标题: 2022.03.18现在是囤积镍币的好时机 [打印本页] 作者: shiyi18 时间: 2022-4-23 03:32 标题: 2022.03.18现在是囤积镍币的好时机 TECHNOLOGY
It’s a Great Time to Hoard Nickels
The Ukraine crisis has shaken up prices—and sent some Americans scrambling for coins.
By Saahil Desai
An illustration of a crate filled with nickels
Getty; The Atlantic
MARCH 18, 2022
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In economic-speak, the Ukraine crisis has been a “supply shock.” In English, that means that in the United States you’ll now find record-high gas prices, liquor stores devoid of Russian vodka, and … uhh … Americans heading into their local banks and politely asking for hundreds of dollars in nickels.
Let me explain. Russia supplies more than 20 percent of the world’s high-quality nickel, which is a crucial component in everything from stainless steel to pipes to the batteries that power electric cars. But with Ukraine under siege, companies in the West have been wary of buying Russian nickel. This has increased demand for nickel from everywhere else, which, in turn, has bumped up its price on the London Metal Exchange. What happened next is as close to a Hollywood blockbuster as commodity finance can get: A Chinese businessman nicknamed “Big Shot,” who bet that nickel prices would fall, had to cover his mounting losses by buying back shares, shooting the stock somewhere into the exosphere. Within the span of 24 chaotic hours last week, the price of nickel rose 250 percent, forcing the London Metal Exchange to halt trading for the first time since 1985.
During all of this, of course—of course—some Americans found a roundabout way to make some money: hoarding nickels. Yes, the coin is worth just five cents, but the metal it contains—75 percent copper and 25 percent nickel—has long been worth more than that. According to Coinflation.com, a website that tracks the value of the metals in coins, the “melt value” of a single nickel currently stands at eight cents. Last week, during the height of nickelmania, it ratcheted all the way up to 16 cents. Actually melting down those nickels for profit is illegal, but that hasn’t stopped opportunistic investors from zigzagging between banks and credit unions to gather nickels, with the hopes of one day selling them off for more than five cents. Forget bitcoin and dogecoin; this small community of financial speculators is pouring money into real, physical coins.
Scooping up coins for their metal is, in fact, an age-old tradition. Five-cent nickels were first minted in the 1860s because Americans were squirreling away gold and silver coins during the Civil War. Over the past decade or so, a small but spirited subculture of prepper types has been hoarding nickels as a contingency plan against inflation Armageddon. According to Boomerang, by Michael Lewis, the hedge-fund manager Kyle Bass owns $1 million in nickels that he stores in a vault in Dallas.
Now that nickel prices have gone haywire, hoarding suddenly seems to have hit it big. In pockets across the internet, people are plotting ways to add to their nickel stashes and flaunting their hauls. On Reddit’s Wall Street Silver channel, users who call themselves “apes” (an apparent reference to silverback gorillas, because, you know, silver) are falling deep inside the nickel vortex. One post of a cardboard box plastered with $100 nickels is captioned with “I know a guy that works at a bank. He said he had one unopened box of nickels left ...” The top comment: “Like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory—you got the golden ticket.”
On Realcent.org, the OG forum for coin hoarders, where bitcoin enthusiasts get branded as “crypto-cultists,” all the new competition has been met with a swirl of exasperation, frenzy, and paranoia. “The teller said ‘everyone hates nickels,’” posted a user who claimed to have just snagged some coins from a local bank. “Not for long, HAHA.
技术
现在是囤积镍币的好时机
乌克兰危机使价格上涨，并使一些美国人对硬币趋之若鹜。
萨希尔-德赛报道
一张装满镍币的箱子的插图
Getty; The Atlantic
3月18日，2022年
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用经济术语来说，乌克兰危机是一种 "供应冲击"。用英语来说，这意味着在美国，你现在会发现汽油价格创下新高，酒类商店没有俄罗斯伏特加，以及......呃......美国人走进他们当地的银行，礼貌地要求提供数百美元的硬币。