New Engelhard Australia Silver Bullion Bars

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Every bar is Every bar is serialised and individually boxed in a protective cardboard shipper for protection.

These bars are available in 5oz & 10oz

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Perth Mint Gold and Silver Bullion Sales Jump in June

Demand for Australian bullion coins surged in June, the latest Perth Mint figures show. Gold sales scored their highest level since March and silver sales moved the quickest since April. Bullion sales did retreat from a year earlier, however.

Perth Mint sales of gold coins and gold bars advanced 31,019 ounces last month, rallying 43.1% from the 21,671 ounces sold in May but down 21.3% from the 39,405 ounces delivered in June 2014. Gold sales through the first half of the year tally to 168,650 ounces, off 30% from last year’s starting six-month total of 240,991 ounces.

Perth Mint silver coins at 384,586 ounces in June jumped 13.9% from the prior month’s 337,511 ounces yet slipped 34.4% from sales of 586,358 ounces in June of last year. For the first half of 2015, silver sales combine to 2,810,994 ounces for a drop of 18% from the same six-month start in 2014 when sales reached 3,428,336 ounces.

Perth Mint Gold and Silver Sales by Month

Below is a monthly breakdown of Perth Mint bullion sales from June 2014 to June 2015.

Perth Mint Bullion Sales (in troy ounces)
	Silver	Gold
June 2015	384,586	31,019
May 2015	337,511	21,671
April 2015	472,273	26,545
March 2015	638,557	34,260
February 2015	392,114	31,981
January 2015	585,953	23,174
December 2014	477,731	40,211
November 2014	851,836	49,904
October 2014	655,881	55,350
September 2014	756,839	68,781
August 2014	818,856	36,369
July 2014	577,988	25,103
June 2014	586,358	39,405

United States Mint Bullion Sales in June

U.S. Mint bullion sales in June soared over the prior month and the year ago levels. The agency’s core American Gold Eagles at 76,000 ounces leapt 253.5% higher than May sales and jumped 56.7% higher than sales in June 2014. Its flagship American Silver Eagles at 4,840,000 ounces in June surged 139.2% from the prior month and rallied 79.8% from a year ago.

The Shanghai Stock Market Crash and China Gold Demand

What Does it mean for the future of the gold market?

At present, up to 12 trillion yuan stays in domestic residents' saving accounts. The launch of individual gold investment, therefore, will allow residents to change currency assets into gold assets. At the macro level, it will expand channels for changing savings into investment, thus adjusting the money supply; in the micro aspect, allowing citizens to trade and keep gold can improve social welfare, benefiting both the country and the population.

Moreover, with the dual attributes of common commodity and currency commodity, gold is a desirable instrument for hedging. Therefore, developing gold trade for individuals is practical." – Zhou Xiaochuan, Governor, the People's Bank of China.

Shanghai stocks have fallen over 30% since mid-June. The equivalent in U.S. terms would be for the DJIA to fall 6000 points to the 11,000 level – a crash by any definition. Most of the commentary on this important subject has centered around the potential contagion effect for stock markets in the rest of Asia and beyond. There is another aspect to the crash worth considering though, and that has to do with the effect it will have on Chinese gold demand.



The Chinese people, it is well known, already have a cultural affinity to gold. That attachment just received a shot of adrenaline. Prior to June, trading volumes on the Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE) were already running 20% higher than the previous year. Now, with crash psychology affecting thinking up and down the spectrum of investors, SGE is reporting volumes off the charts. In early July, Want China Times reported that "SGE posted a record trading volume of 48.33 million grams in a single day in late June." (48.3 metric tonnes, a big number.)







Typically stock market crashes inspire gold demand. In the case of China, where the government and central bank encourage citizen gold ownership as a matter of public policy, that lesson could become enshrined in the national psyche. The important consideration for investors elsewhere around the globe is what effect even stronger gold demand from China will have on the gold price both now and in the future.



Flow of physical metal between buyers and sellers will govern prices in China not paper trades



Ever since 2011 when China's demand began to ratchet up, clients have asked how the price of gold could be stagnant to down under the circumstances. The short answer to that question is that price discovery for gold does not occur in the physical market, but in the multi-trillion dollar leveraged paper trade in London and New York – a volume that dwarfs the physical delivery market. Now China is about to challenge that price discovery mechanism through significant infrastructure changes slated to take effect by the end of the year.

This new construct has as its base China's fundamental understanding and goals with respect to gold as summarized by Peoples Bank of China governor Zhou Xiaochuan in our masthead quote above; its affinity for delivered physical ownership, as opposed to paper-based metal; and, the official measures it has undertaken to make inroads into the international gold market's price discovery mechanism.



To gain a better understanding of how China is likely to affect price discovery in the gold market, let's start with something of interest that surfaced as a result of the recent Shanghai crash. Financial Times reported rumors floating the markets that Goldman Sachs was responsible for manipulating stocks downward. Officials denied those rumors and a spokesman for the exchange stated that "foreign investors with access to the futures market via theQualified Foreign Institutional Investor (QFII) program were only permitted to use futures for hedging operations and are not allowed to make directional bets. 

All recent trades by QFIIs complied with regulations." Of course if any manipulation of stocks were to occur, it would be executed in the leveraged futures market where bets can be placed at pennies on the dollar.



Up until I read that quote I was unaware of the strict procedures governing foreign trading on the Shanghai Futures Exchange (SHFE), China's only futures trading venue. A further investigation, helped along with some links from Koos Jansen, the Netherlands based expert on China's burgeoning gold market, revealed stringent rules governing trade on the SHFE for domestic participants as well, though not quite as stringent as the rules for foreigners. 

At the heart of those rules, SHFE imposes strict position limitations and margin requirements on traders in order to keep price speculation (or directional bets to use its term) to a minimum. Futures trading in China, clearly is meant to serve as an adjunct to the physical market instead of the other way around as it is in western gold trading centers. 

Hedging is maximized. Speculation is minimized. Leverage is controlled within reasonable parameters.

Link SHFE "Operational Manual for Gold Futures Contract Trading"

- See more at: http://chinabullion.blogspot.com.au/2015/07/the-shanghai-stock-market-crash-and.html#sthash.7H4M632E.dpufa

As Silver Prices Fall, U.S. Mint’s Silver Bullion Coins Sell Out

Investors still like silver—so much so that the U.S. Mint sold out of its American Eagle Silver Bullion Coins.

The Mint announced the temporary sellout on Tuesday. It said that the U.S. Mint facility at West Point, N.Y., continues to produce the coins and resumption of sales is expected in about two weeks.

The shortages comes at a time when silver futures prices SIU5, +1.49% are falling.On Tuesday, they sank 5% to $14.969 an ounce, the lowest settlement for a most-active contract since 2009. They recovered a bit on Wednesday, though year to date prices have lost more than 3%.

“Silver demand has really come back in the last two weeks, on the break below $16 per ounce,” Adrian Ash, head of research at BullionVault, told MarketWatch.

BullionVault’s Silver Investor Index released Tuesday rose to 56.7 in June from below 50 in May, as the number of private investors buying silver climbed to its highest level in 9 months, while the number of sellers fell to its lowest level in 3 years. The index shows the balance of net buyers over net sellers.

In a note Wednesday, Capital Economics’s Julian Jessop, pointed out that silver has been a “notable casualty of the selloff in commodity markets in the last few days.”

That usually happens when prices of other metals, especially gold but also industrials, are falling, he said. But “assuming metals in general recovery over the remainder of the year, as we expect, silver could now be set to shine.”