Physical gold and silver inventory watch

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pmbug

pmbug

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As mentioned in my original 100 ozt silver bar watch thread, I've started an Excel spreadsheet to track the inventory of a few gold and silver products at apmex. This isn't an exact science, but hopefully will yield some useful information anyway.

The following report details changes from 12/15 @ ~1pm to 12/16 @ ~3pm:
  • 10 ozt gold bars - from 55 to 38
  • 1 ozt gold bars - from 1047 to 1070, but today's totals include 100 Scotia bank bars that were not offered yesterday. Also, the inventory for Pamp Suisse bars was -144 while the inventory for Credit Suisse bars was +133. Seems to have been a lot of movement in the inventory.
  • 100 ozt silver bars - from 520 to 488. Johnson Matthey and Royal Canadian Mint (RCM) seem to the be popular sellers.

I will periodically update the attached file for those who want to see the detailed data. Current file shows data through October 12, 2012.
 

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  • apmex.xls
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Yes, PMBug, that is very interesting. Tulving might be another supplier that publishes a tiny bit of info re stocks of PMs.

Today our local coin shop had plenty of 1 oz Gold Eagles (inc. 2011s) to take care of me and my only other local friend who likes gold (we both bought) and a "box" full of Silver Eagles (I don't know how big!).

---

I am DoChenRollingBearing, and I approve your Ron Paul ad!
 
Tulving doesn't publish enough info about inventory to do a similar level of analysis that I'm doing with apmex. I am watching Tulving regularly for what info I can glean though.

Providentmetals appears to have sold out of 1 ozt 2011 gold eagles and Canadian maples, but I'm not seeing anyone else out of stock on those items.
 
I wish I had the dough to fulfil Tulving's minimum purchase quantity requirements. That said, apart from Hans being a bit abrasive, I understand him to run a stand up operation.
 
The following report details changes from 12/16 @ ~3pm to 12/17 @ ~9:30pm:
  • 10 ozt gold bars - no change
  • 1 ozt gold bars - from 1070 to 991. That's ~7% of inventory in just over 24 hours.
  • 100 ozt silver bars - from 488 to 469. Sales seem to be slowing down as the price of silver rose closer to $30/ozt.
 
The following report details changes from 12/17 @ ~9:30pm to 12/19 @ ~9am:
  • 10 ozt gold bars - no change
  • 1 ozt gold bars - from 991 to 911. That's ~8% of inventory in the last ~36 hours.
  • 100 ozt silver bars - from 469 to 472. The inventory of Johnson Matthey increased by 35 while the inventory of RCM decreased by 26. They also sold a couple of other brand bars.

Tulving appears to be sold out of all 90% and 40% silver.
 
The following report details changes from 12/19 @ ~9am to 12/20 @ ~9am:
  • 10 ozt gold bars - from 38 to 53. Slight increase in inventory of Perth Mint and Johnson Matthey poured bars, but they added 10 bars of generic name brand (without assay)
  • 1 ozt gold bars - from 911 to 1083. Huge increase in inventory of Pamp and Credit Suisse bars (their best sellers apparently). Inventory was down for most every other bar offered.
  • 100 ozt silver bars - from 472 to 549. The inventory of Apmex and RCM (especially RCM) increased while the inventory everything else fell or remained the same.

Tulving now has some 90% silver available again.
 
The following report details changes from 12/20 @ ~9am to 12/21 @ ~10:30am:
  • 10 ozt gold bars - from 53 to 65. They added 13 bars of Pamp Suisse brand
  • 1 ozt gold bars - from 1083 to 976. Huge decrease in inventory of Pamp and Credit Suisse bars (their best sellers apparently). Almost a 10% decrease in ~24 hours.
  • 100 ozt silver bars - from 549 to 533. The Apmex branded bars were the biggest seller.

Tulving now has some 90% silver available again.
 
The following report details changes from 12/21 @ ~10:30am to 12/23 @ ~11:30am:
  • 10 ozt gold bars - from 65 to 62.
  • 1 ozt gold bars - from 976 to 876. They sold out of the apmex bars and added 14 bars of Johnson Matthey (new listing) with a huge $100 premium (more than twice the premium of any other 1ozt gold bar). They also added 15 bars of Credit Suisse. They sold a lot of Pamp Suisse and Perth Mint bars apparently.
  • 100 ozt silver bars - from 533 to 760. Huge increase in Johnson Matthey bars (+241).

Apmex appears to have a special sale on select bars right now with reduced premiums.

Tulving is out of 90% silver again.
 
