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Insintric Value and fundamentals of MTA good, but price dropping, any info?

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THRESHOLD
Super Contributor
Platinum IS patrially complimentary to oil (imperfectally correlated.) Complimentary realtionships require predicatable correlation ie. BUT I thin you are misinterpreting this: the use of each rises in tandem with the other. SO if oil usage drops - so too does platinum usage. Their respective price drivers, at the margin, are largley the same ie. an economic slowdown will (as I explained above) act to reduce the use and hence sale of motor vehicles. It will drive down demand for both oil AND cars- hence platinum. Platinum miners, on the other hand, have a largely inversely-correlated marginal contribution profile. So this certainly doesn't help them. One can infer that it serves them to stockpile in the lean years. They cannot afford to do so though.
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THRESHOLD
Super Contributor
By the way - the dynamic you are referring to applies to econmic SUBSTITUTES. Most of the dynamics of this relationship are the complete opposite of a complimetary relationship. It is in no way applicable to the platinum / oil relationship.
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THRESHOLD
Super Contributor
So, in short, your thinking is completely erroneous. ALSO NB! Platinum is in substantial surplus too; AND looks to be getting worse. Leave it alone.
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THRESHOLD
Super Contributor
imperfectly - changed terms and left suffix. Oops.
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richardw
Super Contributor
I'm certainly not mixing up compliments and substitutes, and I'm not confusing short-term recessionary effects with the longer term effect of inexpensive oil. At least honour debates by not assuming that I'm a fool otherwise all we end up with is insults of a sort. I don't care if there's a short-term knock to the price of either, all that serves to do is provide a better price to buy at. My premise is that there will be significant oil demand for a long time, despite current 'fashion' to believe otherwise, and that the supply of platinum is more fixed than oil is.
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Wino
Super Contributor
Agreed. Oversupply of both at the mo. But once economies/growth improve and stocks dwindle, it wont harm to have a ticket for both as they will provide a good ride. Now to the charts and apply the methodology.
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striker
Super Contributor
- It puzzles me that given the huge deficits of the World's biggest economies and their indiscrimanate QE solutions, there are still those who consider Gold to be useless. When the world wakes up to the realities of worthless Fiat currencies and hyper- i
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richardw
Super Contributor
Gold's position has been as a mutually-agreed-upon currency. It's been great because we agree it's great. But underneath the mutual *opinion* that it's worth something, there's no substance because it doesn't produce anything (much). If you own shares in a corner shop and nobody wants to buy it, you can still sell stuff. If your neighbour wants to disagree with the value of your shop, you can still sell stuff. If you own gold, you're relying on a greater-fool to want it more than you do at some point in the future. There's nothing wrong with that trade, because you're probably right. But it's a trade, not an investment.

