Are retail silver supplies drying up?

[fishduck]

Now on this topic, apparently the premiums all over the world are starting to get ridiculous.
Is demand so high (increase in demand) that dealers can't keep up with it or have dealers decided to hold off supply (decrease in supply) until the price recovers as not doing so would mean selling at a loss?

Which one do you think is affecting the supply of silver? If you don't think there is a shortage in silver, why do you think so?

Does anyone think this is a temporary bottle neck situation where premiums have gone up and you should stay on the fence and wait for the premiums to normalise or would you buy the silver now if presented in front of you despite the premiums?

Also, has anyone had any luck in finding any silver from bullion dealers as they seem to be quite hard to come by and would you say that the supply of silver is drying up or is this a temporary situation that should resolve itself in the next few weeks?

 

[slavaja]

I got cheap silver for sale

 

[fishduck]

I got cheap silver for sale

Hey thanks for the reply. So do you think there is currently a shortage of silver? The trading forum has been pretty dead recently and you're one of the only few offering silver at this stage.

 

[slavaja]

There are massive shortages with silver. There are a lot of new people with deep pockets buying up. I would just get unallocated for now I'm sure the physical will come back unless silver takes another dump then even more people come in.

 

[66rounds]

Hey thanks for the reply. So do you think there is currently a shortage of silver? The trading forum has been pretty dead recently and you're one of the only few offering silver at this stage.

Trading forum is dead because we are all buying at these prices, not selling.
Like all things, as price falls more people enter the market and supplies become thinner on the ground

 

[fishduck]

Trading forum is dead because we are all buying at these prices, not selling.
Like all things, as price falls more people enter the market and supplies become thinner on the ground

Thanks for the post, so for yourself, if you were at a bullion shop and silver was presented to you at a higher premium than normal, would you take it? (It depends on the premium and size of the silver but lets say 10~25% premium)? Say this is double~triple the premium you usually pay at a bullion shop.
Would you take any reasonable silver that is being presented to you right now or would you rather wait and see?

 

[Silverling]

Nearly everything is "pre order" in bullion shops right now. Ainslie has stopped Web orders altogether. What was available a couple days ago has disappeared altogether. Even the 2020 Koalas are sold out in most places. Best bet is wait for something to come up here, good luck.

 

[fishduck]

Nearly everything is "pre order" in bullion shops right now. Ainslie has stopped Web orders altogether. What was available a couple days ago has disappeared altogether. Even the 2020 Koalas are sold out in most places. Best bet is wait for something to come up here, good luck.

I guess no one has answered this question yet, but if silver was presented to you at current spot + higher premium than usual, would you take it or wait for premiums to go down?

 

[Silverling]

if you were at a bullion shop and silver was presented to you at a higher premium than normal, would you take it?

Most of the time the premium on a cheap 1 oz round is $4 anyway, now it is $5 or $6. Look at it this way, 3 weeks ago everyone was buying cheap 1 oz coins for $29 to $30 here. I bought some Canadian coins for $30 here. So even though a $5 premium seems a lot the prices are still better now than a Month ago. So yes I would but not more than a $6 premium.

 

[minimilled]

There was a narrow window to buy at the bottom and even then just a smattering of dealers online that you got the full benefit of the drop. You could watch that in realtime in less than 10 minutes.

Right now immediate delivery supply is mostly gone but still some there at the price silver was at a few weeks ago. But a lot less.

I don’t see physical coming online in quantity outside of preorder (with 1-2months). Even then, there’s quite a premium, in the order of dollars higher than the current POS.

If COVID19 takes out a lot of the demand by mass unemployment it could get very ugly. There may come a time when if you are in a position to buy, you can get a forced fire sale or a deceased estate stack. You’d hardly wish this on anyone.

In the near term, most likely industrial demand drops, with bad numbers coming out triggering a further drop, with an uptick in bar and coin investment reacting to that with preorder blowing out for months.

 

[fishduck]

Do you think demand will go down because of mass unemployment? How about a situation where a few big players come in and scoop up all the physicals they can get despite the unemployment?

And is anyone a buyer in this situation for the long term if physical silver was presented to you now?

Or is this something that will be forgotten in a few months time should supply resume back to normal?

 

[66rounds]

Thanks for the post, so for yourself, if you were at a bullion shop and silver was presented to you at a higher premium than normal, would you take it? (It depends on the premium and size of the silver but lets say 10~25% premium)? Say this is double~triple the premium you usually pay at a bullion shop.
Would you take any reasonable silver that is being presented to you right now or would you rather wait and see?

