Comments on: Gold Pivots into Monthly Loss, Silver Dives Yet Gains 4.2% in February

By: Kevin

Kevin — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 05:17:54 +0000

For some stated reason that I’ve forgotten, the Mint treats gold differently than silver in its price adjustments. It’s more involved with silver. At least what they do now with pricing of gold products is better than what happened in ’08 or ’09, when there were weeks that you couldn’t buy certain items from the Mint due to price changes.

By: jim

jim — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 16:02:33 +0000

Considering that this is the US Mint which they are proud of stating in their press releases started up in 1792, you’re lucky that they’re using computers at all, let alone updated software to handle current day metal price fluctuations. But considering that the mint is not a commodities trader per se, using the London fix price averaged on a weekly basis was probably not a bad idea when prices were more steady, though they could switch to a daily or morning and afternoon update following London’s updates. Again, remembering this is the US Mint, they probably make the updates by hand since they have to shut down sales for an hour and a half or so each time they change the prices. So more frequent updates than once a week and the site probably wouldn’t be up long enough to accept any orders except at night and on weekends. At least now prices are more consistent with the metal price than before when they changed prices only on an annual or semi-annual basis.

By: george glazener

george glazener — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 04:13:53 +0000

Even a simpleton like me could write an automated computer program for the US MINT to have their pricing grid track the rise & fall of precious metals on an hourly basis and update their website’s prices daily. Given that, is there some advantage for the US MINT not to change their prices daily as commodities rise and fall? Perhaps like other businesses with something to sell, they try to keep their prices consistent as much as possible to avoid annoying customers?

By: michael t.

michael t. — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 02:22:58 +0000

On days like today, you have to empathize with the Mint. Forced to raised selling prices in areas of market decline. The volatility is difficult at best to deal with… speaking for the Mint if i may, you have to be thankful that you do not have to be on both sides of this market, but had it gone the other way private money could have made a fortune today, at the taxpayer expense. Obviously the Mint has done well to make their pricing as responsive as they have been. Any private company would have been eaten alive.