Safe Haven Investments Amid a Global Crisis

As we make our investment decisions, we must be acutely aware of what's going on in this country and around the world. We watched the TV report of the bank run on IndyMac Bank [IMB] and it was almost like a Hollywood movie scene of the Great Depression. But it is not a movie. Real people wait in long queues trying to get their life's savings back.

Why must people wait until the crisis happens, before they would act to protect themselves? Have you done enough to protect yourself and your family, financially, materially and physically? Unfortunately, people, as individuals or as a whole country, are more likely unprepared until bad things happen and it is too late. We Americans are totally unprepared to deal with what's coming our way!

Some speculate that World War Three is coming! This is no joking matter. Of grave concern is Iran's nuclear program. There are H.CON.RES.362 and S.RES.580 in Congress on a fast track to be voted on soon, which calls for naval blockage of Iran, a de facto act of war. There can only be two outcomes. A nuclear Iran, or an Iran War. Third outcome? Maybe BOTH! Iran just said it is not retreating "one iota". Other things in that region are not looking good either so we all need to do something to prepare for the worst and protect our own assets in safe havens.

Putting politics aside, I think we are NOT in a position to launch an Iran War. Iran has the powerful oil weapon it can use. We do not have enough strategic petroleum reserves to deal with a catastrophic interruption of Middle East oil shipments.

Not only we do not have enough petroleum in our stockpile, we also do not have enough stockpile of any of the critical materials that are needed for national security. Those critical strategic materials include platinum group metals, rare earth elements, cobalt, indium, manganese, and niobium -- minerals used in everything from high tech equipments to every day products Americans rely on, and are vulnerable to supply disruptions. The US government used to have a large cache of all those critical materials. Unfortunately we sold them all since the 1980's. I am urging President Bush and the Congress to address our vulnerability immediately and stock up on petroleum and all the critical materials, before we ever launch another war, if it comes to the point that a global natural resource war is inevitable.

What's particularly worth noting are the platinum group metals [PGM]. You may not know that there wouldn't be a World War I and World War II had platinum not existed, or had the German not invented certain platinum-catalyzed chemical processes, called Haber Process and Ostward Process, used to make dynamites and fertilizers. During World War II, the US government declared platinum as a strategic material and prohibited its use in jewelry because it was needed to make the explosives used in the war. I think it will be patriotic, and profitable as well, that private US citizens should hoard some platinum and palladium, and sell them to the domestic market when these metals are desperately needed in the future.

I believe, at a time of crisis, platinum and palladium can serve better as a safe haven investment to preserve wealth than gold does. And cobalt will be more favorable than silver. I argued previously that the world has a huge stockpile of gold. Gold's value can fall below the mining cost, depending on investor sentiment, driving gold mining industries out of business without causing any industry shortage.

But if platinum value falls below cost, or does not go up with the increasing mining cost fast enough, major PGM mining companies may be forced to reduce production or shut the mines down, bringing about an immediate shortage and so price must recover to the profitable level to allow production to resume. Therefore, platinum provides a much better protection of value than gold, at good times and at bad times. Palladium, on the other hand, historically has a tendency to catch up with platinum's price. Due to current extreme price disparity between the two metals, palladium probably will rise more percentage wise.

History shows that indeed many investors do consider platinum and palladium as much of a safe haven investment as gold and silver. Look at history prices of PGM metals provided by USGS, and compare with gold price. All three metals share a major peak around 1980. There was nothing particular in industry demand to drive platinum and palladium up. Osmium and ruthenium prices were flat in 1980. According to the USGS explanation, platinum and palladium prices were driven up by strong investment demand at the time, just like gold.

In the last month and particularly on August 1st, the prices of platinum and palladium plunged. On August 1st, 2008, platinum dropped $106 and palladium dropped $20 an ounce. According to talking heads, the price drop was because the monthly auto sales numbers looked terrible, reducing prospect of PGM demand in auto catalytic converters.

