U.S. Mint Suspends Sales of Silver Eagles on Record Volume

Announcer:

Welcome to Money Metals Exchange's weekly market wrap podcast. Helping precious metals investors during these treacherous times. Now, here's this week's market wrap with commentary and analysis from the fastest growing precious metals dealer in America, Money Metals Exchange.

Mike Gleason:

Welcome to this week's market wrap podcast, I'm Mike Gleason.

Well let's get right to the markets, because we're seeing some extremely interesting developments. Precious metals are rallying this week and clearing some price thresholds that put a lid on higher prices most of last year.

Silver shows gains of 4% on the week through Thursday's close. Prices now sit at multi-week highs. As of this recording on Thursday evening, silver trades at $31.80 an ounce. The battle around the $30 level appears to have been won by the bulls.

In fact, we may never see prices that low again. But they remain relatively low nonetheless, meaning silver has a lot of room to run before encountering price highs of $37, seen last year, and $49 in 2011.

As for gold, it's up a more modest 1.6% this week through Thursday's close. It's currently sitting at just above $1,690 an ounce.

In other news, Germany's central bank announced on Wednesday that it wants its gold back! The Bundesbank will repatriate some its gold held at the New York Federal Reserve back to Germany, a move that analysts say represents a breakdown of trust between the central banks.

Germany reportedly owns 3,400 tons of gold, making it the world's second-largest holder of the monetary metal, second only to the United States. The U.S. supposedly owns over 8,000 tons of gold, but without a full audit of Fort Knox in more than 40 years, we'll just have to take the government's word that it's all there.

Gold remains the most precious asset held by many central banks, but it is no longer the most precious of the precious metals in terms of price. On Tuesday,platinum reached price parity with gold. The white metal now trades at a slight premium to the yellow metal. Platinum closed Thursday trading at $1,697.

Meanwhile, the other platinum group metal, palladium, managed to break out to new multi-year highs this week, exceeding last February's high-mark of $720 an ounce. But like silver, it still has a lot of room to run before reaching its 2011 peak when palladium got up to $850 in early 2011, which is about 18% above current levels.

So in sum, the price action in precious metals looks bullish. The metals still need to show they can hold their respective breakout levels, but if they can, they could have plenty of room to rally before becoming overbought or encountering major price resistance.

Bears might note that the gold and silver mining shares have been going nowhere this year, failing to confirm the rallies in the bullion. That is cause for concern. But on the other hand, the mining shares have been lagging consistently for quite some time due to higher operating costs and other difficulties that have plagued the industry.

Physical bullion and mining shares are really two entirely separate asset classes, with the mining companies carrying a much larger set of risks for investors. Just judging precious metals themselves – especially silver, platinum, and palladium – on their own technical cyclical, and fundamental merits, the outlook in the short, intermediate, and long-term appears bullish.

Now for the other big news of the week.

Late Thursday, the U.S. Mint announced it has temporarily suspended sales of the Silver Eagles, after experiencing record sales earlier in the month. Apparently they have run short of silver for minting purposes.

When the U.S. Mint does resume production of the Eagles, supposedly towards the end of this month, government officials will restrict the quantity that can be bought, meaning premiums are going to be heading quite a bit higher.

Meanwhile, our extra availability of 90% pre 1965 silver coins couldn't have come at a better time, as we should have enough supply to provide an good alternative to the Eagles in the short run. But for at least the next few days,Money Metalswill not be able to take any orders of silver Eagles.

Sit tight and we'll keep our customers posted on when we can resume taking orders for those Eagles. Silver rounds and 90% silver dimes and quarters are available however in the meantime.

Well that will do it for this week's market wrap podcast, thank for listening. This has been Mike Gleason with Money Metals Exchange reminding you that we remain fully committed to getting you the most value for your depreciating dollar... with speed, with privacy and with top notch service. Have a great weekend everybody.

Announcer:

Thank you for joining us for this edition of the Money Metals Exchange Weekly Market Wrap. Be sure to come back next week, and don't forget to subscribe to our weekly podcast through iTunes. For answers to all of your questions, or to discretely and securely buy or sell gold or silver coins, bars, and rounds, call 1-800-800-1865. Our knowledgeable and no-pressure specialists are standing by between 7:00 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. mountain time, Monday through Friday. Visit us at www.MoneyMetals.com or call 1-800-800-1865.