Is silver really in shortage?
Posted by Frugal on March 26th, 2008
There have been several reports of people not being able to buy silver coins at the local dealers. Initially, I bought into their story of silver shortage. However, after more thoughts, I am not so sure if that is really true.
The current shortage in silver seems to be caused by the minting capacity and human labor to process and ship orders rather than an actual shortage. Of course, this is just my opinion. I remember back in 2002 or 2003, when I tried to refinance my mortgage, it was really hard to talk to a loan officer because of a huge demand. There was certainly not a shortage of money to be loaned out. But there was certainly a shortage in loan officers to process these loans. I think the silver shortage is more of a shortage in human labor rather than a real shortage. And one thing is for sure, and that is a very big demand for silver coins, while very few people are selling.
The cause for the apparent “shortage” is important in determining which stage we are in in this bull market (if it’s not done yet). What does such a big investment and retail demand represents for silver, and precious metal complex as a whole? I almost want to say that there is a higher probability of PM just going thru wave 5 of wave 1, rather than a wave 3 of wave 1 or 3 or wave 5 of A wave 5 represents more of a mania and an important top.
If it was a wave 5 of wave 1, then PM will really have some good amount of correction ahead. Right now, I just cannot tell, even though Mark Hulbert at Marketwatch.com, and Bob Moriarty at 321gold.com are still positive and/or become positive about PM.
I’m not going to get ahead of myself. If it’s a long correction, I will probably ride it out again. By my model calculation, HUI won’t give a buy signal for at least 10 trading days. So I’m going to be patient.
Best luck trading,
Frugal at My 1st Million At 33 .com
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March 26th, 2008 at 7:22 am
I’ve had some difficulty in picking up physical silver recently. Paper silver is easy to come by ( Just by SLV ), but that’s not what I want. I did manage to pick up a bit of physical - most in Silver Eagle coins.. at a small premium over spot. Considering these sell easily for over spot ( ebay, craigslist, APMEX etc ), i don’t have a problem paying a premium
So in my experience, yes it’s been hard to come by. If you’re a buyer, you should pick up some while / if you can. Whether hte shortage is in the actual metal or in manpower like you suggest - the shortage is real.
August 27th, 2008 at 4:16 am
I’ve bought physical silver. All the physical silver I bought was pre 1965 change or silver rounds which were made over a decade or more ago. I bought it near spot, and sometimes even *below* spot.
You can’t find coins or rounds this old anymore, nor can you buy at sport anymore.
100 OZ bars aren’t uncommon nor are they hard to produce nor are they expensive to produce because they don’t require a whole lot of expensive machinery that is required for making rounds.
Physical silver spreads are about a buck per ounce right now, even for 100 OZ bars - this provides a very lucrative opportunity for making money if you can produce silver rounds or 100 oz bars which don’t require much in terms of equipment to make in comparison to rounds. All you need to do is take delivery of silver on a futures exchange, upon delivery immediately sell short to lock in the price, then make silver rounds aplenty.
But no mint is doing this.
Why aren’t they? It’s not just governments not doing this, it’s anybody.
The COMEX and the physical will have to come back into agreement with narrowing spreads, but it’s sure interesting waiting all these MONTHS for it to happen. You’d think with the Federal governments so far in debt, they’d be dying to be making free cash, but they aren’t. Shortages happen when commodities are undervalued relative to the true market value. Just let the price float, and you’ll see decreased demand for the product until supply = demand.
You can’t find any silver anywhere at spot now. None, unless you do a futures contract and take delivery, and the pretty much cuts out anybody that doesn’t want to buy 5,000 oz of silver or more as a brick - that’s a $70,000 commitment, and also you need to report the purchase to the IRS when you do that, thanks to the Patriot Act. Did you know that the Patriot Act had that in there? I bet you didn’t know John Edwards helped write it either.