If you examine the auto sales numbers closely and look at history, such knee-jerk reaction of PGM investors is totally wrong and unjustified. This price plummet gives people an excellent opportunity to buy the physical metals, if you really know the fundamentals. Over the weekend I took the opportunity and swapped a big chunk of my silver for palladium!

If the talking heads travel back to 1980, what they would say about platinum and palladium? At the time, driven by crisis like the Iran-Iraq war, oil price was skyrocketing, just like today, there were long queues for gasoline at gas stations. Auto sales plummeted and GM's (GM) GM stock price hit an all time low. Talking heads would claim the PGM demand for auto catalytic converters must fall (probably true), and hence platinum and palladium prices must fall through the floor.

The prices actually rallied with gold and silver in 1980. People buy and hoard platinum and palladium just like gold as a safe haven investment. The investment demand more than makes up for the drop in auto demand. Further, countries needed to hoard the PGM metals, just in case they needed the metals to make explosives in a possible World War III.

Knee-jerk reactions like the sort that happened on Friday, August 1st, are wrong 99% of the time, because they are the mob's animal instinct reaction to headline news created by simple minded talking heads. The data is wrong; the headlines are for manipulation of mob psychology; critical information has not been filtered and processed by the brain when you react on animal instinct.

A good example (page 103) was in December, 1988, Ford (F) announced that it invented a platinum-free auto catalyst. The platinum spot price instantly dropped to $100 per ounce, from $500-ish. Have auto makers stopped using platinum today, 20 years later? When the so-called Nisshinbo platinum-free fuel cell affair spread all over the world, I immediately contacted NIKKEI and searched NISSHINBO as well as Tokyo Institute of Technology web site, and found no reference whatsoever, and a T.I.T. researcher involved in platinum-free fuel cell research flatly denied knowing anything of the story.

Based on information I collected I can conclusively say this must be a unsourced, unverified and not-credible news item, with no name mentioned, contributed to NIKKEI by an un-named author. What a shame! You just have to dig hard for authentic information because there is just too much noise out there.

Most investors are foolish not because they have no brains, but because they are too lazy to use their brains. The headline news claimed a mind boggling auto sales drop in the US market. But auto sales in Canada actually went UP! Has anyone dug through GM's actual sales document and analyzed the actual data? Has anyone actually visited a car dealership to find out the truth?

According to GM's monthly sales release, in July, 2008, GM delivered 235,184 units compare with last July's 320,935 units. That's where the claimed number of 26.7% drop in GM sales came from. But what people don't realize is the way GM reports sales. For GM, any vehicle it ships out of the factories to the dealers is considered SOLD and booked in sales. The whole auto industry calculates sales that way.

The problem is in any given month, GM can ship out any number of units, as it sees fit. But it is NOT the actual sales. A vehicle is only sold when a customer walks into a dealer shop and drives away a brand new vehicle. So, reading the GM delivery number is very misleading and does NOT reflect the reality of the market.

If you examine the GM data more closely, in July the inventory at dealers was at a low level of 747,000, a further drop from last month's inventory of 788,000. So, GM delivery, plus the inventory run down, is the actual retail sales, which stands at 276,184 units in July, 2008. In July last year, if you read the first paragraph, although GM delivered 320,935 units, retail sales were only 239,192 units, far fewer than GM's delivery.

So the true story is even through GM delivery dropped 26.7% y-o-y, the actual retail sales are UP 15.5%. US customers are actually picking up MORE vehicles, as I expected and I learned from dealers, that people are rushing to replace SUVs with new fuel efficient small cars, boosting the auto demand. GM decided to ship less vehicles to dealers when customers actually bought more, in an effort to reduce inventory and improve its liquidity position.

The conclusion is that US auto demands are actually much stronger than the phony sales delivery numbers show. In an emerging market like China, the sales data are the actual sales transactions, not the phony delivery numbers, and the actual sales in China are going up at 20% yearly pace. So globally, as told by Johnson Matthey, auto sales are growing strongly. Johnson Matthey made more than 1/3 of the world's auto catalytic converters so it is in a much more credible and authoritative position to tell the real trend of global auto demand.

