1973-1974 Aluminum Lincoln Penny
Posted on — 29 CommentsHow do you run a successful business? You make sure that costs don’t exceed revenues. However, in a 2014 biennial report to Congress, the U.S. Mint explained that it takes 8.04 cents to make a nickel and 1.66 cents to make a penny. This imbalance between manufacturing costs and face value is a problem.
This challenge is not new. In 1973 the U.S. Mint had the same problem. They decided to explore solutions. The prevailing idea was to make pennies from aluminum. Specifically, they intended to make them from an alloy of aluminum and trace metals. This approach would replace the copper-zinc composition in the traditional one-cent coin.
Rising copper costs made the traditional 1973 penny nearly equal in cost to its face value. This brought the topic of seigniorage into the fold. Seigniorage is a word used to describe the difference between the face value of a piece of currency and the cost to manufacture and distribute the money. To avoid a model in which costs exceed face value, the U.S. Mint decided on an alloy consisting of 96% aluminum. Aluminum was less expensive, more durable, and resistant to tarnishing. Additionally, aluminum takes less of a toll on the die used to mint coins which also brought manufacturing costs down.
The U.S. Mint went forward with their plan. They minted more than 1.5 million new aluminum Lincoln pennies in 1973 for intended release in 1974. Opposition to the plan, however, was immediate. Leadership in the copper industry rebuked efforts to abandoned the metal. Moreover, those in the vending machine industry became vocal about their concerns over the ability of machines to function with aluminum coins. There was an additional problem to all of this that no one foresaw: radiodensity.
Radiodensity is the inability of kinds of electromagnetic radiation to pass through a material. That is, pediatric radiologists cited the aluminum coins as a risk because they would be difficult to locate in an X-ray scan. An aluminum coin might be undetectable if a child ingested one. The coin might appear indistinguishable from human tissue on the images.
In time, the cost of copper declined. This, coupled with the growing voice of aluminum detractors left the initiative dead. The U.S. Mint recalled the aluminum coins. However, a small portioned were never returned, probably totalling 12 to 14 coins. These rare 1973 and 1974 aluminum pennies have remained hidden and unsold, therefore their value remains obscure.
However, in early 2014 a San Diego resident claimed to own a 1974-D aluminum coin. The “D” signifies that it was minted in Denver. The owner’s father was once a deputy superintendent of the Denver Mint. Some initial estimates put the value of the piece at $250,000 with some suggesting that the value could reach as high as $2 million.
Later that year PCGS certified the coin as authentic. The owner planned to auction the piece. At the same time the U.S. Mint requested that the owner return the coin. The issue went before a judge who “it is plausible that a Mint official, with proper authority and in an authorized manner, allowed Harry Lawrence to keep the 1974-D aluminum cent.”
Despite the ruling, the owner returned the coin to the U.S. Mint and the 1974 aluminum Lincoln penny remains a footnote in the history of the U.S. Mint.
5 Reasons Gold Can Rally In 2019
Posted onThe gold market surged higher last week, hitting its highest level since mid-July.
Is this the start of a new rally phase in gold? The reasons to be bullish on gold are stacking up fast. Here are five:
- Global gold production growth has declined in recent years
Gold output in key producing countries, such as Australia and Peru, is set to slump to generational lows, according to S&P’s Gold Pipeline report. This is basic economics; less supply and growing demand will lead to higher prices.
Looking ahead, S&P forecasts a 9% fall in gold production for Australia in 2020, and expects the country’s production to reach a generational low of 6.8 million ounces by 2022. That is a 33% drop in only three years. Peruvian production is also expected to decline the most by 2022 — by a significant 1.9 million ounces. Notably, no new gold mines have begun production in the country since the start of 2017, according to mining.com.
- Emerging market consumer demand
China and India comprise over half the consumer demand for physical gold. Looking into 2019, the World Gold Council forecasts solid physical gold buying from these consumers bolstered by good economic growth in these countries.
- Technology demand for gold continues to grow
Gold is the preferred metal for a variety of electronics applications. Gold, for example, is used in “contacts” on semi-conductors which enable your smart phone to be smart. Copper and silver are also conductive metals and have been used as replacements, but both of those surfaces oxidize. Gold does not. Smart phones become more advanced with every new generation. Every new release involves new complexity, including facial recognition, wireless charging, and infrared sensors. All these tasks require advanced semiconductors. This means that, despite the costs, manufacturers are turning to gold for both bonding wire and contacts to ensure they work properly.
