anyone notice the prices of metals today?

Land.

 

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Heh, I was thinking oil would be a good one too... Imagine keeping a truckload of "high grade" barrels of crude in your garage as an investment.

 

or... 20 lb bags of rice.

 

I hear the price of chicken eggs is up 24% this year too...

 

perhaps chicken farming would be a good investment.

 

I plan to invest in the next shortages before the news breaks and the hysteria begins.

Sawmill closings create sawdust shortage (Canada)

I need to call my broker in the morning and tell him I want to invest heavily in sawdust.

Sand shortage hits building industry (Qatar)

OK. So I will load ships with sand in Florida and sell the sand in Qatar. I should make a killing!

Funeral directors in short supply (New Zealand)

OK. Gotta remember to tell my broker to buy some funeral director futures for me. I expect this to go sky high when word of a shortage gets out.

 

I'm gonna right this stuff down, Hobo.
I think I have all I need now to make my wise investments.
Thanks!!!

Goodnight everyone, and sweet beautiful dreams to you all

Laura

 

Thing is, metal prices are fantastically high for mining companies to make a profit. If it keeps going on, miners should be millionaires by now to get compensated for all the dirty work they do. Not to mention how much deaths there are per year from mining.

All mining companies need is to expand their capacity they can mine and more will be out in the market. The only problem is the PGM where South Africa is the dominant market and they have real difficulties expanding due to lack of infrastructure.

 

Looking into my crystal ball, I see.................







a murky crystal ball.

 

I highly suggest you to read current global mining productions and future mine expansions / plans before further speculating what prices should be. I am having issues of this to become part of a common norm in a numismatic forum - this is starting to become a stock market and it's getting quite off topic.

Before anyone comments, I would like you to find out which country is the largest gold producer last year. If you said South Africa, you are outdated - it was 2006, not 2007. Answer may be surprising.

 

GX:
Russia?

(I presume).

 

Not even, Treashunt.

Russia does dominate the palladium market (approximately 50%) but not gold.

 

Try further south/east.

(Edit) Oops, had not seen the latest post. It's China as far as I know ...

Christian

 

In my opinion, this is the wrong way to analyze silver. The fundamentals of supply and demand are far more important than a chart. The chart reminds me of oil a few years ago. When it rose in price from about $10 to $30, many analysts thought it was high and believed the price would drop back to $20. They said the same thing at $40, $50, $60, etc... Where the price has been tells you nothing.

So silver isn't as low as it used to be, but it is by no means high. What else besides silver can you purchase a price far lower than 30 years ago?

It doesn't hurt to pick up a few ASEs.

 

Yes Christian got it.

Point is, you can't just look prices from historical price chart and talk about possible demand. You NEED to look at the supply as they always fluctuate from year to year and this can range from infrastructure problems to geopolitics and they EASILY affect the production level.

Here is a good link about gold supply:

http://www.goldsheetlinks.com/production.htm

One big gold supplier that is about to come online is one in Mongolia called Oyu Tolgoi. I can't remember how much % of gold production it would contribute to the global gold production but it's significant.

Platinum is also another good example. Currently the biggest supplier is South Africa, holding about 50% of the global market and of course, if anything happens in the country, prices just jack up accordingly. An interesting supplier will be Zimbabwe with the potential of supplying about 15% of the current world production, which is very significant. The only thing stopping Anglo Platinum is the current crazy politics in Zimbabwe, making it difficult to negotiate with the government. What if it succeed? Platinum prices will just plummet and whatever platinum bullion that you bought recently will just drop.

Point is, if you think mining companies are just sitting back and not doing anything to maximize profits in such high metal prices, think twice. I'm just disgusted over how people love to speculate without going through the supply side. Economics 101: Supply AND demand not Supply OR demand.

 

Cloud, why don't we talk about silver supply instead:

http://www.silverinstitute.org/supply/index.php

Demand is useless if there aren't any supply to begin with.

 

Speaking of supply, silver is used up in manufacturing/industrial processes whereas the overwhelming majority of all gold ever mined is still in existence.

 

Laura, I think a nicer way of saying this is that the number of posts do not indicate any level of understanding. Phoenix has more posts than the majority of the members and he is a young teenager that may or may not have any understanding of investments of paper or actual bullion - which are two ways you can go in this market.

I would do a lot of reading and investigation on some of the bullion web sites and forums before making a substantial investment. It might be a good investment but do your homework first. Also go on Kitco to look at the history of silver. At $14 to $18 I doubt that you would ever loss much but you may never see much in gains either. Get a better understanding of the annual usage and annual production - then what is driving the usage. Then understand if technology advances may affect the usage. Like any other investment opportunity, there is risk involved that you should understand and be willing to take if the investment turns out to be a bust.

Good Luck!

Darryl

 

Thanks Darryl, you nailed it down. That should be the basics of economics 101.

 

Thanks Darryl for your thoughts. I do appreciate your time!
Laura