Between all the troubles on Wall Street lately and the devestation of hurricane Ike, I for one expected precious metals to take an upswing. Unless it's happening very slowly, that's obviously not the case because metals are actually down again this morning. (Funny thing is, gas actually went up 15 cents a litre here yesterday and they used Ike as the excuse.)
Gold is on the upswing, slightly. But what is up with silver and especially platinum lately? They seemed to have fallen through the floor and cannot get up again. "Help I've fallen and can't get up":thumb:
Nothing can be predicted for the short term, but long term I think the probability of gold and silver prices rising is greater than the probability that they will fall.
Gold is separating itself from the other metals, it is more of an emotional factor driving the price than practical demand for industrial uses.
The gas part I can answer. Even though a barrel of oiol is less now than it's been all year, and no refineries were effected, the infrastructure to transport the fuels is damaged and can't be exported as of yet. Things should be on the move again by week's end. As for metals, it has me baffles. Usually when people are buying it up as fast as they have been, it creates a sort of false run-up on prices. But we haven't really seen that. Maybe the market knows something we don't. Guy~
There are a lot more suppliers this year. Gold prices are just absurd where there are a lot more industrial use for silver and platinum. This time scammers should honestly shut up and not use precious metal "propaganda" marketing scam to mess up people's savings. There was just too much false drama which started from oil prices.
Ah yes... the fun roller coaster of precious metals. Gold has see-sawed over the past month, but it did finally fall from the heights it was at earlier this year. I've heard that Platinum has suffered due to speculation that fewer catalytic converters will be used in the post-oil economy. I don't know enough to comment further than that, but that's what I've heard. Silver makes no sense, considering all the talk of shortages. But those announcements didn't make much sense to me since silver seems to be readily available everywhere.
It's funny because I heard that platinum was going to skyrocket in the post-oil economy because it was a key component in producing hydrogen fuel cells... Clearly no one knows what's going on! lol
Platinum prices are actually pretty obvious unlike silver and gold. The main supplier comes straight from South Africa, dominating about 80% of the market, with the rest coming from Russia and other minor countries. 50% of that goes straight to automobile catalysts, 35% for industrial purposes and the rest jewelery and bullion I think. The thing is this, with the current global market with slow car sales, how difficult is it to see the prices of platinum falling when a large percentage of it goes straight to automobiles? Basic supply and demand chart is more than enough to explain this. There is an interesting supplier coming up soon from Zimbabwe (assuming that the political situation gets cleared up there) with the potential of adding 15% of the current global production and this is an extremely large number considering that the global production is about 7 million ounces. Johnson Matthey has interesting reports for this particular metal.
Got me scared there for a minute with the cents/litre thing. I thought maybe I missed something at the gas pumps around me but then I saw your in Canada. Since we still use dollars/gallon I sure wonder how much gas is there in real amounts and money.:smile Just kidding I hope you know.
Heh heh, that's okay, I'm sure one of these days you'll join us and the rest of the world and start using metric too. Actually, I bet that's why some Americans think it's so cold up here... 25 C is a nice warm day in these parts, but 25 F is down right frigid south of the border... and you know it's that kind of misunderstanding that slams poor little space probes into Mars at 10,000 kmph... lol
Actually, I heard they quit using platinum in catalytic converters on new cars because of the cost and to try to make them less attractive to thieves. Who knows? I don't know what the PM markets are doing right now. Makes no sense to me.
Platinum catalysts were significantly replaced by palladium catalysts but that's only for vehicles that run on gasoline. Palladium catalysts are still not efficient for diesel engines so hence platinum is not totally replaced yet. I have no statistics of how much PGM is used but it might be somewhere around 0.02oz for each catalyst and higher for the older catalysts but still a relatively significant cost. Again, give Johnson Matthey a go.
Hydrogen as a fuel source is in the experimental stages; AFAIK, only three Automakers have running models around; BMW (7 Series), Honda (Honda FCX), and Mazda (Mazda RX-8 Hydrogen RE). Not to mention a smattering of Buses and other commercial vehicles. Still, the biggest problem is the lack of Hydrogen refill stations. Ya can't have Hydrogen cars without ways to fill-er up!!
With gold and silver up between 5% and 10% today, looks like someone big stopped selling. Maybe banks were dumping metals to raise cash?
Very strange since it started to slump a week or two back. Gold nearly hit $750 one day (the day I bought, thankfully) and a day or two after it shot back up to the $800s again. It doesn't make any sense to me either (so why do I continue to buy?!? The irrational in us rules, apparently... or at least in me).
Used to work scrapping cars and in 2005/6 cats would get $50 ea. in bulk. They have small beads in them coated with platinum or palladium. Don't have the time to do the math right now. Word is silver can be altered to be usable for the cats in exhausts as well as it can be used as an antifungus/antibacterial etc. Waitng on FDA approval in the US, but other countries already use it in fridges, ovens etc. ALso used on glass to raise the insulation rating and socks for antifungal.