The following report details changes from 12/23 @ ~11:30am to 12/28 @ ~2pm:
  • 10 ozt gold bars - from 62 to 59. They gained some Johnson Matthey poured bars (+4) but sold off more Pamp Suisse bars (-6).
  • 1 ozt gold bars - from 876 to 947. They sold a lot of Pamp Suisse (-109) and smaller amounts of various other bars, but added some Credit Suisse (+33), Scotiabank (+59) and generic bars w/o assay (+82).
  • 100 ozt silver bars - from 760 to 793. Added Apmex branded bars (+88) and Ohio Precious Metals bars (+7), but sold off a bit of most everything else.

Tulving is reporting only 300,000+ ozt of silver in inventory now. They are still out of 90% silver. They appear to have added Scottsdale Silver 100ozt bars to their inventory.
 
PMBug, I like this project you are doing while recognizing its limitations. When you are "ready" (have enough data), maybe you could post a link to a "GoogleDoc spreadsheet") up there in the cloud for our perusal...?

---

I am now thinking about more closely following the eBay / 24hgold widget. I do not have to travel for awhile, and it should be relatively easy to do something similar (on Excel then to a Google doc). If I decide to go ahead with this, I will let all you guys know.
 
I don't do Googledocs, so I did the next best thing. I attached my Excel (.xls) spreadsheet to the OP (original post). I will update the attachment periodically (I'll announce the updates in new posts to the thread).
 
Excellent! I just looked at your Excel S.S., very good.

That may very well give me ideas should I go forward re the widget.
 
The following report details changes from 12/28 @ ~2pm to 12/29 @ ~9am:
  • 10 ozt gold bars - from 59 to 67. They gained some Pamp Suisse bars (+9) and sold off a Perth Mint bar.
  • 1 ozt gold bars - from 947 to 1124. They sold a few bars of various brands, but added a lot of Pamp Suisse (+43), Credit Suisse (+65) and Perth Mint (+74) bars.
  • 100 ozt silver bars - from 793 to 806. Major changes included Apmex branded bars (-22), "Englehard or Johnson Matthey" (+59). They sold off a bit of most everything else.
 
The following report details changes from 12/29 @ ~9am to 12/30 @ ~9am:
  • 10 ozt gold bars - from 67 to 63.
  • 1 ozt gold bars - from 1124 to 983. They added a lot of Perth Mint (+85 bars) but sold even more of everything else. Very heavy selling of Pamp Suisse (-56) and Credit Suisse (-93) bars.
  • 100 ozt silver bars - from 806 to 733. Major changes included Apmex branded bars (-33) and "Englehard or Johnson Matthey" (+21). They sold off a bit of most everything else.

It appears that some folks BTFD yesterday. ;)

Tulving still reporting only 300K+ silver ozt, but now shows some 90% available.
 
How about premiums? I see stuff on Ebay creeping up a little, but as of today, Apmex seems to be holding steady.
 
The premiums that I spot checked this morning were holding steady. No idea if apmex is jacking with their S&H - you have to go through the checkout process to verify that and I've been to lazy to do it. I have heard that online dealers (esp. apmex) have adjusted S&H charges in the past instead of changing the more visible premiums on the sale price.
 
The following report details changes from 12/30 @ ~9am to 12/31 @ ~9am:
  • 10 ozt gold bars - from 63 to 61.
  • 1 ozt gold bars - from 983 to 838. They sold a lot of Pamp Suisse (-109 bars) and Credit Suisse (-27) and a bit of everything else too.
  • 100 ozt silver bars - from 733 to 901. This was an interesting survey. They appear to have sold off a lot of silver in just about every category - apmex (-20), "Englehard or Johnson Matthey" (-36), Royal Canadian Mint (-6) and selling out of a few options that had low inventories - Englehard "Bull Logo", Heraeus poured, Wall Street Mint, US Assay Office. This was all offset by a huge increase in the inventory of Johnson Matthey bars (+242).

Tulving does not list the Scottsdale 100ozt bar anymore - must have just sold off what a customer sold to them I'm guessing. It doesn't appear that they worked out a deal to be a Scottsdale distributor.
 
The following report details changes from 12/31 @ ~9am to 1/1 @ ~9:30am:
  • 10 ozt gold bars - from 61 to 59.
  • 1 ozt gold bars - from 838 to 777. Big sellers were Credit Suisse (-13) and generic bars w/o assay (-23). No inventory gains this time.
  • 100 ozt silver bars - from 901 to 894. No big movements here, they sold a little bit of a few items.

Looks like very light activity on New Year's Eve as might be expected.
 
The following report details changes from 1/1 @ ~9:30am to 1/2 @ ~10am:
  • 10 ozt gold bars - from 59 to 59 (no change).
  • 1 ozt gold bars - from 777 to 670. Big sellers were Pamp Suisse (-16), Credit Suisse (-25), Scotia Bank (-29) and generic bars w/o assay (-25 and sold out). No inventory gains this time.
  • 100 ozt silver bars - from 894 to 891.

Looks like 1ozt gold is the popular New Year's Day buy.

Tulving is sold out of 2011 Silver Eagles. I just noticed this - it may have happened a few days ago though.
 
