Daily Gold Update

Source: Dana Samuelson, American Gold Exchange

Austin, TX— Precious metals ended the New York trading session in a mixed bag with gold declining 0.2% while the dollar strengthened on the U.S. dollar index 0.34%. February gold closed at $1,687.00, down $3.80, after trading as high as $1,695.10 early in the day and as low as $1,683.90 late in the day. March silver gained another $0.11, closing the session at $31.93, up 0.4%. April platinum suffered a bout of week ending profit taking, falling 1.77% or $30.20, closing the session at $1,672.80. March palladium dipped 0.56%, declining $4.05, to close the session at $723.15.

Overall it was a good week for precious metals with gold gaining $27.00, silver gaining $1.52, platinum gaining $42.60 and palladium gaining $24.70 from last Friday�s closes. Oil was up 2% on the week as well.

The U.S. mint announced yesterday it was suspending sales of U.S. silver eagles next week due to insufficient inventory, and that it would resume sales on an allocation basis to its distributors on January 29th. The mint has a history of being unable to obtain enough blanks to strike these coins on during times of high demand and this seems to be the case yet again. In January of 2011 and 2012 the mint sold over 6,000.000 silver eagles, only to see sales fall to a more normal monthly average of approximately 3,000,000 coins per month for the remaining months of those years. According to the U.S. mint web site http://www.usmint.gov/mint_programs/american_eagles/?action=sales&year=2013#SilverTotals sales of the 2013 issue are now at just over 6,000,000 coins, keeping pace with January 2011 and 2012 sales. Premiums for silver eagles immediately jumped $0.50 to $1.00 per coin in the dealer to dealer market as a result. We anticipate this situation to last several weeks before the mint is able to resume normal production and sales.