Invisible wrote:
> Alpha claims that the current trading price for gold is approximately 
> £600 "per Troy ounch" (whatever the hell that is).

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=troy+ounce

 > And Platinum is about £744 / oz
> t. (I had no idea Platinum was so expensive!)

Yep.

> (Not sure why the LME lists prices in USD, but still...)

Because it's a metal commodity exchange, and those metals are sold in 
dollars. Just like oil, for example.

> This table is completely baffling to me. As everybody knows, Alunimium 

> is about the most expensive metal you can buy (except for weird stuff 
> like Titanium, or the "precious metals" like Gold or Silver), and Lead 

> is about the cheapest metal there is. Except that this table says no 
> such thing!! o_O

These are futures markets, not stores. You're not buying the metals. You'
re 
buying futures on the metals. That's one reason you'll see funky pricing.


Plus, I don't think Aluminum is that expensive. It used to be expensive 
before they figured out how to extract it from common compounds (which is
 
why the Washington Monument has a cap of aluminum), and it's probably 
expensive for its weight and structural properties (you don't build 
airplanes out of nickel or tin and it's more expensive than heavier thing
s 
like iron and brass), but I don't think it's expensive on an absolute bas
is 
or they wouldn't make aluminum foil and aluminum cans from it.

> Hmm, I wonder why Iron isn't listed? A rather common metal, after all..
.

"""
Welcome to the London Metal Exchange
The London Metal Exchange is the world's premier non-ferrous metals marke
t.
"""

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   There's no CD like OCD, there's no CD I knoooow!

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