Supposed to, but I don't know how you can trade more silver in one day than is mined in an entire year. They are short about 100X on gold and 300X on silver. Big game of musical chairs is everyone wants their PMs at the same time.
Really? The sources tabulated in Wikipedia disagree; one has platinum 5 times more abundant than palladium, but another has palladium 3 times more common than platinum! And it appears that annual production of palladium is higher than that of platinum. As for gold, the "abundance in Earth's crust" figures put it about on par with platinum, although one source claims platinum is more abundant. Unsurprisingly, though, production of gold is much higher.
Unbelievable , yet even today the bullion news letters still try to con people who don't understand the concepts of the deal with paper trading. If you hear someone say " I bought a house today for possible resale" , do you assume they paid the full price? ...or that they put 15% or so down and are going to hold it ( renting or living in it ) until the value goes up. Few stay a full 20 or 30 yrs and if they do , have to eventually pay the full value or more. You buy a silver contract for cash saying you have until a certain date to sell it back. If it goes up , you get the upped cash value, if it goes below, you sell for what ever you can get for it. No SILVER passed to end user. If you buy a contract for several months on paper, you can ( depending on the exchange) , usually with more than 30 days remaining, pay the full price current then for the delivery of real silver at the end of the time period or resell it for what ever it is worth at the time. Jewelers and manufacturers use this to ensure they have supplies on time at their decision price. Few individuals use this method as they are just gambling as to whether the price goes up or down, depending on how the general "buy a couple of ounces a week" end users are hoping for the future. However the exchanges are not risk takers as to not delivering physical, so every prospectus says if they can't deliver the physical , they have the right to deliver cash. So they don't worry. IMO.
Exactly it was never meant to be a way for people to get actual metals. If someone was really set on investing in metals that’s the way to do it, not burning cash paying delivery fees and shipping fees back for a sale
It really depends entirely on what you are comparing Bitcoin to, since it's all too easy to forget that we are in effect talking about a situation of apples and oranges here. If you are pitting Bitcoin up against precious metals, then yes, the PM's win hands down since they have a tangible value that Bitcoin does not. However, if on the other hand you are comparing Bitcoin with U.S. dollars then it cannot be anything but a draw, since as a fiat currency the dollar has absolutely no intrinsic value whatsoever and quite literally isn't worth the paper it's printed on. In effect, the dollar is either as real or as imaginary as Bitcoin, and that just depends on which way you want to look at it.
That's a fallacy if I've ever read one. There is absolutely no accountability for maintaining the value of cryptocurrency - at least not yet. If the US government were ever to default on or debase the USD, the people would at least know who to come after with their torches and pitchforks.
Again, if the post mentions an actual event in history such as "bombing of singapore" in relation to numismatics, that is acceptable. However to say "Don't forget August 15, 1971 when Nixon fully pulled the rug out from under the dollar." And "That was indeed the coups de grace, if you will, and thanks for bringing that up" are personal political opinions and are not allowed and should not be continued.
How does one know? The bank/broker gives you the paperwork, not the physical house. You could take the paperwork and resell it to someone else and never see or touch the house physically.
Quoting myself is unusual, but I ran across a pertinent story just this morning . . . http://www.kitco.com/news/2017-11-1...wnfall-Of-Platinum-And-Palladium-Markets.html Not exactly a replacement compound, but a foreboding development nonetheless.
Certainly foreboding for anyone wanting higher platinum and palladium prices. Even if Tesla goes spectacularly bankrupt, even if [various political things happen], fossil-fuel vehicles are on the way out. I won't see their end in my lifetime, but you can't possibly mistake the trend at this point. Platinum and palladium, but especially platinum, are so very useful for so many things. Lower prices for them bring all sorts of benefits for a modern (or even 20th-century) economy.
I agree that electric vehicles will be the norm, though, like you Jeff, I won’t be around to see it. Not only will the economy benefit from lower platinum and palladium prices, but also oil prices and energy prices as a whole. Study the action of all energy-related stocks as of the past few years. I think Wall Street already is discounting the long-term future of fossil fuels.