Not only the US auto sales numbers are misinterpreted, but so is the news from ESKOM, South Africa's privately owned national electricity company. Lack of recent drama of load shedding led some to assume "a brighter supply outlook out of South Africa." How dare any one make such a claim when ESKOM itself repeatedly warned the crisis will continue at least for the next five years? ESKOM's electricity supply in June, 08, despite having brought two mothballed decades-old plants back on line, actually DROPPED 2.3% from last year, although it claimed, in political correct way, that South Africans saved 2.3% in electricity consumption.

With half of the Koeberg nuclear power plant shut down, South Africa is running its electricity grid at dangerously low level of only 2.5% capacity reserve margin. It's only because large mining industries sacrificed themselves, and received significantly reduced power supply during the time, that the whole country managed to escape more catastrophic power interruptions.

Anglo Platinum (AGPPY.PK), the largest platinum producer in the world, recently admitted that it never received the promised 95% of power supply, and had been running at 90% level all the time. Its first half 2008 production dropped16% from last year, or almost one month's worth of production in the first half year, much worse than a mere 5 days shut down in late January. So the South Africa PGM production reduction is very significant and is on going for the next few years.

The recent plummet of PGM prices reflects both the inevitable volatility due to strong investment interests squeezed into such a narrow market, and misunderstanding of market information. I would suggest that people interested in the PGM market purchase a copy of CPM Group's Platinum 2008 yearbook. I was very impressed by the quality of their research and their data, from private emails. Right now, it's a great buying opportunity for the physical metals and related mining companies, like Stillwater Mining (SWC) and North American Palladium (PAL).

My portfolio took a big hit lately but I am sticking to my conviction of the PGM metals bull market. Stocks of these two little known mining companies, PAL, and SWC, must be the most manipulated stocks I have ever seen. Someone must be manipulating them for good reason. In one month, the short interest in SWC ran up from mid-June's 6.8M shares to mid-July's 11.2M shares shorted, while the combined holdership of Norilsk (NILSY.PK), institutions and insiders now stands at 93.5M shares, higher than even the company's 92.78M outstanding shares.

Likewise PAL's short interest also increased dramatically. I wonder how the shorts can manage to unwind such a large short interest, accumulated at such low share prices, when the PGM metals start to rally again?

The market place has been extremely volatile lately. PGM metals are not the only thing that sold off lately. Petroleum also sold off heavily. I recently picked up a small stake in US Oil Fund (USO). The majority of market participants must be complete fools and their normal brain functions must be short circuited by animal instincts. Congress passed a law to allow some drilling, and suddenly peak oil is no more? We will get millions of barrels of oil out within days of the drilling while it may take another 100 years before Iran could obtains nukes? I don't understand! Perfectly intelligent people acting in a totally foolish way.

There really is NO rationale in the recent commodity selloff and financials rally. It's an inherit part of extreme market volatility. Such volatility results from a huge amount of money chasing a relatively narrow market. Prices could instantly move violently in the opposite direction on the most insignificant and ridiculous reasons.

I would love to use the analogy that if you squeeze 1000 people into a small room that fits 50 people, there will be fist fights right away triggered by the most innocent reasons. The marketplace is even crazier. Consider how many trillions of all the absurd financial derivatives are out there, and how scarce the earth's remaining natural resources are. Extreme volatility is all but assured. You have to cope with it by keeping a clear mind of the fundamentals, and buying the dips and selling the rallies.

Such volatility may provide me with another opportunity to enter the coal sector soon. I told you in the past that I massively loaded up on James River Coal Company (JRCC) at $4. Although I sold it way too early, I did make the correct call to sell JRCC on June 20, one trade day before it peaked at $62.49. The coal price, as well as JRCC share price, has fallen since, and there have been some extreme ups and downs in JRCC lately. My opinion is that there is still too much bullish sentiment in JRCC and in other coal sector players, like ACI, ANR, BTU, CNX, FCL, FDG, MEE, and PCX.

