And we're off to the races. Despite, or maybe thanks to, the relentless collapse in paper gold prices, US retail continues to ignore the day to day fluctuations in the stated value of the shiny metal (most of it driven by the BIS' Benoit Gilson [2]), and instead has learned to take advantage of every drop to BTFD. As the US mint website reports [3], the very first day of 2013 saw a whopping 50,000 gold ounce sales, and another 7,000 on the second, which is nearly the entire amount sold by the mint in December, and just shy of half in all of January 2012. Which in turn means that gold raids are now becoming counterproductive: instead of disincentivizing retail purchases, they are merely accelerating them, in the process leading to ever more paper to physical currency conversion. The "trillion dollar platinum coin" may well be the dumbest idea around, but the "one ounce gold coin" idea is rapidly becoming the most popular one, shared by all who see that the only possible outcome for the "developed world" is more ceaseless devaluation of every paper currency in the world.
[4]
[5]
(h/t Alex Gloy)