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Gold/Mining/Energy : Silver prices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ray Hughes who wrote (1887)	6/10/1999 4:26:00 PM
From: Alan Whirlwind	Respond to of 8010

"The latter process will take a decade because conservative boards of directors will wait until they are certain of the price stability before risking $ millions.." Interesting analysis. The metals have been such a chump investment for so long they'll drag their feet as long as possible. Very possible. "Thus, silver looks like a "lead pipe cinch" but I think the price rise will not be abrupt. There's simply too much old silver scrap held by antique dealers coming into the market." I scoffed at this viewpoint of yours earlier last year but looks to be valid now--dump the silver and stick it in Blue Chips no doubt. In the intermediate to longer term, this may also cause the spike up to go farther than otherwise. "Therefore, I'm an accumulator of silver for the 5-year haul, believing that silver's strength relative to gold signals that the excess inventory is getting 'skinny.' That makes me nervous about being too conservative, so I trade silver options to have a toe in the water in case we get another WB bump." I'm sticking to SILVZ silver warrants on SSC. The poor man's option. Could be the poorer man's option if silver doesn't do something dramatic soon. The prolonged bear market has forced out a lot of silver bugs I think, however Y2K buying has helped stem the default. Otherwise I think the $4.40 area would have been breeched this spring. --Alan

To: Ray Hughes who wrote (1887)	6/10/1999 6:17:00 PM
From: Gerald Walls	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 8010

Lead/zinc smelters produce silver and there is, at best, a 2% growth curve in smelter capacity planned for the next 3 years. Ditto copper. Hence, base metal by-product sources of silver are limited to 2% growth. Furthermore, gold production is peaking so silver by-product output will peak. I'm not a mining expert, but here goes. I would assume that with copper at such low prices that there's probably a lot of excess smelting capacity there, so new copper production may not be confined much by low smelter growth. What assumptions did you use to account for that? Also, how much copper is leached instead of smelted and does the leaching agent for copper do a good job leaching silver? If so, the low smelter growth may not be a confining factor at all.

To: Ray Hughes who wrote (1887)	6/16/1999 10:56:00 PM
From: ForYourEyesOnly	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 8010

Thanks Ray! I appreciate your knowledge & experience.....talk is that the physical supplies are getting tight, and that much of the remaining Comex metal is not of high quality. What have you heard about this? From DA at Kitco: One interesting note in the silver department is that high grade physical is in very short supply right now. Premiums over spot for immediate delivery are running around 4 cents. This is quite unusual but is partly explained by the slowdown of the Penjoles ( sp? ) mine in Mexico which was producing something like 30 MM ounces a year but environmental problems of late have caused a cutback in production to around the 10MM ounce per year level. All of their production is high grade and can go directly into industrial processes ( film ) .