One must wait for capitulation before buying coal players again. Capitulation is defined as when the commodity and the stocks decline so much that most people's sentiments change from bullish to bearish, and maybe with seemingly good reasons, too. When that occurs, and when careful study convinces you that the bullish fundamental are still intact, that's capitulation, and that's where you can buy.

Pending the earnings release of JRCC, which probably will be another disappointment, I think capitulation of JRCC will happen at $20 or below. I will buy at that price level but not before then. If you are in coal sector, sell now and buy back at capitulation time. In the PGM metals sector, I believe the capitulation has just occured. It's now a great time to buy SWC, PAL, PLG and ANO, as the bullish fundamentals of PGM metals are still intact.

A few short targets to consider. First Solar Inc. (FSLR) is one stock I love to hate. This is one well executed company with a good management team and proven track record of fast growth. It wouldn't be a short had it not relied on cadmium telluride, the most toxic metal plus one of the rarest elements in the earth's crust. The cadmium toxicity makes FSLR vulnerable to Europe's update on the RoHS regulations. The tellurium scarcity as well as booming demand from other industry sectors put a very tight cap on FSLR's growth potential, and may ultimately force FSLR to go out of business, if emerging demands consume all the available tellurium.

This should be a great short-to-zero target, but the timing of when to enter a short position is tricky, as there seems to be some big vested interests trying their best to support the share price, presumably to allow some big players enough time to get out. Although tellurium prices have eased down a bit recently, implying that FSLR may not face an immediate shortage for now, there have been indications that FSLR must be very anxious about its future supply.

It has a secretive Tellurium Initiative Department seeking to extract residue tellurium from mining waste. That information was accidentally leaked in a job posting, #655, which the company promptly removed after the leak. FSLR visited Capital Mining in Australia and Mexivada in Mexico in an obvious attempt to try to lock in some potential future supplies. However, these two mining companies are still in exploration stage and actually have very little tellurium to offer. More shocking is a recent Wincroft news article, which I shall not comment on here. I will let you judge as FSLR so far avoided addressing the tellurium supply issues directly. If it pumps the stock up to $300+, I will start to short.

Goldman Sachs (GS) is one of the few financials that hasn't seen a significant drop yet so far but shall follow its peers soon. Coca Cola (KO) and Pepsi (PEP) are considered by many as good companies to hold during bad economic times, with extremely low short interests, and they are Warren Buffett's favorite holdings for decades. During really bad economic times, who would spend discretionary money on soft drinks when family budgets are tight even for regular food items? Soft drinks are unnecessary luxuries while a fuel efficient car will be a must have for average families. So I am contempting shorting these three at good prices.

The Beijing Olympics will start on August 8th. I hope the game in the capital city of my motherland brings some peace and mutual understandings among nations on earth. But the real peacemaking event will happen at the same time, but in the capital of the greatest nation, in Washington, DC. The 14th International Conference on Condensed Matter Nuclear Science will be held in Washington, DC, from August 10-15, 2008.

This scientific breakthrough, if properly funded by our government and developed into commercial applications, will bring us virtually inexhaustible energy supply and put Peak Oil behind us. It will be a great dream come true, not just for the fortune of those of us who invested in palladium, the metal used in Cold Fusion, but for the good of humanity.

No amount of money can protect us if World War III must be fought to grab the last remaining fossil fuel of the world. Let's hope that shedding blood for oil becomes totally unnecessary. I have urged my Congressman to send some one to listen in to the ICCF-14 conference and learn about the science firsthand. Please urge your Congressional representatives to do the same!

Disclosure: The author is heavily invested in SWC and PAL and is also trying to build some short positions in FSLR, GS soon. I also hoard physical tellurium and palladium metals.

Comments

[cjwirth:]

This is a very informative article, with one exception. According to the most knowledgeable scientists, nuclear fusion if possible, is decades away from coming to fruition.

