On 12 Sep 2006, at 10:11, Michael.Dillon@btradianz.com wrote:
For example, let's compare gold and uranium. Both metals are very valuable. Gold can be bought and sold at any time on an open market. It is a commodity. But uranium is not as liquid. There are few buyers and sellers. Trades happen too infrequently to establish an open market. There are restrictions on posession and transport of the material. In the end, uranium is not a commodity and is not liquid. IP adresses are more like uranium than gold.
Erm, Uranium *is* a commodity. Last week's spot price was $52 a pound for U3O8. It's a small market in terms of numbers of players but it's still an open market in the economic sense. 102 million pounds were traded in 2004. Hedge funds are players in the uranium market (source: www.uxc.com, home page) - when people trade something who don't use it I think you've pretty much defined a commodity.