Just saw the latest video from “Silver Dave” where he explains being currently out of one oz gold bars. When he called his wholeslaer, who he said is one of the 7 biggest wholesalers globally, they couldn’t provide him with one oz. gold bars nor give him a possible availability date for December.

He was told one big buyer is vacuuming up all the one oz. bars they can get their hands on. Costco is the big buyer. The likely largest reason is, that based on their success this last year selling gold and silver, Costco expects big Christmas gift giving in gold and silver and is filling it’s retail inventory pipeline in advance.

This doesn’t mean there is necessarily a shortage of gold, because we are just talking about one oz. bars. That is a small part of total gold demand. What it does mean, is that the general retail public, who owns almost no precious metals up to this point in time, is becoming aware of and getting interested in PM’s. This is just the beginning of what is going to become a growing trend as more and more people become aware of and invest in gold and silver.

A secondary factor here is that Costco would rather put their capital into physical gold inventories as oppossed to other goods. Why? After the holiday season what do retailers do with inventory that didn’t sell out? They mark down prices and liquidate excess inventory. If they are holding more gold and silver than they can sell, they more than likely will just slow down new purchases but are unlikely to ever have to markdown that particular type of inventory. A smart move for a major retailer like Costco.