re: #272 Fenway_Nation

A) The market price of platinum as a result of this massive global slowdown in auto manufacturing

This first question reminds me of the 1980s, when the Hunt brothers tried to corner the silver market.

They started out as billionaires, and began buying as much silver as they could. Naturally, the price of silver started going up and up. That might be good for precious metal speculators, but not so good for people who actually used silver.

The first hitch in their plan happened when the auto companies announced they were switching from silver to platinum in their catalytic converters.

The Hunt brother took a little bit of a hit, but kept buying silver, and the price still went up.

The real end to their plans came when Kodak made an announcement. At the time, Kodak was the largest single user of silver. As silver started to rise, they had to begin researching processes that used less and less silver.

Kodak was expected to announce that they were making headway in reducing their use of silver. However, when Kodak announced that none of their current processes used any silver, and they would no longer be purchasing silver, the bottom dropped out of the silver market.

The Hunt brothers were wiped out. It wasn’t long before the SEC went after them, and their lives only went downhill from there.

Anytime I hear anyone mention the mythical idea of “cornering the market”, the story of the Hunt brothers comes to mind immediately.