- Stock market volatility
The stock market volatility we witnessed last month is expected to heighten as we move into 2019 amid concerns over the aging economic cycle. Gold outperforms other asset classes when hard times come, and typically rises when paper assets like stocks crash.
- The U.S. dollar
Typically, gold and the U.S. dollar trade in an inverse relationship. That means when the dollar goes up, gold goes down and vice versa. Heading into 2019, expectations are for a weaker U.S. dollar, which is gold bullish.
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Robbing Peter to Pay Paul, Then Robbing Paul
Posted onEver whistled a tune? If so, then congratulations, you’ve committed to something for a longer period than the average hold time for a stock investment.
“Take any stock in the United States. The average time in which you hold a stock is – it’s gone up from 20 seconds to 22 seconds in the last year,” explains Michael Hudson, a former Wall Street economist at Chase Manhattan Bank.
Buy-and-hold might be a winning strategy, but for most, it’s not the one favored. Instead, investors move their money from one place to the next like robbing Peter to pay Paul, then robbing Paul. Each move incurs fees, and often losses.
This life-sized game of hot potato isn’t limited to just equities. Hudson continues, “The average foreign currency investment lasts – it’s up now to 30 seconds, up from 28 seconds last month.”
We see a trend towards brevity elsewhere. For example, the “average job tenure steadily declined, from 9.2 years in 1983 to 8.6 years in 1998,” according to research.
Much of the declining holding period for stocks is explained by high-frequency trading (HFT) which accounts for 70 percent of all equities trading. Moreover, “fundamental discretionary traders” – people who logon and make a trade like an ordinary human – only account for about 10 percent of all trades according to research from JPMorgan. Simply put, the wild swings seen in recent market activity has more to do with machine than man.
But the fact remains: man made those machines. Therefore, their high-frequency trades reflect our incessant need to change our minds, often at our peril.
This “flash dance” is the inherent problem with equities; even the most stalwart buy-and-hold investors suffer at the hands of faceless machines.
Is an investment in gold any different?
The answer is yes. Gold is, in fact, different. Researcher Joerg Picard wanted to understand what trades are most directly responsible for steering gold’s price. He examined the market and learned that ETF gold trades, which can be traded as easily as HFT equities, “do not contribute much to price discovery.” This finding illustrates why gold is a stable investment. It’s not subject to the violent convulsions of the HFT world that have come to dominate the markets.
Curious investors can take a look at the CBOE Gold Volatility Index (GVZ) over any period and see how rarely the metal gets spooked. However, looking at the same chart for equities (VIX) often called the “Fear Index” presents an entirely different picture. The bottom line: the equities market, as we’re seeing today, is highly emotional. Gold, however, enjoys more stability as if its weight is keeping it secured to the ground.
Meanwhile, the wild ride for equities will continue. As the global head of quantitative and derivatives research at JPMorgan remarked, “big data strategies are increasingly challenging traditional fundamental investing and will be a catalyst for changes in the years to come.”
When the Stock Market Starts Waving a Knife
Posted onThe stock market is teaching us that when things are good, they’re great. And when things are bad, they’re awful. Simply put: volatility is back.
Many of the largest investment fund managers agree that the rocky ride has a long way to go. As recently as last week Gerry O’Reilly, a Vanguard portfolio manager who runs the largest equity fund in the world stated that he expects volatility to continue.
Today’s volatility comes from investors becoming increasingly cautious. For years, investors have made full commitments to the equities market. Expectations of late, however, have tempered. Moreover, as the Fed raises rates other fixed income investments become more attractive. As a result, strategic, long-term investors are counterbalancing the volatility with gold.
“Historically gold has outperformed equities by an even larger magnitude when volatility is rising from an already elevated level,” explained CFA Russ Koesterich at BlackRock.
Koesterich goes on to explain the research behind this statement. “Looking at monthly Bloomberg data from 1994 to the present, changes in the VIX Index, a measure of U.S. equity volatility, explain nearly 20% of the variation in the relative return between gold and the S&P 500 Index. In months when volatility rose, gold outperformed the S&P 500 price return by roughly 2% on average.” The VIX, a popular measure of volatility in the equities market, is sometimes appropriately called the “fear index.”
