US mint sell 8% of 2011 volume in a day

US Mint Sells 3.2 Million Silver Eagles First Business Day of 2012!!!
United States Mint logo
Did the US Mint just 'fat-finger' their Silver Eagle sales totals for the first business day of 2012!?!
On the first business day of October, we alerted readers that the US Mint sold an astounding 3/4 million ounces of silver in a single day.
Well, the US Mint shattered this total today, selling 3,197,000 Silver Eagles, nearly 10% of the 2011 record sales total of 39.8 million ON THE FIRST BUSINESS DAY OF 2012!!!
That is not a typo, you read that correctly.
The US Mint today sold 3.2 MILLION Silver Eagles, nearly the COMBINED TOTAL for all of November and December combined, and higher than ANY MONTHLY TOTAL since September 2011!
To put this number in perspective, the US Mint's Silver Eagle sales totals for the 1st business day of 2012 were 50% of the January 2011 record MONTHLY sales total of 6.4 million, and greater than the MONTLY totals for March, April, July, October, November, and December during the Mint's sales record 2011 year.
3.197 million ounces in a single day!!!!!
Apparently when Americans log into their computers after a 2-week holiday and see the price of silver in the $26-$28 range they raid the US Mint shelves (via Gainesville, APMEX, and local shops) like the gaming crowd on the first day of the Play Station 4 release!



2012 Silver Sales Totals (in ounces / number of coins) Month One
( oz. / #coins )
January 3,197,000
3,197,000
Total 3,197,000
3,197,000


Compare to 2011 Sales totals:

2011 Silver Sales Totals (in ounces / number of coins) Month One
( oz. / #coins )
January 6,422,000
6,422,000
February 3,240,000
3,240,000
March 2,767,000
2,767,000
April 2,819,000
2,819,000
May 3,653,500
3,653,500
June 3,402,000
3,402,000
July 2,968,000
2,968,000
August 3,679,500
3,679,500
September 4,460,500
4,460,500
October 3,064,000
3,064,000
November 1,384,000
1,384,000
December 2,009,000
2,009,000
Total 39,868,500
39,868,500

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swissaustrian said:

January 2011 was the biggest month for that year, too.
Maybe people are selling their Christmas gifts for silver

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dereksatkinson said:

I think it's because people want the new version of the coins.

IE.. You probably wont wait for the 2013 panda if you are looking to buy in June. Someone who is looking to buy in November probably is...

That's normal behavior IMO..

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swissaustrian said:

I see where you´re coming from.
But shouldn´t people monitor prices first?
Coincidently, the big run from $ 20 to $ 49 had a little correction in January 2011. Maybe people were buying the dip?

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The big online dealers were taking pre-orders for 2012 ASEs all December (at least). I imagine they placed their orders to the US Mint on the first available business day in January commensurate with their pre-sales data. 2011 ASEs were sold out roughly in mid-December if I remember correctly.

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Maybe people are selling their Christmas gifts for silver

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... Bill Haynes, President and owner of CMI Gold & Silver had this to say about the situation: ...

“I’m shocked by the demand for eagles. As an example we just had a buyer who picked up $1.5 million of one ounce silver eagles and that’s all he wanted -- the eagles. The significant thing I’m seeing here, Eric, is there is next to no selling by retail customers. It would appear the gold and silver, held by the public, is in extremely strong hands.

People who are buying these metals are buying and they are holding on. To me this is an indication we are still in the very early stages of a precious metals bull market. This is especially the case for buyers of silver eagles, they buy and they hold. They simply do not come back into the market to sell....

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