Mint experiencing a huge surge in gold sales
The Royal Mint saw a 510% surge in gold sales in the run-up to Christmas. The government-owned company revealed the number of customers aged between 22 and 37 increased by 32 percent in 2020, as the coronavirus pandemic put precious metals under the spotlight. Gold was a favorite, with the sale of 1 g and 5 g bars increasing by 53 percent in November and December compared to the year before. According to Andrew Dickey, divisional director of precious metals, Gold continued to shine in the last quarter of 2020 as people looked to precious metals for safe-haven investments, but also savvy Christmas gifts. As we go into 2021, various fiscal and monetary policies—both of which are traditional drivers of gold demand—will begin to unfold in an attempt to support the recovery of the global economy. With this in mind, we’re expecting demand for our precious metal products to continue to shine.
Get those Britannia gold coins while you can.
Are the Russians warming up to gold again?
The state lender Sberbank recently revealed that the coronavirus pandemic has spurred a record demand for gold, silver, and other precious metals in the Russian capital. Sberbank said, In Moscow alone, 8,879 ingots of different precious metals with a total weight of 1.162 tons were sold in 2020. The purchased precious metals were worth more than 1.975 billion rubles (around $26.761 million)—that is 2.5 times more compared to investments made in precious metals during the pre-pandemic 2019. Most of the funds were invested in gold bullion bars. According to Sberbank, Muscovites bought more than 6,000 ingots, weighing 389 kg worth 1.89 billion rubles ($25.61 million).
Sberbank added, The demand for gold and silver coins tripled in 2020 compared to a year earlier. Sberbank sold over 205,917 investment and commemorative coins, weighing 2.5 tons and worth around 6.5 billion rubles (over $88 million). Gold and silver coins named ‘Saint George the Victorious’ gained the most popularity among Muscovites.
The Russian central bank recently added that the value of Russian gold in its forex reserves has surpassed the country’s US dollar holdings for the first time. Gold holdings now total $128.5 billion versus the $124.6 billion held in US dollars, the central bank said back in January 2021. President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday oversaw the opening of a Moscow-backed gold refining plant in Kyrgyzstan, pledging the impoverished country’s second-largest mine would see $600 million in investments from Russia. Russia’s central bank stopped buying gold last April. Could Russia start again buying gold considering the price of gold has pulled back so far in 2021?
Wow, this is overwhelming evidence of the historically strong demand for physical gold. Many investors must be scratching their heads trying to figure out why the price of gold isn’t significantly higher? Very simply put, the price of gold is artificially being kept down by the paper markets. Eight key commercial banks, the IMF and the World Bank have effectively and completely taken over. The futures market should be simple. If the contract expires, delivery should occur or contracts need to be rolled forward delaying delivery. If you consider the huge leverage that is at play, far more contracts exist than the actual assets within them. The big institutions are terrified of rising gold and silver. Recently, they were 112% short silver to the tune of over 412 million ounces. According to Matthew Piepenburg of Matterhorn Asset Management,
“Key to the survival of this open scam and price suppression (in play since 1973) is to keep the short contracts on these precious metals perpetually rolling over rather than expiring, for if the contracts were to ever expire, an actual physical delivery of the underlying metals would be legally required. That’s because these same big boys would default on actual delivery for the simple reason that they don’t actually own enough gold and silver to honor their levered contracts. Not even close. But even the big boy’s pockets aren’t deep enough to ever afford going net long to cover their own sins and shorts—this would require trillions, not billions. A small handful of big boys are shorting the gold and silver contracts. They are playing with gasoline and matches.”
Have you ever tried to hold a beach ball underwater? Maybe you can be successful for a while, but eventually the beach ball squirts out the side. Eventually, the price of gold will reflect the broken financial system based on fiat paper and debt. All these market and fiscal shenanigans will eventually matter. The easiest way to diversify, protect yourself from the falling dollar, and guard your nest egg is to move some of your paper into physical gold. If we consider the growth in money supply, gold today is as cheap as it was in 1971 at $35. When the market finally collapses under the weight of this God-awful debt, it will be a disaster and too late to get out. By that time gold will be at an astronomical price.
