Platinum Resurgent!

Over the past, what, week or so I have seen platinum move up nicely vs. gold. We're only some $55 / oz lower now, and we were some $150 (?) lower not long ago?

Anyone have any idea why?

Disclosure: Long physical Pt

DCRB - Yes - it's because I sold some of mine to buy a family member a car :-( If there's anything that will move a PM, it's being cornered into parting with it early! Pfff.

Most likely stupid computers trading on news headlines that a Greek debt solution has been reached. Remain calm! All is well!

DoChenRollingBearing said:

Over the past, what, week or so I have seen platinum move up nicely vs. gold. We're only some $55 / oz lower now, and we were some $150 (?) lower not long ago?

Anyone have any idea why?

Disclosure: Long physical Pt

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I've been watching this too DoChen. Pt and Pd were really down compared to gold. Most of my phys purchases lately have been in these 2 metals as I couldn't resist the sale prices on them. A little diversification never hurt anyone eh? Rhodium is also extremely cheap right now. I'm tempted but it seems like you shouldn't take delivery and have it stored elsewere instead.

@ h4rdware

Well now we know that the converse of what always happens to me (price of gold takes a dive whenever I buy) happens as well. Soon as you sell, up it goes.

I remember back in the 1980s I was a small coffee importer (I bought green (unroasted) coffee beans in Peru by the single containerload and would re-sell it int he eastern USA). One day I was visiting a US customer. He had a machine on his desk that showed real-time trading, I had never seen that before re coffee. I told him that was so cool. He said, well no...:

"The price of coffee goes up, I think "Shit, should of bought! The price goes down, shit, should have bought!"

@ Bonzo

I have a tiny amount of Pd (Canadian) as well. I agree that rhodium seems very cheap compared to the astronomical prices that rhodium reached, what, three years ago ($10,000 / oz). If I were to buy it, I would keep it around here though...

I have several medalions of palladium from waaaay back in the day. i think my grandpop gave tehm to me about twenty five years ago. He said they are half ounce each and were bought for about forty buck apiece. Since I have abought eight of them, I was thinking about getting them assayed for purposes of turning them in to ASE's.

I always did want an unopened monster box.

Back when Ag was $9.50 oz I bought 750 1oz Euros. Man what a heavy sucker that box is! Much rather schlep around gold or platinum. Way back when I won the 5th grade science fair at the Catholic school I went to. I got a nice pin that said pure Rhodium for my efforts. My lil sister found it and used it to play makeup with her friends. Naturally it got lost. Sure wish I had it now!

Bonzo said:

Back when Ag was $9.50 oz I bought 750 1oz Euros. Man what a heavy sucker that box is!

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Dude! Hold on to that sucker, pretty soon, the fuse will be lit, and Ag will go fucking bananas! That was a brilliant move. I wish I had the insight I do now, when silver was three bucks an ounce. I remember back in '95 I got a twelve thousand dollar settlement for getting fired from a job because I got fucking hurt on the job. anyway, had I bought silver I could have gotten about 2,500 ounces. If I sold last spring, the twelve large worth of silver would have gotten me 120,000 at 45. That's a thousand percent gain in a pretty short time frame. You did well man, I applaud you!

:clap::clap::rimshot:

@ ancona

I agree that that ASEs > non-hallmarked Pd. But, I would hang onto at least one of them. Palladium has an interesting property or two:

1) It is impermeable to all gases but hydrogen. That could be of use in electric cars or fuel cells.

2) It can "hold" 900 x its volume of hydrogen gas, at what pressure I do not know.

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@ Bonzo

I too applaud your smart move way back when you bought silver!

Pd can be used to purify hydrogen by heating a thin membrane of it. I used to use a sheet of it in this manner as a gas inlet valve for my fusor - which is why I have some in stock here. Yes, it will hold a lot of H, you push it in at high pressure while it's hot, keeping the pressure on till it cools, then it stays in there, but too much reduces it to a powder - keeps the Pd atoms pushed apart. When you heat up the Pd, the hydrogen comes back off at pressure. 900 times its volume is kind of a record, but remember - H is a light gas, and Pd is a heavy metal, so it's not really much H.

It's the least noble of the Pt group metals, but is still useful in electro-chemistry.