His research showed that in periods where the VIX rose above 20 and increased further “gold outperformed by an average of nearly 5%, beating the S&P 500 roughly 75% of the time.” Today, the VIX stands at 18.07 with many expecting an increase as experts work to detangle recent Fed remarks and the future of trade deals comes into focus.
The problem for most investors is that the power of gold as a steading force is not seen until it’s too late to make the investment. In other words, to benefit from gold’s unique characteristics in a portfolio, an investor must commit before the VIX rises. Unfortunately, even the most foresighted investors fail to appreciate the value of proactive measures. They ignore the art and science of asset allocation in which an investor balances risk and reward through exposure to a variety of assets like stocks, bonds and precious metals.
Gold is important when strategizing for asset allocation because historically it has a lower correlation to equities than other investments like REITs, private equity, commodities, and hedge funds. Research shows that during periods of turmoil gold has risen as global equities dropped. This phenomenon played out during the Long-Term Capital Management crisis, the September 11th terrorist attacks, the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, and especially Brexit during which gold climbed 9.8% and global equities fell 1.2%.
We’ve seen volatility start, but we haven’t seen it all. There is plenty of reason to believe volatility will not only continue but intensify. The time to counter the market swells is now when gold has the greatest potential to protect long-term wealth.
The Rogue Charm of the 1913 Liberty Head Nickel
Posted on1913 Liberty Head Nickels are so rare that even the US mint doesn’t know where it came from. They never authorized the piece. Despite this fact, a few of these coveted coins exist. In 2010 one sold for $3.7 million. The question remains, where did this mysterious coin come from?
Between 1883 and 1912 the US Mint issued the Liberty Head Nickel. Eventually, the mint decided on a new design, the Indian Head Nickel. They were to be the first official nickels of 1913. As a result, the official records of the US mint show no indication of any 1913 Liberty Head Nickels.
Then came Samuel Brown.
He had five 1913 Liberty Head Nickels in his possession. No one knew how he found them. Then, some started looking into his past.
They learned that in 1913 Brown was an employee of the US Mint. His position gave him access to the minting process. Many concluded he struck these unauthorized pieces. He may have worked with others at the mint to accomplish this, however, details are unclear.
Historians note that rogue minting has happened before. There are 15 known 1804 silver dollars all of which were struck in the 1830s or after.
In 1924 Brown sold all five nickels, the finest of which is known as the Eliasberg specimen. As a result, this particular piece has been an object of desire for wealthy collectors. The Eliasberg specimen has passed from one person to the next fetching more money with every sale. The most recent sale, occurring in 2007, commanded $5 million for the single coin.
Despite this enormous sum, the Olsen specimen is the most famous of the five. King Farouk of Egypt once owned this piece. As with the Eliasberg specimen, the price has soared with each transaction. In 2004 it sold for $3 million.
Another piece, the Walton specimen sat for 40 years in a closet. The coin was returned to the collector’s family after the owner died in a car crash. He was on route to a coin show and was prepared to exhibit the rare piece. After officials sorted through the wreckage, which consisted of more than $250,000 in rare coins, they incorrectly determined that the 1913 Liberty Head Nickel was not genuine. For this reason, the family put it in a box in a closet and forgot about it. Later, the family learned of a coin show exhibiting the other four pieces. They also learned of a well-publicized effort to find the long lost fifth piece.
They dug through the closet and brought the coin to the show. Experts examined the piece and determined that it was real. They appraised the coin at $2.5 million, but it sold at auction for more than $3 million.
The remaining two coins, the Norweb and the McDermott specimens, have less storied histories because both have long been in the possession of museums.
Today, the coins are a reminder of how much we’ve come to value the charm of a rogue US mint worker with a bit of extra time on his hands.
Remember the Alamo!
Posted onThey wrote the Texas Declaration of Independence overnight.
The Texas delegates had to work quickly because Fort Alamo in San Antonio was under siege.
Mexican General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna led a Mexican force numbering in the thousands and surrounded Fort Alamo.
Inside the fort, although vastly outnumbered, 200 defenders bravely stood their ground.
