Hector Sosa Flores: What Are the Most Expensive Minerals for Commodity Trading?
When it comes to understanding the worth of precious metals, there is a difference between its rarity and value. Many precious metals are extremely rare (and consequently expensive), but they may not always share as much usefulness as other metals. In commodity trading, understanding what minerals are the most expensive is important.
That being said, minerals such as copper and aluminum are certainly less expensive than diamonds but mined in significant amounts makes them often more necessary to a growing economy, since there are thousands of useful ways to use copper and aluminum over diamonds. What makes certain metals more precious is a combination of their overwhelming beauty and their economic utility. Hector Sosa Flores is here today to discuss five of the most expensive minerals and explain what makes those minerals so much in demand.
Gold
Naturally, gold tops the list of expensive minerals, not quite so much because of its rarity (relative to other rare metals, of course), but because of its direct link to currency worldwide. From its earliest days of mining, individuals have considered gold the king of precious metals. And while it is not the most expensive mineral in the list, it remains historically one of the most sought-after metals due to its aesthetic beauty and connection to national currencies.
Lithium
Thanks to the fast rise of mobile devices, lithium has become invaluable in the production of small and more durable batteries. The ongoing rise in technology puts even greater pressure on lithium mines around the world. Its ability to conduct electricity — while also being the lightest metal — offers an exciting alternative to powering even large machines, including automobiles.
Hector Sosa Flores notes that aside from batteries and technology, lithium also forms the key ingredient for many other inventions within both the manufacturing and medicine industries.
Platinum
As environmental experts work hard to lower emission levels from cars and other machines, one significant breakthrough has occurred with the creation of the catalytic converter. However, in order to create catalytic converters, engineers need increasing amounts of precious metals, the least of which is platinum.
Platinum is also a popular metal for artwork, such as jewelry. Hector Sosa Flores explains that platinum is the heaviest and among the densest of the precious metals. As it happens, mining platinum is extremely difficult making it hard to come by in large quantities.
Palladium
A member of the platinum family, palladium is also vital to catalytic converter production. Also similar to platinum, palladium is a popular metal for the jewelry industry as it is used to mix with gold to create white gold. Not as dense as platinum, palladium is perhaps even more important for converting toxic gases into clean air.
As such, Hector Sosa Flores says that palladium is now said to be more expensive than both platinum and gold. It is a rare mineral and a bit more useful for industrial development than is gold and standard platinum.
Rhodium
An even rarer platinum metal is rhodium. Another precious mineral used in catalytic converters, rhodium is also used in jewelry, the medical industry, headlight reflectors for cars, and aircraft manufacturing. Currently, rhodium is more expensive than any other metal listed here.
Based in San Diego, California, Hector works side-by-side with the Axios Group LLC. As individual economies seek to meet global demand, Axios focuses on helping the “artisanal producer,” by focusing on meeting logistical challenges in the commodity trading of expensive minerals, such as those listed above. Most importantly, Hector Sosa Flores envisions a world in which commodity trading is efficient and environmentally responsible for the sustainability of the planet and quality of life for future generations.
Find more on Hector Sosa Flores on medium.com
