CaratThe Perth Mint sold 486,043 ounces of silver in July
Silver sales rose 65% on the month and platinum 59%. Gold rose 4% to 30,871 ounces. The mint published the figures on 10 August, and gold has risen 8.51% since the month those figures describe.
§1A month at the coin counter.
The Perth Mint sold 30,871 troy ounces of gold, 486,043 ounces of silver and 1,915 ounces of platinum in minted product during July, in figures the mint published on 10 August. Gold rose 4% on the month and 41% on the year. Silver rose 65% on the month and 8% on the year. Platinum rose 59% on the month and 46% on the year. Those figures are seven days old as they print here and describe a month that closed more than a fortnight ago, which is stated rather than smoothed over: this is new to this paper's archive, not new to the world, and it is reported because nothing else this desk found this morning shows the small physical buyer as directly.
Silver is the number that carries the release. Fifteen point seven ounces of silver for every ounce of gold left the mint in July, on this desk's division of the two counts. Turned into money at this morning's marks of $4,394.60 and $65.38 an ounce, that is roughly $135.7 million of gold against $31.8 million of silver, so gold outsold silver by 4.27 to one by value while silver outsold gold by 15.7 to one by weight. A 65% monthly jump in silver ounces against a 4% jump in gold ounces is a buyer trading down the periodic table, which is the behaviour a retail counter shows when the headline metal has run away from the wallet rather than when confidence has left the sector.
§2Silver carries the release.
The price context is the part the release cannot state, because it was written before it happened. The mint's own note records gold trading near $4,050 an ounce at the end of July, a modest monthly gain of about 1% after touching the year's low during the month. This paper's mark of record this morning is $4,394.60, which is 8.51% above that end-July level, this desk's arithmetic. So July's demand was recorded at a price the buyer would now be delighted to pay, and every ounce of that 30,871 has appreciated since the ledger closed. It also means the July figures cannot be read forward: a 4% rise in gold ounces at $4,050 says nothing about what August looks like $344 higher.
Fifteen point seven ounces of silver for every ounce of gold
§3The price the ledger was written at.
The mint's exchange-traded product moved almost not at all in the same month. Holdings in PMGOLD rose 1,011 ounces, or 0.26%, to 382,735 ounces, which is 11.90 tonnes at 31.1035 grams to the ounce. A 65% surge at the coin counter beside a quarter of a per cent at the fund is two different customers in one release. Two limits: these are one mint's minted-product sales, not Australian demand and certainly not global demand, and the Perth Mint is a refiner whose retail channel skews to Australian and Asian buyers. The series is worth carrying because it is monthly, unrevised and published by the seller, which is more than most physical demand data offers.
The coin counter and the fund moved in different directions in July, and the gap between them is the most honest reading of who is still buying metal at these levels. The fund buyer adds a quarter of a per cent and waits. The counter buyer, priced out of gold, takes fifteen ounces of silver for every ounce of gold and takes 65% more of it than the month before. This paper reported on 14 August that global gold ETF flows in July were a European story with North America contributing $71 million; the Perth Mint's July says the same market from the other end, where the ticket is a coin rather than a fund unit. Both describe a buyer who wants the metal and is increasingly choosing the cheaper one.
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