The following report details changes from 1/2 @ ~10am to 1/3 @ ~8am:
  • 10 ozt gold bars - from 59 to 59 (no change).
  • 1 ozt gold bars - from 670 to 995. Huge increases in Pamp Suisse (+168) and Credit Suisse (+181). Sold off a bit (-24) of most everything else.
  • 100 ozt silver bars - from 891 to 873.
 
Keep your project going PMBug! I am still working on the PM premium widget (6 or 7 entries so far, not enough data to mean anything yet).

At some point, I will email you the Excel data and/or maybe a graph or two if I see anything interesting. And then YOU can figure out how to put it in here, LOL!
 
Thanks DCRB. I enjoy playing with numbers.

The following report details changes from 1/3 @ ~8am to 1/4 @ ~9am:
  • 10 ozt gold bars - from 59 to 85. Looks like people are buying and selling again. Major changes were Perth Mint (+12), Pamp Suisse (+19) with some selling of Johnson Matthey (-2) and generic w/o assay (-3).
  • 1 ozt gold bars - from 995 to 1146. Another huge increases in Pamp Suisse (+158) and Perth Mint (+43). Sold off Credit Suisse (-34), Scotia Bank (-15) and a little bit of some other brands.
  • 100 ozt silver bars - from 873 to 748. Big sellers were apmex (-12), Johnson Matthey (-105) and Royal Canadian Mint (-10).

I just noticed that the remaining 453 Johnson Matthey 100ozt silver bars that are listed for sale have a note that they are expected to be available for shipping on Jan 13th. I guess they don't actually have those bars on hand yet. Same deal for the remaining 41 Apmex bars (expected available for shipping Jan 10). While I'm guessing they wouldn't list them for sale if they weren't sure the bars were forthcoming, I believe it means that Apmex really only has 254 of the 100ozt silver bars in stock (on hand) at this moment.
 
The following report details changes from 1/4 @ ~9am to 1/5 @ ~10am:
  • 10 ozt gold bars - from 85 to 85. No changes in inventory, but they did raise the premium on the generic bars w/o assay by $2/ozt.
  • 1 ozt gold bars - from 1146 to 1161. Small overall change, but large volume changes in individual brands: Pamp Suisse (-61), Credit Suisse (-125), Sunshine Mint (+139), Perth Mint (-35), Argor-Heraeus (+100)
  • 100 ozt silver bars - from 748 to 854. Small reductions in some brands more than offset by increases in apmex (+121). Premiums on the Sunshine bars dropped $0.30/ozt (they were much higher than other bars and now are the least expensive option).

The increase in 100 ozt Apmex bars coincided with a change to the expected available for shipping date which is now Jan 24. If we only look at 100 ozt silver bars that they actually have physical possession of at this moment, the total is down to 241.
 
The following report details changes from 1/5 @ ~10am to 1/6 @ ~9am:
  • 10 ozt gold bars - from 85 to 85. Sold one and gained one.
  • 1 ozt gold bars - from 1161 to 1230. Much more muted activity this perdiod. Large volume changes in individual brands: Pamp Suisse (-12), Credit Suisse (+86) and several brands down one or two bars
  • 100 ozt silver bars - from 854 to 852. Small reductions (from 1 to 4 bars each) in most brands indicate slowing activity. They added 1 RCM and 4 MTB bars which weren't previously listed (indicating customers sold them back IMO).

I'm guessing that when new bars are listed with an inventory of just 1-4 bars, it's likely these represent bars they acquired from customers who were selling back. It looks like they restock from manufacturers in much larger quantities (100 at a time).

Interesting to see some folks parting with their physical with the very tame rise in spot prices to the ~1620 and ~29.25 zones.

Tulving is now listing some 40% silver as available again. No change to the 300,000+ inventory number. 2011 ASEs aren't even listed any more.
 
The following report details changes from 1/6 @ ~9am to 1/7 @ ~10am:
  • 10 ozt gold bars - from 85 to 87. Sold two and gained four.
  • 1 ozt gold bars - from 1230 to 1833. Huge increase in Pamp Suisse (+430), Credit Suisse (+184). Biggest seller was Perth Mint (-14).
  • 100 ozt silver bars - from 852 to 824. Pretty even selling across all brands.

If we only look at 100 ozt silver bars that they actually have physical possession of at this moment, the total is down to 235.
 
The following report details changes from 1/7 @ ~10am to 1/8 @ ~9am:
  • 10 ozt gold bars - from 87 to 87. (no nchange).
  • 1 ozt gold bars - from 1833 to 1814.
  • 100 ozt silver bars - from 824 to 823.

Looks like very light buying yesterday. I guess everyone was watching football or something.
 
