Gold and silver futures on Wednesday advanced for a second straight session, lifted by sustained safe-haven demand.
Gold for April delivery tacked on $16.50, or 1.4%, to settle at $1,239.10 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange.
"Traders are looking at anything that gets them off risk, away from volatility, and protects against negative rates," MarketWatch quoted Adrian Ash, head of research at BullionVault.
"Gold doesn’t yield anything, but that’s 0.4% per year better than benchmark Swiss bonds, and 0.3% better than commercial deposit rates at the European Central Bank," he said. "It also cannot go broke — a truly unique appeal right now."
Gold prices traded from a low of $1,222.40 to a high of $1,246.70. In the previous session, they gained $12.50 or 1%.
Elsewhere, silver for March delivery added 5.7 cents, or 0.4%, to settle at $15.297 an ounce. Silver prices ranged from $15.18 to $15.54. On Tuesday, they rose 5.6 cents or 0.4%.
In rounding out the precious metals futures complex:
-
April platinum inched up 20 cents to $943.70 an ounce, trading between $936.50 and $955.60.
- Palladium for March delivery declined $12.75, or 2.6%, to $487.30 an ounce, ranging from $496.05 to $501.65.
London Precious Metals Prices
Earlier fixed London gold and silver prices also moved higher. In comparing their levels from Tuesday PM to Wednesday PM:
- Gold rose $29.40, or 2.4%, to $1,250.75 an ounce.
- Silver rose 11 cents, or 0.7%, to $15.32 an ounce.
LBMA platinum and palladium prices are available on the LBMA’s website with a delay of midnight.
US Mint Bullion Sales in 2016
United States Mint bullion sales were unchanged Wednesday as of 3:10 PM ET. Below is a sales breakdown of United States Mint bullion products with columns listing the number of bullion coins sold during varying periods of time.
| US Mint Bullion Sales (# of coins) | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wednesday Sales | Last Week | This Week | Jan Sales | Feb Sales | 2016 Sales | |
| $50 American Eagle 1 Oz Gold Coins | 0 | 17,500 | 5,000 | 89,000 | 57,500 | 146,500 |
| $25 American Eagle 1/2 Oz Gold Coins | 0 | 2,000 | 1,000 | 23,000 | 6,000 | 29,000 |
| $10 American Eagle 1/4 Oz Gold Coins | 0 | 6,000 | 2,000 | 36,000 | 10,000 | 46,000 |
| $5 American Eagle 1/10 Oz Gold Coins | 0 | 20,000 | 25,000 | 145,000 | 75,000 | 220,000 |
| $50 American Buffalo 1 Oz Gold Coins | 0 | 6,500 | 2,500 | 34,000 | 15,000 | 49,000 |
| $1 American Eagle 1 Oz Silver Coins | 0 | 926,500 | 985,000 | 5,954,500 | 3,957,000 | 9,911,500 |
| 2016 Shawnee 5 Oz Silver Coins | 0 | 0 | 27,500 | N/A | 102,500 | 102,500 |
CoinNews Readers – FYI If you have ever wondered which coin companies are the only 13 official registered worldwide coin dealers who can purchase the above silver, gold & platinum (offered last in 2014) bullion version coins directly from the U.S. Mint as “Authorized Purchasers” (which the public cannot buy directly from the Mint) I posted the list on the February 22 daily precious metals report on this coin blog website. On the complete updated list, there are 9 companies in the USA, one in Japan, one in Luxembourg (Europe’s famous tax haven) & two in Germany. If you are… Read more »
Seth, please do… Thank you
Nels –
Thanks for asking for the official U.S. Mint AP bullion coin dealer list (only 13 companies in 4 countries) I was mentioning. I will post it again on the daily precious metals article published on this CoinNews coin blog website today Saturday February 27.
Happy bullion coin collecting/investing Nels!
-NumisDudeTX