by Steve St. Angelo, SRSRocco Report:

Today, the global gold spot markets broke down as prices varied considerably from the different exchanges.  Moreover, U.S. Mint sales of Gold and Silver Eagles surged again this week. Gold Eagle sales are so strong in March; they jumped 1,700% compared to February!! At one point, the gold price was up more than $100 during early trading.

I was busy earlier today on Twitter when I noticed the breakdown in the spot gold prices.  I checked three different sources and found that Kitco.com’s gold price was much lower than the quotes on Investing.com and the CMEGroup.  I then had a Twitter exchange with Peter Spina at Goldseek.  Peter Spina published this article on GoldReview:

Peter and I both posted the same Tweet about the breakdown in the global gold spot prices that were taking place today.  Here was my tweet:

While Kitco posted gold trading at $1,576, Investing.com and the CMEGroup’s April contract was trading about the same at $1,639… $63 higher.  So, as we can see, the global gold spot market is in disarray. I imagine this is partly due to Switzerland announcing the closing of three large gold refineries in the country yesterday, UPDATE 1-Three Swiss gold refineries suspend production due to virus threat:

LONDON, March 23 (Reuters) – Three of the world’s largest gold refineries said on Monday they had suspended production in Switzerland for at least a week after local authorities ordered the closure of non-essential industry to curtail the spread of the coronavirus.

The refineries – Valcambi, Argor-Heraeus and PAMP – are in the Swiss canton of Ticino bordering Italy, where the virus has killed more than 5,000 people in Europe’s worst outbreak.

Switzerland is a global hub for precious metals refining. The three refineries between them process around 1,500 tonnes of gold a year in Ticino – a third of total global annual supply – as well as other precious metals such as silver.

These three Swiss refineries process about 1,500 metric tons of gold, or a third of the global annual supply. This is a BIG DEAL.  These refineries stated that they would be reopening at the end of March and the first week of April.  However, let’s see if that takes place as this global contagion continues to spread.

Even though the markets have recovered today, it was mostly due to an overdue TECHNICAL CORRECTION at a critical level and the massive U.S. Government stimulus package.  However, I wouldn’t count on the stock markets heading back up much higher.  This is just a mere Bear-Market Rally.  Once the fundamentals of the supply chain and massive retail-wholesale store closures kick in over the next 2-4 weeks… the Markets are heading MUCH LOWER.

The U.S. Mint Gold & Silver Eagle Sales HIT RECORDS in March

While I have been providing updates on the massive increase in U.S. Mint Silver Eagle sales, Gold Eagle sales have also hit record numbers.  First, let’s look at an update of Silver Eagle sales since my last article on March 17th:

Silver Eagle sales this past week jumped by another 1.7 million to 4,832,500 as of March 23rd.  So, it looks like the U.S. Mint has been able to access enough silver blanks to ramp up production considerably.  It will be interesting to see if the U.S. Mint will be able to continue with these elevated monthly production levels, not seen since 2015-2016.

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