More important, nuclear fusion and most alternatives yield electric power, which is not the liquid fuel that we need for 18 wheel trucks, combines/tractors, trains, buses, cars, trains, and ships.

Peak Oil will never "be behind us."

According to energy investment banker Matthew Simmons and other independent forecasters, global crude oil production is now declining, from 74 million barrels per day to 60 million barrels per day by 2015. During the same time demand will increase 14%.
This is equivalent to a 33% drop in 7 years. No one can reverse this trend, nor can we conserve our way out of this catastrophe. Because the demand for oil is so high, it will always be higher than production; thus the depletion rate will continue until all recoverable oil is extracted.

We are facing the collapse of the highways that depend on diesel trucks for maintenance of bridges, cleaning culverts to avoid road washouts, snow plowing, roadbed and surface repair. When the highways fail, so will the power grid, as highways carry the parts, transformers, steel for pylons, and high tension cables, all from far away. With the highways out, there will be no food coming in from “outside,” and without the power grid virtually nothing works, including home heating, pumping of gasoline and diesel, airports, communications, and automated systems

This is documented in a free 48 page report that can be downloaded, website posted, distributed, and emailed: www.peakoilassociates....

I used to live in NH, but moved to a sustainable place. Anyone interested in relocating to a nice, pretty, sustainable area with a good climate and good soil?

2008 Aug 04 04:53 AM

[H.J. Huneycutt:]

I agree to some extent on FSLR (don't think they're going down to $0, but believe they are greatly overvalued right now for a lot of reasons), but I also wonder if you've considered the possibility that they realize this and plan on eventually manufacturing their solar modules using different materials? It might make some sense to make as much money as they can right now, build up their cash flows, gain a foothold in the industry, and then alter their products if necessary later. Even if that were to happen, I imagine they'd have a painful adjustment period, but it also wouldn't mean that they're going to drop all the way to $0.

One way or another, management must realize that they have rough times at some point in the future given some of the massive insider selloffs. I don't feel like calculating all the sales together, but from simply glancing at Yahoo Finance, it looks like Ahern has cashed in somewhere around $50 million worth of stock just this year! Either he's got a hell of a lot of bills or he knows the company is overvalued.

2008 Aug 04 05:23 AM

[dieuwer:]

I think capitulation in the PGM metal stocks will happen this tuesday.

As a side note; the paper COMEX price of PGM metals is of course useless. Try buying a PGM metal at its quoted price! Ain't happening. You will pay much more to get the physical. That just shows you the total scam COMES plays.

2008 Aug 04 08:09 AM

[Umm, yeah:]

I have done as you suggested previously, Mark, and bought plenty of <del>SWC, PAL, PGM,</del> ...err Toilet Paper.

2008 Aug 04 09:04 AM

[mc_squared:]

This is from one of the references given in the article: “Platinum is only obtained in the U.S. in trace amounts and therefore, the nation [the U.S.] depends 100% on other countries. South Africa contains 73% of the world reserves of platinum and virtually all of the United States need is met by this country.”

Considering the above statement, I doubt that the platinum from SWC and PAL are not as high quality as platinum from South Africa.

2008 Aug 04 09:57 AM

[fxtrader07:]

just two major issues that the author conveniently ignores:
first, just by looking at the share prices of swc and pal anyone can figure out that they do not exactly look like, uhm, 'safe heaven investments'.
second, pal and to e little lesser extent swc have so far managed to abolutely screw up quarter after quarter after quarter. The auhtor should seruiously ask himself whether these two companies will ever be able to profit from a palladium bull that he envisages. chances are, palladium might indeed catch up with platinmum - while two companies will still make no money.
so far, their mgmts suck and the fundamentals suck. it's yet to be seen what will happen when fundamentals go better. i for my part don't hold my breath to find out

2008 Aug 04 10:38 AM

[rhj123:]

Good article, and the kind we need to see more of. At least it gives us several things to do research on.

