General Discussion AGY, page-20172

Not long ago all the analysts were saying the shortfall in supply would last for many years. Now they’re saying a surplus for 3+ years.

I really don’t think we can accurately forecast these things three years ahead. The big analysts sure have a great track record of not getting it right. We are likely to see fluctuations over the years. Demand can fluctuate more rapidly than supply, demand isn’t especially fussed about the price; for EVs, even at prices higher than the maximum we’ve seen it makes little difference to the overall cost of the vehicle, so there is definitely a big potential for price spikes, and while the cost of production can provide something of a floor, the spot price can certainly fall below the cost of production for short periods. I think it’s likely that we will see an average price much lower than the relative recent highs and we may never see those highs again, but predicting average prices years ahead is very dubious.

The market may be speaking, but it is very fickle and what it says today may have little resemblance to what it is saying in the not too distant future. Of course most people will see what they want to see and be influenced by their biases, and the market will always have a tendency to expect short term trends to last longer than they actually will. Right now we’re in gloom mode, after CNY we’re likely to see some amount of positivity which will probably cause more excitement than it should, and we’ll likely see analysts forecasting something very different, with equally little relevance to three years away. One thing is for sure, sentiment can’t get much lower than it is now… probably.