Spot price vs stock levels

[Guest]

Has anyone noticed a correlation between spot price vs dealers stock levels?

 

Do dealers sometimes list coins as out of stock if the spot price drops? I only ask as recently I was on the tavex website when the spot price dipped but all of a sudden their 1oz gold Brits became “out of stock” are they doing this on purpose do you think?  

I’d love to know your thoughts.

Thanks.

Edited October 16, 2022 by Apmex100

[James32]

Can't prove it, but depending on dealers purchase prices, my gut says yes this happens very often. 

Just like us I suppose, only so many losses can one take before the lights get switched off 😆 

[MrStacker]

Happens all the time. I've noticed this myself especially in the last 2-3 weeks.

[Guest]

It’s just happened again on the tavex website 2022 full sovs are now £342 each but “sold out” 

[James32]

5 minutes ago, Apmex100 said:

It’s just happened again on the tavex website 2022 full sovs are now £342 each but “sold out” 

No that means they will pay £342

[LawrenceChard]

On 16/10/2022 at 20:22, Apmex100 said:

Has anyone noticed a correlation between spot price vs dealers stock levels?

Do dealers sometimes list coins as out of stock if the spot price drops? I only ask as recently I was on the tavex website when the spot price dipped but all of a sudden their 1oz gold Brits became “out of stock” are they doing this on purpose do you think?  

I’d love to know your thoughts.

Thanks.

I have ssen  similar quetions many times before, on TSF and elsewhere.

Yhe answer is NO.

No real bullion dealer would do that. We make our money by trading. Buying and selling.

When spot prices go down, we might take a "book" loss on our stock unless it is fully hedged, but then we would also make a book gain if spot goes up.

When spot prices go down, lots of investors jump in and buy,.

Sales could be 2, 3, or 10 times normal levels, so a dealer' entire stock could be depleted in a few hours or days. I am talking here about the most popular volume sellers, which usually have the lowest premiums, not the more obsrure stuff with higher premiums.

Even in normal times, in can takes a few days at least to replenish stock.

This is not a normal time. There are lots of ordinary people investing in gold, and silver. Mosts mints cannot keep up with demand, and are not holding much stock, if any at all, so it is a case of waiting for more to be produced. Production cnnot just be doubled, or tripled or more overnight. Even if striking could be increased, more blanks are required.

Also currently, as I have been writing, the Royal Mint has been, and still is, in a changeover period between  2022 and 2023, and also between QEII and Charles III.  Many people want to buy some QEII coinsof both years, and others want new Charles ones.

We have to give the RM forecasts of our requirements months ahead, but if demand changes, the mint sell out quickly, and often to much bigger US and other foreign dealers. The UK market is only small compared with the internetional market, so the international market can quickly mop up any extra production.

This is more or less the same for all bigger dealers. 

Some, mainly smaller ones, stick their premiums up, which give them a big fat profit, and also makes their existing stock last longer.

Any bullion dealer who just sat on stock nursing its losses would  not stay in business for very long.

One other factor, and this mainly affects secondary market stuff, is the small investors, ordinary people often choose not to sell when prices are low. Dealers can't buy if people are not selling.

Would you sell some of your gold when prices just went down £50 per ounce? No, you wouldn't, which means you could have answered your own question.

😎

Edited November 22, 2022 by LawrenceChard

[Orpster]

14 hours ago, Apmex100 said:

Has anyone noticed a correlation between spot price vs dealers stock levels?

 

Do dealers sometimes list coins as out of stock if the spot price drops? I only ask as recently I was on the tavex website when the spot price dipped but all of a sudden their 1oz gold Brits became “out of stock” are they doing this on purpose do you think?  

I’d love to know your thoughts.

Thanks.

Could be as simple as people just buy their stock when price drops, 

[DrDave]

Another possible reason for this is that Google will crawl the page with the low price and then display it in search results. The apparent low price might encourage a click through to the page that will then have the correct price once the item is back in stock. Some buyers will still buy at that price rather than going back to search.

[LawrenceChard]

36 minutes ago, Orpster said:

Could be as simple as people just buy their stock when price drops, 

That's part of what I was saying!

😊

[LawrenceChard]

13 hours ago, James32 said:

Can't prove it, but depending on dealers purchase prices, my gut says yes this happens very often. 

Just like us I suppose, only so many losses can one take before the lights get switched off 😆 

 

12 hours ago, MrStacker said:

Happens all the time. I've noticed this myself especially in the last 2-3 weeks.

