"For Trading, Not Eating"

From an older post by Jeffrey Saut, Raymond James Chief Investment Strategist.

While gold was first discovered in Alaska during the 1870s, the 1890s have come to be known as the Yukon-Klondike Gold Rush days, as thousands of rugged individuals swarmed to the northern climes to find fortune and glory. Unsurprisingly, during the winter of 1896-97 the Alaskan ports were frozen solid and therefore closed to all shipping traffic. Food became very scarce and very expensive since new supplies had to be brought in over land at great hardship. Reportedly, a can of sardines that had cost $0.10 in New York could be priced at 10 times that amount by the time it reached the gold miners in Alaska. Still, there was great demand even at such inflated prices. For instance, in one remote mining town the price of a can of sardines was sold at rapidly escalating prices from $10.00, to $30.00, then $50.00. Finally, one desperately hungry miner paid $100.00 for a can of the highly sought after sardines. He took it back to his room to eat. He opened it. To his amazement he discovered the sardines were rotten. Angered, he found the person who sold him the tin and confronted him with the rotten evidence. The seller was amazed and shouted, 'You mean you actually opened that can of sardines? You fool; those were trading sardines, NOT eating sardines!'

Many stocks back in 2000 were definitely not for eating.

Adam

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