The Perth Mint is one of the most respected refining facilities in the precious metals industry. Its annual bullion and proof coin programs, such as the Australian Kookaburra, Koala, Kangaroo, and its Lunar Series II coins are big sellers each year. With gold and silver prices fluctuating, at times wildly, in 2016, Perth Mint sales are often reflective of those ups and downs. Here’s a rundown of the Perth Mint’s latest sales figures for August 2016.
General Recap
August marked a second consecutive month of sliding sales for the Australian mint’s bullion coins and bars. Overall sales figures for gold bullion at the mint are at their weakest in 3 ½ years, helped in large part by the cooling panic surrounding Brexit and the retreat in gold prices in the month of August. Silver sales were at their slowest pace in 15 months.
Bullion Sales at the Perth Mint
The Perth Mint moved 14,684 ounces of gold in August between its coins and bars. This figure is 13% lower than July of this year, and down 56% from August of 2015. However, it is not all bad news for the Perth Mint’s gold sales so far in 2016. The year-to-date figure is 264,269 ounces, which is 13.6% higher than the mint’s sales figures through the first eight months of 2015 when 253,128 ounces had been delivered.
On the silver bullion front, the Perth Mint had its lowest monthly sales figure since May 2015. The mint saw sales of silver bullion coins reach 376,461 ounces in August. That represents a 45.7% drop in silver bullion sales from July, and is 46.8% off from August 2015. This is a sharp reversal for Perth Mint silver bullion, which started the year with sales in excess of 1 million ounces each month to-date in 2016, except May, July, and now in August too.
Again though, it’s not all bad news for the Perth Mint’s silver bullion sales either. From January to August 2015, the Perth Mint had sold 4,265,350 ounces of silver. For that same time period in 2016, Perth has moved 8,706,064 ounces of silver, representing a 104.1% increase year-over-year for this timeframe.
Much of the dip in sales at the Perth Mint has been attributed to two factors: easing concerns over Brexit and its impact on precious metal prices, and a cooler summer of investing/collecting in North America. The mint has found that distributors are well stocked in North America to meet current demand, resulting in lower sales figures for Perth Mint. Additionally, the immediate panic following Brexit has been replaced with leaders adopting a more measured tone regarding the split from the EU. The result has brought calm and relative stability to economic markets, rolling back some of the gains in precious metal prices and, therefore, demand.
Perth Mint Sales by Month
While silver bullion has been largely steady for the Perth Mint in 2016 so far, gold has been a different story. Sales figures for Perth Mint silver bullion each month, in Troy ounces, can be found below:
- Jan 2016: 1.473 million
- Feb 2016: 1.049 million
- March 2016: 1.756 million
- April 2016: 1.161 million
- May 2016: 974,865
- June 2016: 1.220 million
- July 2016: 693,447
- August 2016: 376,461
You can see the relative stability enjoyed by silver bullion throughout most of 2016, until the late summer months when markets calmed down and authorized dealers had adequate stock to meet demand.
The story plays out a little differently for gold bullion sales over the same time period, with sales tending to fluctuate wildly from month to month or every other month (again in Troy ounces):
- Jan 2016: 47,759
- Feb 2016: 37,063
- March 2016: 47,948
- April 2016: 47,542
- May 2016: 21,035
- June 2016: 31,368
- July 2016: 16,870
- August 2016: 14,684
Early in the year, gold bullion sales followed an up-down schedule, before trending downward, spiking around Brexit, and trending downward again through late summer. In fact, you have to go back to August through October 2015 to find three or more consecutive months of growth in gold bullion sales at Perth Mint.
