Hmm. Actually considered diversifying into platinum but just worried about how easy it is to sell it on the secondary market. Not interested in selling back to the dealers cos you lose the premium.
Yeah... just from watching at the sidelines, it doesn't shift easily on the trade threads here neither.
If it is for Pt Koala's maybe not a bad deal - the premium has come down quite a bit from a couple of years ago and they are quite low mintage I believe
And while you strain at gnats debating the $10 premium this is happening http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/19/us-safrica-strikes-idUSBREA1I1K220140219 http://www.theguardian.com/business...platinum-firms-website-displays-losses-strike So they want to make the strikes illegal. That will certainly fix the problem ? Or not! By my calculation the Pt stockpile is depleted in 2 weeks. Things are going to get interesting by Easter. But this stuff is all irrelevant lets go back and debate the $10-20 premium of platypus coins over gold kangas ?
To add, Palladium is used a great deal in industrial applications along with Platinum and Rhodium, all 3 are well worth investing in imo. Furthermore I feel Palladium is seriously undervalued right now as it is usually used instead of the Pt and Rh as its a little cheaper but I think it will eventually catch up in price. All 3 are very shiny too! Rhodium however is rather hard to find and afaik all 3 attract various taxes along with silver in the UK!!
I'm a fan of Palladium too, they put more of it into electronics then platinum. multi layer ceramic capacitors (mlcc's) in particular are one of my little hobbies, sometimes I go to bed and i'm still picking mlcc's in my sleep. A relatively new palladium source has popped up in scrap vehicles too, not the cat' converters but the electronic circuitry that controls vehicles these days. those circuit boards have very intense mlcc's, lot's of palladium content. This is what they generally look like, the caps on the sides are solid silver, in the centre are many wafer like sheets with palladium in between the sheets. that's the sort of bed i'd like to be laying in See 'em all? just pick 'em off like apples.. and this sort of thing is what keeps me up scrapping at night, rich picking on boards like this.. I mean seriously, sometimes I feel i'm in another dimension and no-else can see what I see. can you see? it's a silly circuit board from of a piece of junk, palladium almost as fresh as the day it was dug up, gift wrapped in silver. anyways, yeah I like palladium and just like silver, much more useful then the're bigger bro's.
Did I forget to mention 45-50% of Pd is also produced by South African miners when they are not striking ! (2012 figures)
And the losses keep piling up for both sides, Anglo-American, Impala, Lonmin, Amplats, Implats and the workers. http://www.theguardian.com/business...platinum-firms-website-displays-losses-strike The problem in RSA is the Govt FORCES these companies (on threat of seizure) to employ locals and puts quotas on the numbers they must employ. As these quotas increase, the companies become less and less efficient. There's only so many workers you can cram into a mine/factory/farm before they start stepping on each other (Law of Diminishing returns). Add to this the workers are now demanding pay rises and the operations become uneconomic (under the current regime). Pretty soon they'll start 'raping' these mines (picking out the easy stuff but in the process making the harder stuff impossible to reach again), robbing future operators of the chance to efficiently extract much more metal. This has been the history of mineral deposits across sub-Saharan Africa for the 20th century. (all their mining professionals are now working here in Oz, America and increasingly in the Brazil & Mongolia and have the same story to tell). It's unfortunate, avoidable & all too predictable.....but certainly bullish for Platinum.
How many trillion dllar coins would they need to mint before you consider it a monetary metal? Of has Americas debt problem gone away? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trillion_dollar_coin
something like this perhaps Ronnie? http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/27/implats-idUSL6N0LW10020140227
Rhodium bars available here in UK .... http://www.goldline.co.uk/rhodium-bars.page and yeah, more VAT !
Does anyone know off hand what environmental regulations if any China and/or India have in regards to fitting catalytic converters to both petrol and diesel vehicles?
I believe they're compliant with Euro 4 (China 4) and are soon to be dictating China 5 (Equiv. to Euro 5) Can't meet those standarts without a catalytic converter for petrol engines or a Diesel Particulate filter for diesel engines. Not sure if a Diesel Oxidisation Catalyst (diesel equiv. of a Cat Converter is required for Euro 5. Their transport pollution prodlems are linked to the huge fleet of older vehicles on their roads.
From what I understand there are different levels of cat converters. China has passed legislation for Euro level 5 that all new cars must have catalytic converters fitted by the end of 2016. 50,000 new cars a day are sold in China! http://sprottgroup.com/thoughts/articles/china-needs-pgms-now/ http://m.wardsauto.com/asia-pacific...auto-emissions-standards-ripple-through-china India has Euro 3 level cat converters in place since 2005. I am not sure what changes will be in place for further upgrades to this. I will try and find out more and post it.