Led by James Bowie and William Travis and legendary frontiersman Davy Crockett, the Texan soldiers held their ground courageously for 13 days before the Mexican invaders overpowered the Texans conquered the fort.
Remember the Alamo!
Just a few months later in April, 1836, Sam Houston and about 800 Texans defeated Santa Anna’s Mexican massive force – almost twice their size – 1,500 men at San Jacinto while shouting “Remember the Alamo!” as they attacked.
The Texan’s victory confirmed Texan independence and General Santa Anna, was taken who prisoner ultimately agreed to terms with Houston which finally ended the war.
For Texans, the Battle of the Alamo became a lasting symbol of their fearless resistance to oppression and their mission to gain independence.
Sixty six men signed the Texas Declaration of Independence from Mexico on March 2, 1836.
One hundred years later, the Texas Centennial Half Dollar 1935-D was struck in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of that pivotal event in Texas history.
Honoring the significance of this anniversary, Congress approved the first commemorative coin legislation since 1928, which allowed for the mintage of up to 1,500,000 souvenir half dollars to be created as part of the centennial celebration.
The Lone Star state boasts a rich and exciting history, which includes the 1836 creation of the Republic of Texas.
In total, six flags have flown over the state of Texas. That includes flags from Spain, France, Mexico, the Republic of Texas, the United States and the Confederacy. Notably, this inspired the name of the Six Flags amusement park, which was founded in Texas in 1961.
Sculptor Pompeo Coppini designed the commemorative coin: Texas Centennial Half Dollar.
Coin Description
Obverse: An Eagle sits on a branch in front of a five-pointed star, the symbol of Texas. The word: UNITED – STATES – OF – AMERICA circle the periphery of the coin. At the bottom the words: HALF DOLLAR, IN GOD WE TRUST, and E PLURIBUS UNUM round out the stunning design.
Reverse: This side of the corn boasts one of the most intricate designs ever displayed on a commemorative coin. The reverse features the goddess Victory, kneeling with an olive branch in her right hand. Her left hand rests Alamo. The word LIBERTY sits on top on a scroll, behind which are six flags. Below Victory’s wingtips the likeness of Texas war heroes Sam Houston and Stephen Austin are seen. THE TEXAS INDEPENDENCE CENTENNIAL and REMEMBER THE ALAMO circle the coin.
What is “Tail Risk” and Why Does It Matter?
Posted onRecently, you’ve probably heard people utter that we are living in “strange times.”
They’re right.
Last year there were only 8 days in which the S&P 500 experienced a movement of more than 1%. This year the picture is different. The S&P 500 has seen 48 days in which the index moved more than 1%. Moreover, last month the index dropped almost 7%. Volatility is back and so are discussions of something called “tail risk.”
Tail risk is defined as “a form of portfolio risk that arises when the possibility that an investment will move more than three standard deviations from the mean is greater than what is shown by a normal distribution.”
Translation: sometimes things go wrong.
In other words, investors can expect, with a reasonable degree of confidence, that future outcomes will fall into a range of expected outcomes. The tail risk is the risk that future outcomes could fall far outside this norm. Tail risk is that awful outcome that you’re almost certain will not happen. The keyword: “almost.”
When tail risk becomes reality, the event becomes a part of history. Black Monday – when the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell more than 22% in a day – exemplifies tail risk. The Long-Term Capital Management crisis is another example of tail risk lashing the markets. Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM) was a hedge fund which saw its equity of 2.3 billion plummet to just $400 million in under 25 days. In the end the Federal Reserve Bank of New York had no choice but to offer a bailout of $3.625 billion. The most famous tail risk in recent memory was the 2007-2008 global financial crisis.
Today, we are seeing volatility flood back into the market. Daily, unexpected upheavals have left many investors wondering if we are sliding down the slope into tail risk territory. If so, they want to be prepared. As a result, some are looking to gold as a solution.
As one study found, “even relatively small allocations to gold, ranging between 2.5% and 9.0%, help reduce the weekly 1% and 2.5% AaR [value at Risk] of a portfolio by between 0.1% and 15.5% based on data from December 1987 to July 2010.” In fact, this same research concluded that portfolios holding gold outperformed those that did not in 75% of cases characterized by dramatic market drops.
