All of my stocks have got the vapors, POD included. The WGO...

All of my stocks have got the vapors, POD included. The WGO price movement has been truly outrageous. The price has dropped by about 45% recently on news of what? A major corporate disaster? Maybe a tailings dam collapse or three? No, a "country-changing" gas discovery! Likewise HCH, with kilometerish-deep porphyry metal hits one after another, getting no price reaction whatsoever to big-dollar announcements. Then there's AOP, steadily adding solid value at the drill bit, yet trending down price-wise. There are many more like these. Some say in response that "it's just the October-December doldrums, they've been the pattern for several years now". Fine, but what justifies any such doldrums in supposedly efficient markets? Why are they so exaggerated? Why can't they be arbitraged away?

Meanwhile, back to POD, and the price of platinum. Logically, platinum is a major play against insane global currency dilution and massive South African sovereign risk. Yet the price has fallen or stagnated for years, supposedly because of a glut for industrial uses. Where, though, are the canny or hedge-seeking platinum investors? They by now ought to have pounced on the very depressed prices, more than outpacing the loss in car exhaust catalyst demand. Who has been standing on the neck of the price, making platinum a historical loss-maker? For just one example among many of market manipulation, what if true inflation rates were reported to guide platinum investors instead of greatly massaged figures?

It's all been said before. The commodity and equity markets have become strait-jacketed by a whole range of corporate, central banking, and governmental interests using a huge range of manipulative techniques . There are even laws now in the USA facilitating both market manipulations and malfeasance concealment! Markets have become weaponised, corrupted, ever-increasingly mistrusted, and in general broken. Pitchforks seem to be becoming the international go-to tool for the masses, as the poor become too poor to cope, and democratic paths for redress have become blind alleys peopled with thugs.

Coming to a theatre near us I believe. End of rant.

I'm not a financial adviser or any other kind of expert for the purposes of this post. None of the above should be construed as financial advice. My statements here are quite superficial and unchecked. Do your own research!

I may be away from my keyboard.