As I was closing out some paperwork from last year I decided to check over my precious metal monitoring records for 2008.  Some very interesting things happened in the metals market, some that should have thrown up a big red flag about future events.  Here are some of the more interesting items of note.

• March 4 - Platinum hits an all-time high of $2,278.00 per ounce.
• March 17 - Gold reaches an all-time record high of $1,011.25 per ounce and silver reaches what will be it's highest price of the year at $20.92 per ounce, just off a record all-time high.
• December 12 - After a 9 month free-fall, the price of platinum drops BELOW the price of gold when it hits $804.00 per ounce, well under the $826.50 per ounce price of gold that day.  And silver?  $10.07 per ounce........just less than half the price 9 months earlier.

Platinum had very few days after March 4 that it gained after hitting the all-time high of $2,278.00 per ounce.  In fact, it seemed to take a long wide spiral downward for the rest of the year.   I shoulda seen it comin'. 

Car manufacturers use a great deal of platinum in the making of catalytic converters.  If you ain't selling any cars, you ain't needin' any catalytic converters, and the folks that make those converters ain't needin' any platinum.  It's the law of supply and demand......when there is no demand, the price tanks, that simple.  I shoulda seen it comin'....that when nobody is selling any cars........they're in trouble.  Gold also declined, but only at a rate of about 19% on the year from it's high, while platinum fell some 65% and silver some 52%.  All of these metal serve as conductors in the production of electrical parts or contacts of all kinds in and out of the auto industry.  It's the use of platinum though where the auto industry really is a voracious consumer.  

After every hurricane the stock of companies that produce wood products, appliances, and other building materials soars.  This is the opposite.  When the price of certain precious metals begins to tank, we should be asking ourselves, "who uses a lot of platinum?".  That might alert us to the people who are going to be looking to US for a bailout.  It should at least tell us which stocks we should bail-out of.  I shoulda seen it comin'..........but hind-site is still 20/20..........and that's why I'll have to be a jeweler for a  while longer.