Get Your Gold and Silver Now before They’re All Gone—Oops, Too Late
The comments below are an edited and abridged synopsis of an article by John Rubino
Precious metals advocates have been warning for years that the time to load up on a safe-haven asset is before it’s needed, because by the time it is needed, it won’t be available. That seemed a bit hyperbolic in a world of smoothly functioning markets and apparently infinite horizons of steady growth and diminishing risk.
But that world is gone, and just as Jim Rickards, Peter Schiff et al predicted, everyone suddenly wants gold and silver coins, and no one can get them. The US Mint is out of silver eagles and the Royal Canadian Mint has temporarily ceased operations. Even the miners are closing due to coronavirus concerns.
Consider: Massive new demand hits flat to diminishing supply, resulting in shortages, delays and soaring premiums. Prices in the gold and silver futures markets—where speculators who have no intention of taking delivery can push prices around at will—are down dramatically, but in the physical market, where actual metal changes hands, a silver eagle might cost one-third to one-half more than the (paper) spot price. And supply is still tight at those higher prices.
Something similar happened in 2008, when precious metals prices tanked along with stocks in general, causing demand for gold and silver coins to soar, dealers and mints to run out of inventory, and both premiums and wait times to jump. This was followed by an epic bull market in precious metals.