So recently, with the astounding economic crisis occurring, what has happened to platinum bullion prices? Currently, the prices are: Silver -- 10.72 Gold -- 821.00 Platinum -- 944.00 I seem to remember, back only a few months ago, platinum being worth over twice as much as gold. Does anyone know why the market seems to have lost faith in platinum? What about platinum coins... would now be a time to invest in platinum or is platinum doomed on the market?
Platinum and palladium is used in catalytic converters. Look towards the auto industry. I feel it will be replaced by silver in the cat.s and then electric cars will take over.
My thinking about platinum (or any bullion) as an investment. Right now many people are using bullion as a hedge against the stock market and other investments. As the US digs itself out of this economic crisis, bullion prices will drop. Too late to jump on the bullion bandwagon.
I reach the opposite conclusion. The government plans to run trillion dollar deficits for years to come according to the president-elect. This is a very good time to jump on the bullion bandwagon if you have at least a 5 year time horizon. Bullion prices are weak because metal is moving from weak, leveraged investors to strong, unleveraged investors. As that process winds down and inflation winds up, bullion should do okay. That said, I'd prefer silver and gold to platinum. All opinion, of course.
Investing in any metals should make people think after the recent up, down, up, down stuff with metals. Same thing happened some time ago when certain people thought that Silver would go up, up, up. The Platinum in catalictic converters is something I suspect is temporary. Soon enough with conversions to electric or solar autos, if it ever happens, Platinum will not be used for that. Platinum in razor blades should vanish if anyone can make an electric razor that doen't get all messed up like mine do. Of course your not supposed to use them over a sink full of water. Platinum jewlery may be around for a while though. The main problem there is it looks to much like Silver. Women like to brag and if it looks like Silver, not much to brag about.
I agree with you to a point, and that is, the time to have jumped on the bandwagon was now over three years ago. And wait til all the money the Fed is running off like teepee starts hitting the streets and inflation strikes big time. It is only a matter of months now.
Prices of gold actually FALL when other metal prices rise. Why? That's because gold prices can only just go as far as it can and investors think they can make better margins on others, in particular copper, aluminum iron. Good reason why gold price fell as low as 400usd/oz just a few years ago especially after the Bank of England sold their massive gold reserves. Platinum prices obviously blew up as car manufacturers messed up big time. Think about it: 50% of platinum and palladium go to automobile catalysts. If the market isn't coming any time soon, why stockpile platinum and palladium?
But now all the other metal prices have flattened while gold has stayed in a band that it hasn't broken out of yet, it may go under $800 again soon, but will go back up with the next round of negative news from Wall St.
p.s. I shifted much of my gold bullion to platinum about the time they inverted, and I like platinum an investment (as part of a larger investment portfolio, to be clear).