Im not stacking silver so I wouldn't pay more than spot. If I was stacking it like gold I would buy 10oz and kilo bars for spot +$20-30

 

[Silverling]

And is anyone a buyer in this situation for the long term if physical silver was presented to you now?

I can't answer the other questions but I can give you my take on this one. I've bought some for the long term now. However if it deteriorates much more like to $15 AUD an oz then I would be buying with my ears pinned back. Nothing stays the same. Just like it's gone from $28 p/oz to $21 p/oz in 3 weeks it can easily go the other way too. That's just me though and I am prepared to hold for as long as it takes to become profitable plus it's my hobby too.

 

[fishduck]

I can't answer the other questions but I can give you my take on this one. I've bought some for the long term now. However if it deteriorates much more like to $15 AUD an oz then I would be buying with my ears pinned back. Nothing stays the same. Just like it's gone from $28 p/oz to $21 p/oz in 3 weeks it can easily go the other way too. That's just me though and I am prepared to hold for as long as it takes to become profitable plus it's my hobby too.

What I'm seeing right now is that people are/have been loading up despite knowing that prices could fall further. So from their perspective, its already a bargain.
I guess the question can be expanded to should people be rushing in these prices right now or would they be better off trying to time the dips because the problem I always had was that even though one could time the dip correctly, whether there is supply at the premium you would like it at is another issue..

 

[minimilled]

1. Do you think demand will go down because of mass unemployment?
2. How about a situation where a few big players come in and scoop up all the physicals they can get despite the unemployment?
3 Is anyone a buyer in this situation for the long term if physical silver was presented to you now?

4. Or is this something that will be forgotten in a few months time should supply resume back to normal?

1. Yes, I think demand for most things outside daily necessities and some entertainment dries up in a depression, outside of war.

3. Depends. If you have plenty, why buy more? You’d be waiting for a better time to top up or just sit on your hands and go for equities at the coming bottom which is probably months off. On the other hand, if you see a deal you like, you think about taking it up. Nobody is selling at spot now. Not a soul. That doesn’t mean it’s time to dive in. If you’ve traded in relatively illiquid stocks, you’ll have seen this standoff before. Nobody wants to take a loss. Buyers sit there and try to wait out for capitulation. Sellers don’t budge.

4. Hope so. But most likely it is a year off for a vaccine and then some before widespread adoption. So probably not.

 

[fishduck]

You’d be waiting for a better time to top up

Do you think there is a better time to top up than something like now? If so, what would it look like or what did you have in mind? Because what I'm seeing right now is that since the price dropped so much, people don't seem to be caring about the premiums as they end up paying less in the total dollar amount, and possibly some panic buying because of a potential threat of supply drying up.

 

[fishduck]

Another interesting thing I'm seeing is that people aren't buying gold as much as silver, there still seems to be supply (albeit low) and dealers seem to still have them, but the situation doesn't seem to be as bad as silver.

 

[slavaja]

Gold can drop a lot more than silver. Silver has pretty much bottomed out. It could flash crash to $10 USD though but exchange rate could be 0.55 or even 0.50 by then.

 

[SilverDJ]

There are massive shortages with silver. There are a lot of new people with deep pockets buying up. I would just get unallocated for now I'm sure the physical will come back unless silver takes another dump then even more people come in.

If you like the price now and want to buy, just buy on backorder and then wait a few months for delivery.

 

[minimilled]

I think there will be a lower POS with a combination of factors that will push it down (hospitals overwhelmed, associated herd fear amplified by the media, unemployment, death, collapse of industrial demand, buffeted by supply constraint). You’ll see some of those variables are emotion based and some are rational, reflecting the nature of people. Both matter.

I’ll buy in at some point, but more likely equities. This was very good buying last time, so long as you were patient.

I fully expect a massive “money printing” exercise which will ultimately push commodities up. Silver benefited from this last time. It was not alone, but good PM equities can go up 50-100x so you do want to think about it, recognise an opportunity, have the means and most importantly, act at the right time.

The premiums are high. It is helpful to think back to this time last year. I picked up a fairly big pile here at spot when spot was about 21.50. That’s just a year ago. So, there’s no reason why that might not be the case again. The issue is how long. It could be quite a while.

The premiums will probably stay up for some time. There’s no reason for them to drop yet.

What you might want to know is how long it takes for miners to get supply to refiners and mints. It’s also worth recalling that the majority of silver is mined as a byproduct of base metals and production will be influenced by demand for those.

Right now radical things are happening, so there is a case for tuning out and going for a bushwalk on the weekend if that’s an option, otherwise a virtual one.