Editor’s Note
This article highlights the severe supply shortages currently gripping the physical gold and silver markets, with one metal facing a particularly critical situation. As market volatility intensifies, industry insiders describe an unprecedented state of emergency.
While the market is more volatile than ever, the physical trading of gold and silver is experiencing massive shortages. The situation is particularly severe for one of the two metals.
Frankfurt. Michael Eubel’s voice sounds stressed.
For about six weeks, a state of emergency has prevailed in the Foreign Exchange and Precious Metals department of BayernLB. The state bank is by far the largest precious metal wholesaler in Germany.
Eubel has been managing this department for about 20 years. But he has never experienced anything like this.
His employees, who package and ship bars and coins from around the world to savings banks and banks, can handle a certain number of orders per day, and they have absolutely reached their limit.
But this is not the only bottleneck in the precious metals market. The refineries, which mint the tradable bars and coins from the raw material, are also operating at capacity. Eubel describes the consequences:
Other precious metal dealers interviewed by Handelsblatt are in the same situation as Eubel. Since the New Year, the physical precious metals market has been in a state of emergency, and even the crash in the futures markets does not alleviate the shortage.