The following report details changes from 1/8 @ ~9am to 1/9 @ ~9am:
  • 10 ozt gold bars - from 87 to 87. (no change).
  • 1 ozt gold bars - from 1814 to 1788.
  • 100 ozt silver bars - from 823 to 817.
 
The following report details changes from 1/9 @ ~9am to 1/10 @ ~11am:
  • 10 ozt gold bars - from 87 to 82. They sold 5 generic bars (no assay).
  • 1 ozt gold bars - from 1788 to 1717.
  • 100 ozt silver bars - from 817 to 799. Strong sales across the board offset a bit by an increase to the Sunshine (+24) bars.
 
Show us a graph or something sometime PMBug! That way we can see how this evolving, even if the amount of data is paltry. I very well understand that short term data may not tell us MUCH (that we can have confidence in), but it can tell us SOMETHING! I know that I am curious!

That's the spirit with which I am approaching looking at the Widget. After a few cycles of gold paper price running up and down, we might be able to learn something, beyond the obvious.

And both your inventory and my premium analyses MAY help us catch a sudden drop in physical PM supplies. Which of course would be the signal that the (an?) end is near...
 
Anyone here who has the time is welcome to plot the data points I've posted (and get bonus points for correlating them with the avg spot price for the day).

I'm adding in my commentary when I notice something interesting in the data, but it's more stream of consciousness observation than data crunching analysis.
 
The following report details changes from 1/10 @ ~11am to 1/11 @ ~9am:
  • 10 ozt gold bars - from 82 to 84. They sold 1 Pamp Suisse bar and added 3 Johnson Matthey Pressed bars.
  • 1 ozt gold bars - from 1717 to 1847. Added apmex (+5), generic with assay (+9) and Scotia Bank (+199) and sold a smattering of everything else besides Pamp Suisse (-72). They lowered the premium on Pamp Suisse to $39.99/ozt over spot (down $5/ozt from previous).
  • 100 ozt silver bars - from 799 to 906. Added "Englehard or Johnson Matthey" (+15), Royal Canadian Mint (+30) and "various" (+75). Sold a few bars of apmex, Johnson Matthey and Sunshine. Looks like they have 361 bars in actual "on hand" inventory now (bars for sale without delayed delivery dates).
 
The following report details changes from 1/11 @ ~9am to 1/12 @ ~10:30am:
  • 10 ozt gold bars - from 84 to 71. Compared to past trading activity, this was a huge change. Perth Mint (-8) was the big seller, but others were sold too.
  • 1 ozt gold bars - from 1847 to 1858. Small net change, but there was a lot of activity. Added a new product - apmex bars with assay (+135). Big sellers were Pamp Suisse (-77) and Credit Suisse (-51).
  • 100 ozt silver bars - from 906 to 889. Looks like they have 348 bars in actual "on hand" inventory now (bars for sale without delayed delivery dates).
 
Attached is a graph of PMBug's data. If anything, it looks like there is a slow trend of increasing inventory.

2zhmmfs.jpg
 

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  • 20120112 Apmex inventories.jpg
    20120112 Apmex inventories.jpg
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It might be interesting to see the correlated graph of sales volume versus restocking (plotting all the gains versus all the losses day by day), but you would need to dive into the spreadsheet for that as I haven't posted all the minutiae here. I've updated the OP with the latest spreadsheet.
 
The following report details changes from 1/12 @ ~10:30am to 1/13 @ ~9am:
  • 10 ozt gold bars - from 71 to 69.
  • 1 ozt gold bars - from 1858 to 1796. Pamp Suisse (-53) continues to be a big seller.
  • 100 ozt silver bars - from 889 to 859. Johnson Matthey apparently now in stock. They added a single bar to three different offerings that weren't there yesterday, so it looks like someone sold a few bars (back to apmex) since yesterday.

Tulving is sold out of opened monster boxes of Silver Eagles. They are listing sealed boxes though.
 
The following report details changes from 1/13 @ ~9am to 1/15 @ ~noon:
  • 10 ozt gold bars - from 69 to 51. Sold out of Perth Mint (-16). I think this is the largest public buying volume I've seen within a ~48 hour window for 10ozt gold.
  • 1 ozt gold bars - from 1796 to 1565. Pamp Suisse (-134) continues to be the biggest big seller. Again, this ~48 hour window is showing strong buying demand from the public.
  • 100 ozt silver bars - from 859 to 851. They added 25 bars of "Englehard or Johnson Matthey", offsetting sales of apmex (-11), Sunshine (-11) and a bit of most everything else.
 
PMBug said:
It might be interesting to see the correlated graph of sales volume versus restocking (plotting all the gains versus all the losses day by day), but you would need to dive into the spreadsheet for that as I haven't posted all the minutiae here. I've updated the OP with the latest spreadsheet.
Click to expand...

PMBug,
How does this look (for 10 oz gold only):

NOTE: Image removed for more updated images later in this thread.
 
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