I recoverd a bunch of it and Pt out of a few catalytic converters with aqua regia. At some point I will separate the two and plate them out of the solutions. Older catcons have quite a lot in them, deposited on alumina beads and it's moderately easy to get it back if you can find them to strip - those from the '70s are the best, before they learned how to use much less. For now, since I don't need them, I'm just keeping this poisonous yellow powder...no one will steal that! Or that nasty blue liquid I use for gold plating...Almost as good as going out in the boat...

PMBug said:

Most likely stupid computers trading on news headlines that a Greek debt solution has been reached. Remain calm! All is well!
...

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Gold and silver prices as well as equities and industrial commodities had another strong day yesterday, as traders dashed back into “risk” positions. In America the Dow Jones Industrial Average hit an intraday high of 13,004.97 – its highest level since May 2008. Comex March gold futures settled at $1,757.20/oz, for a gain of 1.85%. As per usual in “risk on” days, silver outperformed gold, with front month futures gaining over 3.5% to settle at $34.43, with copper also recording gains of 3.5%, settling at $3.83 a pound at the Comex. Likewise, crude oil had another strong session, with WTI up 2.5% at over $105 a barrel, and Brent crude now trading north of $121 a barrel.
...
Couple this with the fact that the eurozone situation has been stabilised and that the European Central Bank will announce another massive package of bank loans at the end of this month – which some have predicted could be worth as much as one trillion euros – and it’s hard to see why exactly, barring some kind of “black swan” event, the markets should be about to reverse course. After all, the markets love free money.

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http://www.goldmoney.com/gold-research/newsdesk/commodities-surge-as-sentiment-lifts.html

Pretty much what I said. I am not as convinced, as the markets are, that "the eurozone situation has been stabilized" is a "fact" yet, though.

Trader Dan comment on platinum:

There seems to be a type of stealth bull market in the platinum group as the metal begins moving up and regaining lost ground against the price of gold. The metal has been grinding higher since the beginning of the year and is currently up nearly $400 since then but has mostly gone unnoticed by the financial press.

It is unusual to see the metal trading at a discount to the gold price. Apparently some of the hedge funds have taken notice and are moving into platinum especially as news filters out of a strike in a large South African mine owned by Impala.

Platinum, while often viewed as a precious metal, is greatly affected by economic news due to the fact that it is also an industrial metal used largely in the automotive exhaust systems. Obviously any news that is considered bearish for overall global growth tends to depress its price. Conversely, a growing global economy in which consumers worldwide opt to buy new cars, is bullish for the metal.

As such, platinum has been greatly impacted by the risk off or risk on trades. ...

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More: http://traderdannorcini.blogspot.com/2012/02/platinum-regaining-ground-against-gold.html

More on the Impala mine:

Platinum prices jumped to their highest level in five months yesterday on the back of strength across the entire commodity complex, and supply concerns owing to an on-going strike at the Rustenburg platinum mine in South Africa. As The Wall Street Journal reports, protracted strike action at Impala Platinum Holdings’ Rustenburg mine has spooked the commodity market, with the most actively-traded Comex platinum contract for April delivery gaining $35.90 (2.1%) yesterday, settling at $1,720.80 per troy ounce.

This mine is Impala’s second largest platinum deposit; the company accounts for 25% of total world platinum output and estimates that it’s already lost 80,000 ounces of production as a result of the strikes, with 20,000 being lost per week. If these labour disputes continue, platinum will continue closing the gap in terms of its price difference with gold. We could soon see it once again becoming more expensive than the yellow metal. If industrial unrest spreads across the country, gold and palladium prices could also be pushed higher, given South Africa’s status as the second-largest producer in the world of both of these metals.
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More: http://www.goldmoney.com/gold-research/newsdesk/gold-platinum-ratio-falling.html

Seems like the gold/platinum parity is a matter of hours now...

@ PMBug

Thanks for the news reports on the strikes there in South Africa. That would certainly explain at least some of the rise of Pt vs. Au.

@swissaustrian

Yes, I see only $2.40 worth of separation between them (12:25 PM ET). Maybe I should have bought the Pt Nobles my coin dealer offered me... Normally I buy just US Eagles (easy to recognize).

South African platinum group metal production hit by Rustenburg stoppage 13th March 2012
http://www.platinum.matthey.com/med...ion-hit-by-rustenburg-stoppage/801316523.html

Something happend to the platinum market on January 17th, the futures curve drastically changed which is reflected in lease rates:


Prices reacted with a 4 day delay: