[nlh]

Oh for sure - APMEX is selling plenty of gold and they're doing great. But they buy gold too and ship it off to refiners just like any dealer. And yes there is plenty of demand for gold - but my only point is that demand right now is for Gold The Commodity (eg a hedge fund / government / etc.) who just want the financial instrument (that happens to be backed by physical bricks in a warehouse...they hope lol) as opposed to the retail buyer who wants gold the way they want Crypto or Pokemon cards.

For example, one dealer I know last month sold $5m in physical gold coins (to consumers who wants gold) but they bought $30m in physical gold coins to be shipped off and melted. They, like APMEX, make money on both sides so they're plenty happy. But a 6:1 buy:sell ratio is pretty wild.

[klodolph]

It’s wild, but couldn’t we also explain this with a theory like “people have more trust in the institutions holding gold, and want better rates when they buy/sell?” Older generations seemed, to me at least, that they had some distrust in financial institutions, and maybe the newer gold buyers trust that their gold deposits work but don’t trust dollars or stocks as much.