The reason: gold often exhibits less volatility on negative returns than on positive returns. When things go bad in the equities market gold tends to hold its own better than the S&P 500. This finding doesn’t suggest that investors should abandon their equity holdings. Instead, it is a reminder that even a small gold holding can provide a stabilizing effect. For example, a portfolio consisting of just 8.5% gold between October 2007, and March 2009, “was able to reduce the total loss in the portfolio by almost 5% relative to an equivalent portfolio without gold,” according to the same study cited above.
Consider gold as your center of gravity as volatility and uncertainty push us further into these strange times.
When the Next Recession Hits, Where Will You Be?
Posted onThe party is over. After October’s stock market bloodbath, the 6-month win streak for the S&P 500 has officially ended.
While you may have already added up the damage to your retirement account after last month’s stock market collapse, here are a few things to keep in mind.
- October marked the worst month for the S&P 500 in 7 years.
- The Dow fell 5.1%
- The Nasdaq plunged 9.2% (worst month since November 2008)
- Small caps stocks lost the most – with the Russell 2000 down 10.9%
October was a rough ride for stock market investors. Unfortunately, the roller coaster ride is just beginning.
Recession Risks Are Rising
The current U.S. economic expansion phase just hit 112 months. That means it is the second longest in U.S. history and is now running on fumes. Economists like to call that “late cycle.”
In a new report released in early November, S&P Global Economics now see a 15%-20% risk of recession in the U.S. over the next 12 months – up from 10%-15% from their August forecast.
Now more than ever, it’s essential to take steps to protect your assets. The warning signs are everywhere. It’s time to take action.
As the country’s largest and most respected tangible assets firm, we’ve helped over 450,000 Americans enjoy financial security through diversification into gold bullion and rare coins.
Our research on gold including an exclusive 35-year study on long-term investment performance in gold bullion and rare coins and on economic trends in our monthly Blanchard Index help clients understand how these assets can help your portfolio outperform.
Here’s a snippet on what could lie just around the corner.
2 Key Calls from Capital Economics on November 7
- Boom will turn to bust in 2019
“With the boost from fiscal stimulus now fading and signs that the Fed’s monetary tightening is starting to weigh on rate-sensitive spending, the strength of the US economy is unlikely to last much longer. We expect an economic slowdown to persuade Fed officials to end their tightening cycle in mid-2019, sooner than most anticipate, and to begin cutting rates again in early 2020.”
- More stock market weakness on the way
“Worries about the outlook for the US economy are likely to intensify next year as growth slows, putting further pressure on equity markets around the world. We think the dollar and Treasury yields will fall back too, as the Fed ends its tightening cycle sooner than investors anticipate.”
What else are we watching?
Stock Market Valuation Levels. The cyclically adjusted Shiller P/E ratio, which looks at average earnings over the past 10 years— is a valuable indicator to assess stock market risk.
Despite the October stock market crash, valuations remain extremely high: they remain close to the second-highest level of all time, exceeded only by the dot-com boom.
Home Sales are Slowing
Existing home sales historically lead the beginning of a downturn in the economy. Existing home sale fell for the sixth month in a row in August. Home affordability fell to its lowest level in 10 years. Rising mortgage rates are slowly choking off home sales.
Don’t ignore these economic canaries in the coal mine.
How You Can Profit with Gold
Physical gold bullion is considered by many to be a recession proof asset. During the 2008-2009 gold was the top performing asset. As the economy tips from its current aging expansion phase into recession, gold is poised for dramatic gains. Our research proved that portfolios that contain at least some gold or rare coins outperform those that don’t.
Take the first step now to protect and profit with gold. Learn more about the Blanchard difference in this 1-minute video.
As Good As Gold (And 9 Other Gold Quotes We Think You’ll Like)
Posted on — 1 CommentAs Good As Gold (And 9 Other Gold Quotes We Think You’ll Like)
Have you ever thought about how much the word gold permeates our everyday language?
Charles Dickens wrote the famous phrase “as good as gold” in The Christmas Carol published in 1843. Here’s a few more examples:
- Silence is golden
- Pot of gold
- A gold mine of information
- Heart of gold
- The golden word
- Worth its weight in gold
- The golden age
- Golden years
- Golden parachute
The key similarity is that all the sayings underscore the truth that gold is valuable, universally accepted and a measure of wealth.
