Gold & Silver Eagles Mid Year Sales Round-Up

Below is month over month American Gold (AGE) and Silver Eagle (ASE) coin sales for June/July 2018. These numbers represent the number of coins the authorized purchasers added to the shelves – these numbers do not represent actual retail sales of AGE’s or ASE’s.  Authorized Purchasers (AP) are the wholesalers that work directly with the U.S. Mint to distribute the Mint products across the country and around the world. Yet another government sanctioned cartel.

Looking at June and July 2017 numbers we see similar month over month increases and a mid year “surge”, however, the year over year numbers begin to reveal the truth of the matter; and as we all know the truth can be very, very ugly.

In June 2017 a mere 6,000 ounces of gold were sold while in June 2018 more than 4x that amount – 24,500 gold ounces sold. With silver we see the exact opposite. In June 2017 986,000 silver ounces sold compared to 435,000 ounces in June 2018. It appears someone is beginning to see gold as a money and silver as a “bet”.

What is going on? June and July in the month over month and the year over year we see schizophrenic market. Massive swings in ounces sold between gold and silver.

When I began this article it seemed like a simple enough task, provide a mid-year update take a look at month over month give the numbers for year over year and move on. But this seems to show some type of frenetic transfer in thought and more of a concerned posture by the wholesalers (AP). The AP’s are a direct reflection, from an arrears perspective, as the AP’s are restocking from what they have sold over the past few weeks and these two months show something seems to be happening.

With AGE’s sold in July 2017 a total of 17,500 gold ounces compared to July 2018 of exactly double. Or said another way 35,000 gold ounces represents a 100% increase in gold ounces sold in July 2018.

Looking at ASE’s silver ounces sold in 2017 we see a massive 2,320,000. Last year we suggested this massive increase was stockpiling into the second half of the year – we believe we correct. We see in July 2018 just shy of a 75% DECREASE in silver ounces sold year over year. WOW!

If we look at the year-to-date sales we see a different picture emerging. The numbers below are through the end of July for their respective year.

We see a massive decline, close to 75% decrease in silver ounces sold while gold is right at a 50% decline.

So, while on one hand a month over month increase in gold ounces sold paints a picture, for me, that people are moving into money and leaving the speculative bet of silver behind. Overall we a massive decline in the overall sales of both AGE’s and ASE’s. Remember the second half of the year we have holiday closings and December could see a shut down for most of the month. Realistically, we have, maybe, five months of sells compared to a full six months in the first half. For this reason if we project out to years end we could see silver barely reaching 13 million ounces sold and gold only reaching 250,000 gold ounces sold. This is not unrealistic