2008 Aug 04 12:17 PM

[deuxsous:]

Good review! Here's another reason why platinum is a good long term metal to own. Maybe cobalt as well? I know a lot of cobalt comes from Congo/Zaire. Where else?

web.mit.edu/newsoffice...

2008 Aug 04 02:53 PM

[notsosmart:]

just doesnt seem that safe at this time.

2008 Aug 04 02:53 PM

[mc_squared:]

good point fxtrader07! no considerable correlation between the share prices of these companies (SWC and PAL) and Palladium and Platinum prices.

the author posted 16 articles over the past 8 months. As much as I appreciate his consistency, all these articles keep saying the same thing over and over again.

2008 Aug 04 02:53 PM

[deuxsous:]

screencast.com/t/s19gb...

2008 Aug 04 03:14 PM

[deuxsous:]

mc²: I've been saying the same thing for ten years, namely that commodities will be going up on a trend basis for the next 15-20 years. They do and will, however, have pullbacks to be bought if one missed the lows or earlier pullbacks. So Mark's repetition is a good and wise thing.

2008 Aug 04 03:21 PM

[Tom Szabo:]

Sell silver, buy cobalt? PGM bottom is in? PAL and SWC as safe haven investments? Cold fusion? World War III with Iran? Auto sales not declining? Coke and Pepsi are good shorts? Stocks being manipulated from short side when a long trade goes against him but from the long side when a short trade goes against him? This is a highly unusual set of beliefs and I wish Mark plenty of good luck--he will need it.

2008 Aug 04 04:45 PM

[TERN:]

I agree with the author that it is time to load up on oversold PM's and their miners. Oil is bound to go up again and probably sharply.

But I *really* hate this loose talk about war, when a reasonable compromise with Iran on its enrichment program is perfectly possible.

War mongering in this day and age is utterly irresponsible. Hoarding Pd and Pt as a patriotic act (!).
The consquences of war for all of us, not just the Americans who will happily throw away the last of their civil liberties, are just too dire.

2008 Aug 04 07:07 PM

[deuxsous:]

TERN,

I rarely discuss politics, but I think the Iran war talk is totally misinformed. Iran is being pressured to give up the centrifuges and other uranium enrichment procedures that could lead to weapons grade uranium. This same pressure was also applied to Libya and to North Korea with considerable success. It's a one form of public persuasion or psychological warfare, the stick part of carrot and stick diplomacy which is on-going on many fronts. We all hope for many reasons that it is a successful diplomatic effort. In any case there will be no war. But there are confused and frightened people who don't know what's going on.

Tom

2008 Aug 04 07:21 PM

[Tom Szabo:]

Let's say Iran cannot be persuaded to give up nuclear enrichment. Then, at some point, Israel and/or the U.S. will probably bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran. Even under President Obama. A conventional air campaign followed by no fly zones and a naval blockade intended to force regime change or else totally isolate it. There would be global fallout, but no WWIII. The FACT is that even if Iran ever came to possess a nuclear weapon or a dozen, it could only ever use it for threats or blackmail since actual deployment would result in its total annihilation. Russia, China and other nuclear powers would idle sit by. Iran knows it, we know it, everybody knows it. The current row is nothing more than mistrust amid a regional struggle for power, blown way out of proportion even considering the possible impact on oil production. It is most definitely not an appropriate investment theme.

2008 Aug 05 04:47 AM

[fxtrader07:]

fwiw, i would buy physical palladium and platinum and/or the futures - but avoid dogs like pal. swc might have decent chance since their hedges are expiring this year (and some of them have in the past quiarters already). Looks like they timed this as perfect as everything else. going fully hedged through the bull market and coming off naked when the metals crash. well done.
but that being said, the pgm bull has further tio run - at least in this point i agree with mark.

2008 Aug 05 06:14 AM

[Jake2:]

"the author posted 16 articles over the past 8 months. As much as I appreciate his consistency, all these articles keep saying the same thing over and over again." ad nauseum! The author is in love with the sound of his own voice and does not have much to say. Reader, pass by.