Shifting over to the investing world, gold remains a time-honored, safe-haven investment.
Gold performed as expected in recent weeks – the price of gold climbed, when stocks fell. If you want to hear more what others have said about investing in gold throughout history here’s 9 quotes we think you’ll like.
- “Money is gold, and nothing else” — J.P. Morgan
- “If you don’t trust gold, do you trust the logic of taking a beautiful pine tree, worth about $4,000 – $5,000, cutting it up, turning it into pulp and then paper, putting some ink on it and then calling it one billion dollars?” — Kenneth J. Gerbino
- “To prefer paper to gold is to prefer high risk to lower risk, instability to stability, inflation to steady long term values, a system of very low grade performance to a system of higher, though not perfect, performance. — William Rees-Mogg
- “Start now buying gold coins, any kind, and hoarding them.”— Dr. John L. King
- “The desire of gold is not for gold. It is for the means of freedom and benefit.”– Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its value only to its scarcity.”– Samuel Johnson
- “We are now at a pivotal moment in history. In coming years we will see a destruction of wealth that the world has never before encountered. The illusory paper fortunes created by the credit bubble will be totally decimated. Very few investors will take any preventive measures to preserve their wealth. But for the small number who own gold and silver and some precious metal stocks, the coming years will not only insure their wealth but also be an investment opportunity of remarkable proportions.” Victor Sperandeo
- “Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value – ZERO” – Voltaire in the 18th century
- Gold will be around, gold will be money when the dollar and the euro and the yuan and the ringgit are mere memories.”— Richard Russell
If any of these quotes have inspired you to learn more about gold, give Blanchard a call today at 1-800-880-4653.
What’s your favorite saying about gold? Leave a comment below!
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You Already Own Gold, Now How Do You Get to It?
Posted onThinking of buying gold? You already do and it’s sitting in your pocket. On average, a cell phone consists of approximately .001 troy ounces of gold in its hardware. At today’s prices this amount totals about $1.23.
Not much, but we’re only getting started.
Your desktop computer has .0025 troy ounces of gold inside totaling a little more than $3. There’s even more gold – about $30 worth – hiding inside your laptop. Most modern cars include computers and airbag sensors requiring gold which adds to your total. It’s easy to see why demand for gold by the electronics industry has grown for eight consecutive quarters.
In fact, in the latest quarter this demand equaled more than 85 tons. Manufacturers need more gold to build the hardware that keeps our economy running. Computer printed circuit boards and servers are among the biggest demand drivers. Manufacturers need more gold as consumers choose to ditch their old phone and buy a new one with superior memory capacity.
It’s the old phone, however, that has people interested. The reason: experts in e-waste calculate that one ton of cell phones holds 80 times more gold than the average gold mine. Companies are awakening to the value of your forgotten phones and old laptops. This year Apple debuted Daisy, an assembly line that works in reverse to dismantles old iPhones.
Academics have also turned their attention to the benefits of reclaiming precious metals from e-waste, a practice called “urban mining.” Researcher published in Environmental Science and Technology calculate that “ingots of pure copper and gold could be recovered from e-waste streams at costs that are comparable to those encountered in virgin mining of ores.” Moreover, their research was limited only to television sets. Expanding the analysis to include all other electronic devices would reveal even greater opportunities considering that the average family has about 80 electronic devices.
Most dismiss this estimation claiming that it’s too high. However, if you start to think of things like lamps, power tools, and toys it doesn’t take long to hit 80. All of these items are considered e-waste. As one expert explains, “e-waste is any product you discard that is still working.”
Companies want this waste. Harvesting gold and other precious metals from e-waste is easier than sourcing a mine and digging. It’s also more environmentally sound. Recycling reduces the burden on our environment while diminishing the carbon output from mining efforts.
Globally, we generate approximately 40 tons of e-waste every year. We recycle only 13 percent of that total. Gold is the invisible hand offering a solution. In other words, the presence of gold in these devices is exactly what’s propelling industries to collect and dismantle e-waste in an environmentally friendly way.
Today, countries like South Korea are using urban mining to source rare earth metal from discarded batteries. As recently as 2016 experts in Korea yielded more than $18 billion worth of metals from electronics. This volume represents nearly one-quarter of the country’s demand.
The future of gold resources is not in the ground, it’s in your hand.
