The Gold Retail premiums
The price a small buyer actually pays for a coin is the spot price plus a dealer premium. When physical demand is high, premiums widen and the all-in price gets worse. This pillar is a new daily series built by The Gold Barometer from openly-served dealer pages. It ramps in as history accrues.
- Weight
- 0%
- Effective weight
- 0.0%
- Source
- n/a
- Frequency
- n/a
- Latest date
- 2026-08-05
- Latest value
- n/a
- Staleness
- dropped (d / limit d)
- Evidence grade
- cost argument incontestable; predictive value anecdotal
The price a small buyer actually pays for a coin is the spot price plus a dealer premium. When physical demand is high, premiums widen and the all-in price gets worse. This pillar is a new daily series built by The Gold Barometer from openly-served dealer pages. It ramps in as history accrues.
What it measures
A multi-dealer median premium over the spot price on a benchmark basket of 1 oz gold products, sampled once per day from openly-served dealer pages. Published as a base-100 aggregate; per-dealer prices are never republished.
Why it moves gold
The cost argument is incontestable: a higher premium is mechanically a worse all-in price for a physical buyer. The predictive value of the premium level is anecdotal and disclosed as such. Episodes documented in the literature (2008 US Mint suspension, 2013 physical demand surge, March 2020 refinery closures) show that dealer premiums widen at moments of physical stress.
Today's reading
Today the retail-premiums pillar reads n/a. Ramping in from a 5% weight until 12 months of history accrue.
How it is scored
The daily median premium is ranked within the pillar's own accumulating history. The pillar carries a 5% weight until 12 months of history are recorded (approximately August 2027), then ramps to its design weight of 10%. Other pillar weights renormalize accordingly.
Orientation. Low premium percentile raises the sub-score. High premium (worse all-in price for a buyer) lowers it.
Evidence
- March 2020, SBMA "The Day the EFP Broke": Loco London to Comex EFP spread hit $50 to $70 per ounce versus a normal ~$1.50, when Swiss refineries shut and physical shipments stopped. Simultaneously, WGC Q1 2020 reports Western coin demand up 36% year-over-year while India traded at a $70 discount. Premiums are regional; the pillar is US.
- 2008 US Mint suspension of American Eagle production during peak Great Financial Crisis retail demand.
- 2013: WGC Gold Demand Trends Q2 2013 documents a physical demand surge that widened premiums.
- Charteris and Kallinterakis (2021): feedback trading in the coin market, mechanism-level.
Caveat
Evidence grade: cost argument incontestable; predictive value anecdotal. The pillar is deliberately weight-ramped: 5% until August 2027, then 10%. Premiums are regional (US versus India, March 2020); this series is US only. No return-prediction claim is made.
Seller-side note
This pillar has the cleanest buyer-versus-seller inversion in the whole instrument. High retail premiums are directly better for physical sellers: dealer bids sit closer to spot when sell-side inventory is tight, and cash buyers of jewelry and coins bid harder. Cost argument, incontestable.
Source: The Gold Barometer Retail Premium Index, daily multi-dealer median from openly-served dealer pages (SD Bullion, Liberty Coin, and clean-ToS additions as basket grows). Per-dealer prices are not republished. See the methodology page for the composite formula and the provenance page for the per-source status board.