2008 Aug 06 12:39 AM

[Andrew Ling:]

Exactly, Jake. He also posts on every major forum trying to attract a crowd like a street performer. Don't take your financial advice from street performers. He should have a disclaimer in bold at the start of each article stating how he began shorting FSLR at $140 since it would certainly go to 0. The higher it rises the more certain he becomes.

2008 Aug 06 05:23 PM

[Mark Anthony:]

fxtrader07:

For the purpose of SWC. They did NOT go off hedge totally. They replaced it with a better hedge. The new hedge contracts with auto makers guarantees a very good floor price for 100% of the mine production metals should the market price fall, and it has NO ceiling price limitation when the metals go up. In exchange, SWC agrees to sell the metals at a slight discount to current market price should the metals be above the floor price.

I think that is a pretty good deal good for both sides. Auto makers are willing to provide a floor price support because they do NOT want to see SWC go out of business. They lose PGM metals source if SWC goes out of business due to low metal prices. On SWC's point of view, they are protected during bad market times, and now has unlimited profit potential when the PGM metal bull run resumes.

Andrew Ling:

Last when I told you to sell FSLR and walk away, it was above $300, now it's belong. The timing of my original short of FSLR was off but the long term trend is unmistaken that FSLR should sink to the toilet when they finally get their tellurium shortage squeeze. The time is not right yet so I am not in any FSLR short position right now yet. But once I start to see tellurium moving again it's time to start massively short FSLR. Good luck with your casino play. Why do you still stick with FSLR as it hasn't gained anything in 2008?

2008 Aug 07 03:44 PM

[pstemie:]

marc's too young to understand markets. he may be correct , however, higher stock prices are what readers want. if thats the measure of his post, he has failed us.

2008 Aug 08 02:52 PM

[Mark Anthony:]

The US Government just announced suspension of sales of six critical strategic defense materials, including platinum. This is a public announcement so I am not revealing any classified information here:

https://dnsc.dla.mil/Uploads/N...

As I discussed, platinum is a very critical war time material.

2008 Aug 11 10:48 PM

[User 232761:]

"Long and wrong", thus spoke the markets.

2008 Aug 12 10:41 PM

[Mark Anthony:]

The previous link does not work well. Try this:

tinyurl.com/6job9y

Read the news release numbered 08-2914. The fact that US government suspends strategic stockpile platinum sale is extremely unusual, especially in light of multiple aircraft carrier groups are heading to the Persian Gulf.

Remember, platinum is a critical war material.

2008 Aug 13 12:43 AM

[Roland Watson:]

My long term chart of platinum does not show a plunge from $500 to $100 in 1988. Perhaps you mean a $100 drop?

2008 Aug 14 07:26 AM

[Mark Anthony:]

Silver Analyst:

Regarding the platinum price plunge in 1988, I cited the source in my article and even indicated page number (page 103). Go there read the USGS document regarding the event, in third paragraph to the end of page 103:
minerals.usgs.gov/mine...

On page 103: "In December 1988, the platinum market reacted strongly to an announcement by Ford Motor Company that it had
developed a platinum-free automobile catalyst. Spot platinum
prices fell to $100 per ounce on the day of the announcement..."

It says fell to $100, not fell by $100. You could be right, but that was the wording of the USGS document. I may contact them regarding this.

2008 Aug 14 01:01 PM

[Aijaz:]

it's amazing how little americans know about iran and yet continue to harbor such horribly negative emotions about it.

would it surprise you to know that the CIA was responsible for bringing a ruthless regime led by the shah of iran into power... after he was overthrown, iraq was prodded into fighting against iran in the murderous policy of "dual-containment." it's no wonder ppl around the world hate america for it's meddling... and all the more reason why iran seeks independence and an ability to stand on its own two feet. iran hasn't attacked anyone, so war mongering and claims of a nuclear iran attacking everyone mercilessly is a dream perpetuated by those who have an agenda to serve.

2008 Aug 26 12:55 PM