so i assume this sub is dead ? <| sep |> He ' ll just magically get open again . <| sep |> More reviews are coming <| sep |> Nope , premiums do not cancel it out . There is no direct correlation between spot and premium . Last year spot was about $ 1 . 5 lower than today , and the premiums were more or less the same . A couple of months ago , sport was around $ 18 , and premiums were more or less the same . Vendors make money through markup aka premium . Let ' s say a vendor buys ASE from the mint for spot plus $ 2 and sells them for spot plus $ 2 . 50 . The $ 0 . 50 is the vendor ' s margin regardless of whether spot is $ 15 or $ 25 . Large vendors protect themselves from spot fluctuations by hedging . Meaning they place buy and sell orders at the wholesale level all the time so their effective inventory is always near zero , and they always buy and sell their inventory at current prices . It ' s a bit more complicated than that , but here is a nice explanation on JMB a n d s i l v e r d ealerhedginginfographicIf vendors didn ' t do this , they ' d go out of business all the time . Premiums are influenced by supply , demand , incentives , etc .