I was looking to see if there was an inverstment play in indium. Funny thing - it is listed geologically as more than three times as abundant as silver, but is much more costly as it is almost always found unconcentrated and there is too much speculation going on.
However, one wonders if part of the problem is that no one really goes out looking for it specifically. It is a byproduct metal. This place claims to have the largest reserves BUT one should steer clear of Canadian high-flyers as a general rule: http://www.adexmining.com/indidumbullmarket.php The Teck Cominco refinery in Trail, British Columbia, is the largest present source, with production of 32,500 kg in 2005, 41,800 kg in 2004 and 36,100 kg in 2003. Here is a pure play: http://www.indium.com/ More info: http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/indium/mcs-2008-indiu.pdf. The London exchange does not have a futures market in Indium it seems http://www.lme.co.uk/dataprices.asp You will note that production in most places is going down as demand and price are going up [but have retreated this month] meaning that some deposits are essentially mined out. It turns out that more indium comes from recycling old monitors, etc than from mining! That should be a warning sign - or else and opportunity for some clever geologist to get out and find a concentrated source somewhere. The recent price is not clear but seems to be about US$ 750-1,000/kg. depending on who is doing the talking. Demand for indium is likely to continue to increase with large-scale manufacture of thin film solar technology starting by several companies, including Nanosolar and Miasole. But that was long ago built into the high speculative price. If printed solar happens demand could soar but that will not necessarily mean much if those companies have already stockpiled indium. Furthermore, if we are going to have a recession, then metals and mining in general is the worst possibly investment. With gold, copper and silver already trading at 20-year highs, many are saying this is a terrible time to jump into metals - and shorting these might be better. If one wants to gamble that there is no recession, then a possibly investment strategy would be to go with zinc mining, since indium is a byproduct-- and zinc prices have been under pressure- due to low auto production, which could bounce back. Best advice of all is: do not trust the advice of anyone who will profit if you do.