 

10 hours ago, Apmex100 said:

It’s just happened again on the tavex website 2022 full sovs are now £342 each but “sold out” 

See 

 

😊

[Orpster]

22 minutes ago, LawrenceChard said:

That's part of what I was saying!

😊

Yea I didn't look at any other responses before I commented lol

I know of a couple of groups of people who did a group buy to get to the 4 tubes of sovereigns for the price banding rate from Tavex last week.  I also noticed before they ran out of stock they limited you to buying one sovereigns only as I went to buy 10 late last week. 

[LawrenceChard]

On 17/10/2022 at 11:40, Orpster said:

Yea I didn't look at any other responses before I commented lol

I know of a couple of groups of people who did a group buy to get to the 4 tubes of sovereigns for the price banding rate from Tavex last week.  I also noticed before they ran out of stock they limited you to buying one sovereigns only as I went to buy 10 late last week. 

The limit of one piece is very interesting.

Sounds like they don't want to sell you any coins, but perhaps still appear to be priced competitively.

That's about one stop away from putting your selling price down when you are out of stock. I am reliably informed there are some companies who do this!

😎

Edited October 24, 2022 by LawrenceChard

[Orpster]

17 minutes ago, LawrenceChard said:

The limit of one piece is very interesting.

Sounds like they don't want to sell you any coins, but perhaps still appear to be priced competitively.

That's about one stop awaay from putting your selling price down when you are out of stock. I am reliably informaed there are some companies who do this!

😎

They are doing it again now, they have stock again but are limiting orders to 1

I always assumed the out of stocks on some companies showed the price they were at the last time they were in stock, interesting you say they may be putting their prices down.

[LawrenceChard]

11 minutes ago, Orpster said:

They are doing it again now, they have stock again but are limiting orders to 1

I always assumed the out of stocks on some companies showed the price they were at the last time they were in stock, interesting you say they may be putting their prices down.

We suspected it was happening at a couple of places, but then at oleast two other people confirmed it was definitely happening.

We used to see a similar trick in Blackpool at a jeweller.

Someone would come in with perhaps a gold watch, and ask us for an offer to buy it. Let's say we came to £1000 for it, the customer would tell us they had been offered £4000 for it, so we would  ask where, adn 99% of the time we guessed the answer. We then advised the customer to go straight back and snatch their hand off before they changed theit mind. We then got told "Oh, they are not buying at the moment".

My response to that was that our buying price was £5000 when when we were not buying. Sometimes this got an instant laugh, at other times it used to take us 5 minutes to explain!

If the customer was still in any doubt, we would suggest they shopped around, and our offer would still stand, subject to spot gold. About 90% of the time, they either sold to us there and then, or were back in a few days to accept our offer. Most of the remaining 10% probably decided not to sell; out of those, some still came back to us a few years later.

😎

[Chandler365]

As this is a spot price thread , interestingly Atkinsons now offering 2% over spot for some gold items 😳 not sure I’m going to get my ‘ minty Sov’s’ anytime soon 🫤

[RoughDog]

On 18/10/2022 at 18:29, Chandler365 said:

As this is a spot price thread , interestingly Atkinsons now offering 2% over spot for some gold items 😳 not sure I’m going to get my ‘ minty Sov’s’ anytime soon 🫤

I'm not getting any, anytime not soon.  🤣

[Centauri167]

The last weeks I have seen the premiums go crazy on gold here in Belgium, like 8% on LMU coins and 6% ons Sovereigns, before the LMU's were between 2-4% and the Sovs around 3-4%. The Mexican 50 pesos premium has doubled from 2 towards 4% and even higher.

Also a lot of stores have almost no stock available or don't want to sell at the current price, that's also possible.

But I never thought I would see the day that the premium on a old LMU coin would be higher than on an American Eagle ...

On the other side, the buyback prices have not gone up, even down so the spread has become much bigger, spreads of 6 to 8% for golden coins are now nothing special. 

[MrStacker]

I was just watching this and it reminded me of this thread.

 

 

Go to 2:38 and even the dealer makes note of what you stated in your original post. So yes it does happen 😂

[James32]

5 minutes ago, MrStacker said:

I was just watching this and it reminded me of this thread.

 

 

Go to 2:38 and even the dealer makes note of what you stated in your original post. So yes it does happen 😂

Enjoy listening to Tim, seems a sensible human being.