The Australian gold market

Australia’s New Gold (and Silver) Rush

Jordan Eliseo of ABC Bullion and Peter McGuire of NG Farah are interviewed on Australia’s Sky Business News about the reasons for the recent decline in gold and silver prices and the surge in physical bullion demand it has created.

Video first broadcast on Friday 19th April.

Perth Mint Demand Highest Since Lehman Brothers – Refines Coins, Bars At Weekend

Gold in $US

Australia’s Perth Mint, the largest refinery in Australia and one of the largest in the world, said that demand has jumped to the highest level since the Lehman crisis in 2008.

Demand has been robust due to currency devaluation concerns and then the 15% price fall led to a massive surge in demand as store of wealth buyers leapt at the chance to acquire physical bullion at much cheaper prices.

This led to the Perth Mint which refines nearly all of the nation’s bullion, having to stay open over the weekend to meet orders.

There’s been strong interest, including from the U.S., with buyers confident that the metal will rebound from the decline, Ron Currie, sales and marketing director, told Bloomberg in a phone interview from Perth.

“We haven’t seen levels like this since the 2008 global financial crisis,” Currie said yesterday. “Compared to March sales, April sales have doubled or tripled,” he said.

“We worked all weekend to keep the factory running to make more stock and that was only to fill orders,” Currie said from the facility founded in 1899. “We’re being inundated with people buying products.”

As the Perth Mint’s Approved Dealer in the EU, GoldCore are seeing a similar increase in demand – particularly for Perth Mint gold bars and allocated bullion accounts.

Bullion buyers who had been planning to buy coins and bars in the coming months have brought forward their purchases due to the much cheaper prices and concerns about rising premiums and difficulty in securing supply.

“We’re seeing people are coming into the market because the price has come down, they think they can afford it now and expect that it will go up again,” Currie said. “The U.S. has got the money to purchase metal and is doing so as a hedge,” he said, referring to individual investors. “It’s extremely busy for us in the U.S.”

http://maxkeiser.com/2013/04/30/perth-mint-demand-highest-since-lehman-brothers-refines-coins-bars-at-weekend/#more-66644