But South Africa's leaders seem to believe that the country's mineral wealth - gold, platinum and diamonds, among others - will see it through its economic problems.
The platinum-gold ratio, which shows how many ounces of gold are needed to buy an ounce of platinum, stood at 0.8644, a 27-year low.
High-karat gold and platinum were prevalent throughout the show.
Asteroids could yield precious minerals such as gold, platinum and rare-Earth metals.
On the green front, all steel-framed Connect:Homes are designed to attain LEED Silver certification out the door, with Gold and Platinum certification and net-zero energy status a possibility depending on additional bells and whistles added at the installation site.
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Still the world's greatest source of diamonds, it is also the world's top-ranked producer of gold, platinum and several other valuable metals.
In order to have a corresponding ounce-to-ounce spread trade in the futures market, a trader who is looking for the spread to narrow would buy two 50-ounce platinum futures contracts and simultaneously sell one 100-ounce gold futures contract.
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Gold has been trading at a premium to platinum recently, which reflects the safe-haven quality of gold and that premium will likely stay as long as the nervousness over global economic situation persists.
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Their faces are often platinum or 18-karat red gold, and the movements, visible through the back crystal, are always rose gold.
Serra Pelada, at its peak in the 1980s, saw as many as 80, 000 artisanal miners (called garimpeiros) mine roughly 2 million ounces of gold as well as platinum and palladium from a hand-dug open pit.
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Historically platinum has had a price premium over gold, but that changed around late September last year when a poor world economic outlook pinched industrial metals like platinum and buyers sought gold for its safe-haven status or its role as an alternative currency.
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His early career as a child star has set a difficult precedent for his new release - all previous 16 albums either went platinum or gold, and he has notched up a total six million record sales.
The ring, available in a limited-edition of 55 pieces, also is available in 18k gold or platinum.
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Born Clara Ann Fowler, Page was the best-selling female artist of the 1950s and had 19 gold and 14 platinum singles.
The top lot at the Oct. 19 sale is a rare, internally flawless pink diamond weighing 25 carats, set in an elegantly simple rose gold and platinum ring, flanked on either side by a petite pear-shaped diamond.
Based in Toronto, Franco-Nevada is a gold focused royalty and stream company with additional interests in platinum group metals and other resource assets.
What is fact is that Verdura's setting the stones in yellow gold was revolutionary--the era's regnant style, Art Deco, prescribed platinum.
However, some scientists struggle to see how cost-effective asteroid mining could be, even with the high value of gold and platinum.
Whether or not platinum now holds or extends its re-found premium to the gold price depends on the underlying outlook for growth vs. depression.
Gold-mine supply is forecast to grow a little more than 4% this year and platinum group metals by around 2% to 3%.
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To create the metal rubber, layers of non-conducting polymers are alternated with layers of metal ions, such as gold, silver or platinum.
Mr Mbeki has faced calls from business leaders to act over the black-outs, which at one stage stopped production at some of the country's biggest gold and platinum mines.
"Longer-term, we maintain the view platinum holds the better fundamental picture and expect incremental investment demand for gold to start to slow over the next two years, " said Barclays analyst Suki Cooper.
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