Rigged markets and " The Truman Show " to paraphrase Jim Grant. Check out the platinum price as of May 11 2012. platinum $1477.00 cheaper than gold $1578 Getting very itchy in regards to platinum now - anyone else?
Yes - bought 3 ozs recently, average price $1575 - and that was a good price imo You can get them now for $1564 - slightly cheaper than spot gold, lol. A bit of semi numi potential included, as only 30,000 mintage http://www.goldstackers.com.au/store/platinum-coins.html
Generic PM gold coin for $1673 or low mintage PM Plat coin for $1571 Hmm let me think about that.. tough one.
What are you buying Captain ? Coins or bars ? And what type ? And where ? Know any good Australian retailers that do platinum coins ? Maple Leafs.... ? Thanks
I've been selling silver to buy platinum platypus while ratio is 50. Screaming buy IMO, despite silver also being cheap. I buy the ratio more than the price.
IMHO the downside to buying platinum now is the industrial use - If we see a big global downturn (esp. automotive), platinum will go down further. Platinum went from US$2075 on 1 July 2008 to US$760 on 27 Oct 2008. Yes, those numbers are correct I am sure that the effects of the economic downturn on the automotive industry was ONE of the reasons why Pt got smashed. btw, my last major purchase was platinum
My current platinum holdings are about 10% of my gold holdings - not looking to dramatically increase that ratio unless platinum tests new lows against the gold ratio. I'm a gold bug at heart
So goldpelican do you mind sharing what % you have in gold/silver/platinum. I know everyone is different, but just interested in your approach.
I'm buying Pt at the moment. Bought 2oz a few weeks ago. I've never owned a significant amount of platinum, however I figured it might be a good buy for diversication purposes, and if the spot moves up significantly, it'll always be handy. NB: I might also have wanted a few fractionals to melt down into a ring for the missus when that time comes, she's insisted on a sterling ring, but I'm a traditionalist (a ring has to cost a months wages), and because of that, she can have a custom made silver ring, along with a few oz of plat too
Platinum did have that spectacular crash in the GFC - much more severe than gold. However let's look at the prices of both metals at the extreme moments: Platinum Peak 'London fix' July 1 2008 US$2,075 Gold Peak 'London fix' March 17 2008 US$1,011 Platinum Low 'London fix' October 27 US$763 Gold Low 'London fix' October 12 US$712 So Platinum's crash was double that of gold's - roughly speaking When Platinum peaked in 2008 it was a bit more than 2x the price of gold. This was way above the historical median ratio of Pt/Gold going back over 30 years. Plat's GFC crash was accentuated because it was too expensive relative to gold perhaps. Maybe it had a double crash - the GFC, plus its own little popped bubble which brought it back into alignment with gold. My point is that, with the Pt/Gold ratio today less than 1, it does not seem likely that Pt would crash more severely than Gold. So while they might crash together, if you are going to risk buying gold today you will run no more risk buying Platinum? The Pt/Gold ratio has got lower than this only a couple of times in the last 36 years. In 1982 it got down almost to 0.7, and in 1985 it got down to almost 0.8. I don't think you'd say that either of those events would be severe if they happened today from a ratio of a bit over 0.9. Also those extremes were short-lived; the ratio was back to 1 again in about 6 months
Very interesting read, and thanks for the data, finicky. It's in times like these that I hate being a student with little to no money to spend...
I think long term, platinum is a great contrarian play. It's 15 to 1 more rarer than gold so I would expect in the long term it will resume it's place above gold. But in the medium term my theory on the ratio of gold and platinum is that they will continue to widen as long as money continues to be printed by the central bankers. Why so? Because demand for gold will outstrip platinum. Gold has traditionally been considered an indication of the value of money or how money is managed by the central bankers. So as long as there is bad money management and the printing of money, gold will rise. At the same time, PHYSICAL gold is being bought at an accelerate pace. In March alone 60 tonne was bought by Central bankers, at this rate Central bankers would buy roughly 700 tonne of gold per annum. Coupled with the insatiable demand for gold from 2.3billion people in China and India, who culturally give gold as gifts during festivals and marriages. So hypothetically if 2.3 billion people in China and India bought just a quarter of an ounce of gold per year, that equates to about 16000 tonne of gold per year. You need to consider that global gold production is ony 2500 tonne per annum. Coupled with the western world's growing awareness to preserve wealth through gold, you can imagine the demand and speculation that will occur once gold becomes a main stream investment vehicle. Imagine 5-6 years down the track and the hot topic among friends is not about property but the price of gold. At that point I believe is when you should be close to your exit point because gold has become a mainstream investment vehicle and public speculation will drive gold to unimaginable prices. This when I will be looking to move my capital from gold to platinum because I imagine once the monetary system is fixed (through whatever method it may be) price of gold will plummet and platinum will once again be more valuable than gold because of its intrinsic rarity.
It would only take a small change in investor sentiment to drive PT crazy - annual net private investment demand for gold is around 30 million oz/year while total global production of platinum is only 6 million oz/year. I agree that in the long-term PT will move higher than AU but short-term the gap could widen. Primary use in still in the automotive industry, particularly in Europe which we all know is in the dumps right now. I also wouldn't get too excited about the Platypus coins, the 30,000 mintage limit means nothing. You can still pick up old Perth Mint proof sets with miniscule mintage numbers for small premiums to spot. Disclaimer: My stack is heavily weighted towards PT.
Agree Agree I think this notion is overdone. Are global car numbers and auto emission standards going to collapse in response to a Western depression? Expanding usage in India and China might take up the slack Probably right, but can't do any harm to go for a limited mintage form, and it might add something if platinum becomes flavour of the month sometime
