Another major Mint has succumbed to the unrelenting demand for physical precious metals. Today the Perth Mint announced that they will be forced to cease taking orders until January.
Although the Perth Mint is based in Australia, they do approximately 80% of their business outside of Australia in North America, Europe, and Asia. Demand for their products was also likely seeing a boost due to suspensions and rationing programs implemented by the US Mint.
The Perth Mint has valiantly tried to keep up with demand. At the beginning of October, they hired more staff and added a third shift to keep up with increased demand. After running at capacity production, seven days a week, 24 hours a day for the past several months, they were finally forced to suspend taking orders.
On the same day, the price of gold surged $43.10 or 5.8%, and briefly traded above the $800 level. News reports mainly attributed the gains to “return of safe-haven investment demand” and “gloomy economic forecasts.” More so, I think the physical gold market is sending strong signals to the paper market that are becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. I think huge daily gains in the price gold will start to become increasingly common as the retail level stampede into gold continues.
[…] of the Western Australian government, which operates the competing Perth Mint. The Perth Mint recently announced that they would be forced to cease taking orders for precious metals until January 2009 due to […]