Stock in the fish trade

[Jeremy Brito]

So tonight amongst the many discussion at the work place the stock market was brought up the conversation mostly pretained to the flooding of the market with certain inventory or the scarcity can cause price flucuations. So that got me thinking about the cost of fish and coral and the Hawaii ban which made me wonder if there was a stock like exchange on the fish trade, some sorta comdities like exchange of fish and coral that can be looked at from an amateur perspective that could tell you things like when there will be larger imports of certain fish or coral, or when there are shortages in the market were the supply is limited.
I have no idea how the stock market works or how trade of comdities are marketed but I imagine it would be a cool tool to reference from time to time to keep the costs we pay honest.
I did a little digging and found that the largest market is from a company called Oceanethix out of Hong Kong they are know for there trade in live fish mostly for food but they also distrubute what they list as ornamental fish .. Which is just a fancy name for pet fish.
Anyways what are your thoughts do any of you know about this sorta thing? I'd love to learn about the exporter to importer side of things

 

[Mark_C]

I know a little due to delving into it over the past year.
Long post, snowy morning, no work.

You can try to predict an items performance based on the other stock listed companies it supplies to.
I don't think you can track a commodity, or there is interest in a commodity, until it is required by a stock listed company.
For example, if I ran Mark's Weather Machines I'd get private investors and start small buying small amounts of parts from vendors.
As I grew I'd share the profit with my original investors.
As we become big, and need big expansions I can try to go outside my initial investors and get listed on the market.
All the new investors from the market give me extra overhead, I build a BIG factory - my company's stock will now be based upon how well I do.
But now, where I needed 1,000 cogs before, I need 3 million.
I can only get that from another BIG manufacturer and BIG distributer, who are probably listed on the market already as they needed to grow at one point and got listed.
So, the cog manufacturer and cog distributer both see a boost to their stocks.

I have a few investments based on the above.
I've invested in the 4 major manufacturers of electric 'gas' pumps for autos, 100-300 shares each. They're all cheap now and even if they all fail its only a few hundred dollar loss.
Someday electric cars will be the norm and one of these companies will probably become the primary manufacturer of a universal pump, and there ya go.
Tesla stock is a bit risky now and I'm not willing to make a big investment.
But I'm doing some digging into the companies that have relations with, and the ability to manufacture large amounts of magnets, for Tesla as their stock is cheap right now.
When/If the Hyperloop technology takes off, that magnet company's stock will skyrocket.

With situations where there is only a supplier listed its a hard call to make.
If they are on the market you can estimate how well they're doing by looking at their overall numbers but you can't get specific.
What types of fish and coral are they selling? From where? Who are they selling fish to?

I'd guess a lot of the fish trade is determined by the buyer/distributer, as in, 'You need a Spindoozle Tang? I know a guy who collects off the coast of Peru...', and is probably impossible to track.
I'm sure that swishing a net in a tidal pool and collecting 20 clowns determines the price of clowns in general, while diving for a specific fish puts the price in a different ballpark.
I don't think you can, or are required to, track this stuff specifically and, as such, can't list it as a commodity (at least on the market).
It does make you wonder how huge the black market is going to become for Fiji and Hawaii items.

 

[Jeremy Brito]

Ya my curiosity wasnt so much as a investment but like a tool to use for knowing what prices should be for example it would be cool to know things like when the next big import of Aussie corals is coming or like if a certain type of fish maybe scarce cause they had a bad season or a shipment got siezed by customs. I guess this would be more like a inside source for information at the fish dealer or importer level