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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Kid Rock who wrote (4779)	3/9/2006 8:01:13 PM
From: TobagoJack	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 217749

hello kr, i have never thought of my physical metals as an investment. i have always figured it is a set-aside for a financial reset per requirement of every self-declared financial refugee. the physical is not so much a ltbh, but a forever holding to be passed down the generations, or until someone decides to spend it. when i 'invest' in gold, it is in paper gold, gold shares, and options; and these holdings are for a few weeks to a few months. <<Also, would lump TIE in with Au/palladium?>> ... what is TIE? chugs, j

To: Kid Rock who wrote (4779)	3/10/2006 3:11:08 AM
From: energyplay	Respond to of 217749

Titanium is being driven by the large numbers of new Commercial airplane orders : Giant Airbus, Boeing 787 Dreamliner, mid-size jets for Asia - India has been ordering lots of planes. Second use of Ti in high pressure and undersea oil equipment. ** Palladium is driven heavily by automotive catalytic converters. Chemical processing catalysts, white gold, and as an alloy for platinum. Sort of "Platinum helper" - like Hamburger helper. Platinum Pt is $1000 /oz., Palladium Pd is $300 / oz. and less dense. stillwaterpalladium.com PAL and SWC are two mostly palladium miners. Note that auto catalyst recycling is becoming a more significant supply factor. Platinum is heavily used in auto catalysts, and is still essential for diesel catalysts. It has a huge critical use in petroleum processing, where some of it is consumed or lost by wear. Surgical implants, non-fouling spark plug coatings, etc. There is use of platinum in jewellry, especailly for the prongs to hold stones such as diamonds. There has been a recent trend or fad for platinum jewelry items. Except for the platinum jewelry, almost every platinum use is a price is no object application. The purcashing people will scream and yell, but they will pay double the price and buy the same amount. The price can then be doubled again - the price increases will just go to consumers. $4000 Platinum will not stop these critical uses. Big producers of Platinum are South Africa and Russia. Russia has a reputation for successfully gaming and manipulating the market - real head games. Gold is used as money, jewelery, and electronics. Note that only the last use results in much net consumption, the other uses create inventory. Silver is real mix / mess. It has been a monetary metal, jewelry, and critical industrial and consumer metal. The photography use is declining with digital photography, but there will still be residual non-consumer photo uses. There are uses such as silver solder of copper pipes, heat sinks, etc. Since silver once spiked up to $50 during the Hunts' corner attempt, many of the silver uses were reformulated to minimize silver use. This means these uses can't be reformulated again to reduce silver use - it has already been done. So there is less price elasticity for these uses. Silver production is heavily a byproduct of copper, lead, zinc or gold mining. There are a few primary silver mines in Mexico, Peru and Bolivia. Companies are PAAS, SSRI, SIL, HL, CDE and others. Note that some silver companies have managements with bad reputations - self serving and/or stupid. The US used to have the world's largest inventory of silver. It has ALL been sold off in the past 40 years, resulting in surpression of silver prices, and a lack of silver mines. ** I think metals can be fun....;-) Other companies to look at - (not recomendations) OMG cobalt BW beryllium N, FAL nickel, copper PD copper, moly (molybdenum) PCU copper