It seems a major robbery of gold originally reported valued at nearly $100 million fiat CAD, only a day later downplayed to $20 million fiat CAD value lost. Perhaps stolen from a supposedly secure shipping container, deplaned, and moved with an 18-wheeler.
Common sense suggests surely an inside job, with airport and logistics workers knowing mining to refine shipping routes of freshly mined or refined gold ore.
Gold illiterate reporters at Bloomberg had some brief coverage of this week's reported gold thievery. At least the Canadian reporter in the interview at the airport called this gold robbery what it is, missing money. The precious stuff governments historically have killed for.
And I am not talking about some 2-bit Wiley coyote gold heist in some airport cargo.
No, I'm talking more akin to, for instance, imperial Japan in 1937, marching their military into the capital city of China. Committing unspeakable atrocities in front of Western witnesses. Then weeks of looting later, marching out of the then-Chinese capital city of Nanjing with an estimated 6,600 metric tonnes of gold bullion. Over 212 million troy ounces currently valued at over $424 billion in fiat US dollars straight jacked in a few month invasion campaign.
But that's likely a gold-related history lesson you never got taught for another day.
Let's return to the present day and begin with the fiat gold price adjusted by 10 major fiat currencies according to their GDP market share.
Milton W Berg, Chartered Financial Analyst, tweeted this key weight-adjusted gold price chart helpful for those who seemingly never bother to take off their green-colored fiat USD tinted glasses. Try from time to time to think about the vast majority of the rest of the gold-buying world when you dare to try and value it.
Well, there's this current fiat $USD denominated gold chart triple top formation technicians keep squawking about. The global gold price chart linked above says differently. Breakout.
Now bear with me. We're about to run through thirteen full fiat currency era gold, silver, and platinum price charts around the world.
Chances are high you too will see that as typical and building secular bullion bull market mania, GOLD leads, silver follows, and platinum also eventually gaps higher too.
Higher and to the right with many more positive blue bars to build still.
I suppose the one takeaway from this gold, silver, and platinum fiat currency price chart driven by shooting is that by design and given enough time, every single silly fiat currency will bow in real value to precious monetary and industrial metal stores of value over time.
So I suppose, plan accordingly.
Both silver and gold spot prices in fiat US dollars fell slightly for the week's trading.
The spot silver price in fiat USD closes just over $25 oz.
While the spot gold price in fiat USD finished the week just under the key $2,000 per ounce price level.
The spot gold-silver ratio closed flat at 79.
A little bit of USA bullion industry rumor this week.
I'm catching word that the US Mint is now not taking new orders for 24 karat .9999 fine 1 oz Gold Buffalo coins, so what remaining buyable inventory is out there will likely be it for the coming while.
In short, expect premiums over the dynamic gold spot on what inventories remain to rise further in comparison to ongoing gold spot prices.
While the US Gold Buffalo Coin mintage is much smaller in numbers compared to 22-karat 1 troy ounce content containing American Gold Eagle Coin mintage figures. You can bet that premiums on 1 oz Gold Eagle coins will likely move slightly higher on this inventory diminishment.
The US Mint is currently on pace to break its gold bullion coin sales records in fiat US dollar terms. Of course, they continue short-changing the 1 oz Silver Eagle bullion coin market with weak supply mintings, so much so that it now trades like a high-premium silver collectible.
We may be near another decent silver ASE arbitrage moment for selling some 1 oz ASE and converting the proceeds into lower premium silver bullion products for overall troy-ounce gains.
Onwards to the Silver Institute's publishing this week of the World Silver Survey 2023, with updated silver industry data through 2022. And some likely predictions that again will turn out to be incorrect.
The first thing to remember when reading this 88-page report is the World Silver Survey's track record for guessing incredibly wrong.
To start the last year, 2022, they guessed that the silver supply deficit would only be -20 million oz.
Well, they missed the record-sized nearly -240 million ounce deficit that hit this market last year by a factor of nearly 12X. If that were your job to make accurate forecasts, well, you wouldn't have a job anymore.
Also, remember that this report is written by Metals Focus, a City of London-based consultancy that surely has no incentives to try and pour cold water on an otherwise red-hot silver demand and potential periphery readership thinking about getting involved. Similar story for Reuters misleading headlines on the matter.
They who wrote the report claim that the fiat Fed is not likely to have reason to cut rates by the end of this year. And even with another guessed coming deficit of -142.1 million ounces in the global silver market for 2023, they also claim the spot silver price will flounder to the low $18 oz before year-end.
Well, they might have suggested massive deflation and domino bankruptcies cometh because otherwise, I find that low spot guess dubious.
We see spot $18 again. You can very well bet the bullion industry will set prices in the mid-$20s to nearly $30 oz an ounce as demand continues outstripping available supplies.
Probably the best part of the report was working out how ridiculous the silver derivative leverage that was applied last year to keep spot silver prices in check.
Over $6 trillion in silver derivative futures contracts were traded last year in 2022, dwarfing the physical silver market for the year to the tune of over 227X times in notional value.
Right there, linked above, is the math on that data. You can do it yourself if you would like to confirm my claim.
Finally, to close this week, I see that Knight Frank was out confirming that high net worth Indians, I believe they define them as those with over $30 million in fiat USD estate wealth, well surprise, not surprise that and other wealthy investors around the worth have been increasing their allocations to gold as the positive price rising feedback loop begins.
High net-worth Indians have about 6% allocated to gold, while wealthy Austrians have the highest allocations at 8% in gold.
It seems many of the wealthy in Britain and Australia have a measly 2% allocation as they get front-run by eastern central banks buying gold bullion in volumes not seen since before World War 2.
And lastly, fiat financialized wealth in the USA, South Korea, Italy, and Ireland have a 1% gold allocation again.
In contrast, gold in the gold price in every one of those local economies is about to blow off into an undeniable secular bull run for the ages.
Well, I guess the weak allocators to gold currently get to pay through the eye later on. Good luck if bullion goes vanishing in a crisis. Enjoy your underperforming derivatives and risk-laden mining shares.
For anyone watching who knows the real value game being played there long term, I suggest you front these under-allocated low history knowing flock and get prudently positioned before they come scrambling in on a fear of loss trade the likes of which the world has never collectively all at once seen at the same time.
That is all for this week's SD Bullion Market Update.
As always, to you out there, take great care of yourselves and those you love.