Btw, why was platinum (or rhodium or similar) not the world standard of kings for thousands of years? It's shiny and more rare. I reckon because it was *too* rare. Most of it was buried in SA, far away from the major civilisations. Just like they didn't value LCD TV's much, they didn't value platinum because they hardly knew about it. They found some stuff that was pretty rare, made the best coins of that, and did commerce. 2000 years later, we're making our investment decisions based on the opinions of a bunch of sheep-herds and local rulers who wanted something that would last longer than a sandwich, travel better than artwork, but was rare enough you couldn't just find it on the side of the road. It's probably not a mistake, but I prefer something a little more relevant.
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THRESHOLD
Super Contributor
Well - Platinum was only discoved 250 years ago - and then only as a scientific "effect." It's rarity was not understood for some time thereafter. So - frankly - it was irrelevant in the history of the money. Gold is not a currency - it is a money. Nothing that has a worth is useless. Let's get this straight. These polarised schools thought are achieve nothing. The truth lies somewhere in the middle. One could, for example, argue that nn "enduring store of value" is the ultimate form of utility in an ever-changing world; and that the more leverage we introduce to the system, the more gold is worth. (largely to support the voracious appetite of the msases) The corner shop is gone. Your skills are rendered redundant overnight. Commodities become defunct as processes and technology move on. The governments have no economies to raise taxes on to support their voters, so they create it. To believe that gold id useless and worthless is to discount the wisdom of the ages; AND you know what they say about those who ignore history.
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THRESHOLD
Super Contributor
Well - Platinum was only discoved 250 years ago - and then only as a scientific "effect." It's rarity was not understood for some time thereafter. So - frankly - it was irrelevant in the history of the money. Gold is not a currency - it is a money. Nothing that has a worth is useless. Let's get this straight. These polarised schools thought are achieve nothing. The truth lies somewhere in the middle. One could, for example, argue that nn "enduring store of value" is the ultimate form of utility in an ever-changing world; and that the more leverage we introduce to the system, the more gold is worth. (largely to support the voracious appetite of the msases) The corner shop is gone. Your skills are rendered redundant overnight. Commodities become defunct as processes and technology move on. The governments have no economies to raise taxes on to support their voters, so they create it. To believe that gold id useless and worthless is to discount the wisdom of the ages; AND you know what they say about those who ignore history.
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THRESHOLD
Super Contributor
PS Anybody want a pedigeed Airedale puppy. They have even less use thatn gold but they give a lot of joy.
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THRESHOLD
Super Contributor
Well - Platinum was only discoved 250 years ago - and then only as a scientific "effect." It's rarity was not understood for some time thereafter. So - frankly - it was irrelevant in the history of money. Gold is not a currency - it is money. Nothing that has worth is useless. Let's get this straight. These polarised schools thought achieve nothing. The truth lies somewhere in the middle. One could, for example, argue that an "enduring store of value" is the ultimate form of utility in an ever-changing world; and that the more leverage we introduce to the system (largely to support the voracious appetite of the voting masses,) the more gold is worth. The corner shop is gone. Your skills are rendered redundant overnight. Commodities become defunct as processes and technology move on. Governments have no economies to raise taxes on to support their voters, so they create paper to do it. To believe that gold is useless and worthless is to discount the wisdom of the ages; AND you know what they say about those who ignore history. --- Out of respect - This is the edited version that should have been posted---
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richardw
Super Contributor
Not worthless, but definitely largely without "use" in modern production, therefore "useless" to anyone who wants to actually use it. Yes, store of value, but in competition with all the other agreed-upon stores of value, therefore rises and drops in an not-fully-predictable way. Tanked horribly in the financial crisis, during which most gold bugs were rather quiet instead of hocking the house and buying up every last undervalued gram of it. It's been fashionable lately, so you can be sure anyone who is a marginal gold bug will be very aware of its movements, so effectively you're trading it. History has repeated many bubbles and mistakes of apparent value as well, so that's not a particularly one-sided argument.

I often think of what Graham did in the depression by recognising that the value of stocks were lower than the provable value of the companies. He could compare two numbers and have some confidence that the difference between them wasn't correct, and make an investment decision. Gold personally doesn't give me that confidence because it's never provably undervalued at a point in time, only estimated between two points in time. If you make a mistake, you can't rely on the income. Like Facebook.
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THRESHOLD
Super Contributor
In the 30's (in fact up until "not so long ago") growth was the order of the day. They even abandoned the gold standard to achieve this. The question now is "How will we grow?" We have borrowed growth from the future (the so-called"financial crises") - but how much? So now we are taling about austerity instead. Not very encouraging stuff. As to history - the lesson here is|;: not to discount gols which has served this purpose for millenia on the evidence of recent events. Gold was liquidated in the crisis to cover other postitions. This was expected by the "thinking"investors (Soros, Paulson, Rogers etc.) The "man-in-the-street" is an unfortnate simp - buffeted by the waves of sentiment; AND so he adds to those waves. It's about time.
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richardw
Super Contributor
In any case, good discussion. I'd rather debate these things with a rational investor than argue about whose lines squiggle the bestest and whose graph looks like a cowboy with one eye, if you zoom out enough and turn it sideways.
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striker
Super Contributor
-richard -the argument against Gold/Silver by all the naysayers ,is predicated on ONE vital belief - that the world's economies will ride the current tide of deteriorating factors/indicators and it will be business as usual. The big problem with that is
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richardw
Super Contributor
-richard -the argument against Gold/Silver by all the naysayers ,is predicated on ONE vital belief - that the world's economies will ride the current tide of deteriorating factors/indicators and it will be business as usual.

Do you know what a
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striker
Super Contributor
- Hmmm - are my 'straw man' arguments any worse than your 'ad hominem ' tendencies ? You have a viewpoint and so do I - only time will tell.
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striker
Super Contributor
- ' Cherry picking ' is also mentioned under the 'straw man' wikapedia piece.
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richardw
Super Contributor
I think you should read the definition of "ad hominem" again a few times, then reply.
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