While interest and sentiment in the precious metals have been depressed compared to the preceding month, this all changed during the past few days. This trend change is particularly the case for silver. Even though Silver Eagle sales have been much weaker this year, positive signs show that investors still believe in acquiring the shiny metal when fear and uncertainty enter into the markets.

For example, Silver Eagle sales for Jan-Aug 2017 are nearly 50% lower than they were during the same period last year. I believe the biggest factor that hurt Silver Eagle sales was the election of Donald Trump as U.S. President. Many individuals in the Alternative Media think that Trump versus Hillary Clinton in the White House translates to a lot less FEAR about the control by the elite. Thus, the motivation to continue purchasing precious metals, bulk food, guns-ammo and survival goods has diminished considerably since the election in November last year.

However, when serious geopolitical events arise, investors still want to rush into owning more gold and silver. And they did so in a BIG WAY in the past few days.

According to the updates on the U.S. Mint website, Silver Eagle sales surged by 300,000 on Monday, August 28th and another 300,000 on Tuesday, August 29th:

As we can see, Silver Eagle sales for the first three weeks of August were only 425,000, the slowest trend compared to all the previous months. But, after the N. Korean nuclear threat, the massive flooding in Houston Texas, and the U.S. debt ceiling issue over the past week, the U.S. Mint sold 600,000 Silver Eagles in two days, surpassing the 425,000 four-week total (Aug 1st-25th).

Again, the U.S. Mint sold 300,000 Silver Eagles on Monday, August 28th and another 300,000 on Tuesday, August 29th. They may have another update today for the past two days, but sometimes they wait until the next month to list those sales.

Regardless, that is a great deal of Silver Eagles sales over those two days. I would imagine the crazy events over the past week were instrumental in pushing up not only the silver price but also demand for Silver Eagles.