PGR my issue with platinum (apart from the $$ thing) is amount of stackers to trade with. With silver and gold there are more then plenty of keen stacker but platinum, like Elle's sister beautiful but forgotten
I actually am watching platinum closely, but I wouldn't swap gold for it. Like thatguy implied, the "liquidity" doesn't seem good here, and elsewhere the buy-back price is not favourable enough unless it was held medium-term.
I wouldn't swap but assuming I had the cash to get an ounce the platinum platypus would be a real nice coin to add.
In round numbers, Platinum - March '08 peak: 2200, October '08 low: 800 (-64%); Palladium - March '08 peak: 600, October '08 low: 200 (-67%); Silver - March '08 peak: 21, October '08 low: 9 (-52%); Gold - March '08 peak: 1000, October '08 low: 700 (-30%). Commodities, equities, currencies all look suspiciously like they did just before the last crash. Are you speculating or trying to preserve wealth? If it's the latter, gold outperforms. The USD didn't do too badly around that time either
Shouldn't the rarity of platinum compared to gold support a higher value? If they were to reach parity, I'd think buying platinum would then be the better bargain.... Maybe I am misinformed.
That's the argument that many silver bulls make - comparative rarity drives value. Well there's sod-all Pt in the world. Perhaps my post was poorly worded - my gold is a core position, I wouldn't swap existing gold for platinum, rather switch to buying platinum over gold.
Interesting concept, Platinum was propelled higher a while back when a lot of celebrities in America were wearing nothing but. As far as uses for platinum, I know they use it as a catalyst, jewellery, spark plugs anything else?
Looking at the 2010 graphs for platinum suggest it could be a good buy at $1500/oz but I'm not sure about the outlook for platinum's industrial demand. If oil goes & stays at $200+/barrel we might see cars becoming less common, so possibly less catalytic converter demand. Though the recent news of the 3.5x more fuel efficient engine might save the day there. And this news out recently Laser sparks revolution in internal combustion engines (lasers replacing spark plugs) "Taira's team built its laser from two yttrium-aluminum-gallium (YAG) segments, one doped with neodymium, the other with chromium. They bonded the two sections together to form a powerful laser only 9 millimeters in diameter and 11 millimeters long (a bit less than half an inch)." Any Nd stackers?
Platinum actually has quite a few industrial uses aside from spark plugs and cat converters, including use in the petroleum, chemical, alternative energy, pharmaceutical, medical instrument and electronics industries. "Of the 239 tonnes of platinum sold in 2006, 130 tonnes were used for vehicle emissions control devices, 49 tonnes for jewelry, 13.3 tonnes in electronics, and 11.2 tonnes in the chemical industry as a catalyst. The remaining 35.5 tonnes went to various other minor applications, such as electrodes, anticancer drugs, oxygen sensors, spark plugs and turbine engines." George, Micheal W.. "Mineral Yearbook 2006: Platinum-Group Metals". United States Geological Survey. http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/platinum/myb1-2006-plati.pdf. Retrieved 2008-09-25.
Well those figures are from 2006. I would imagine that the percentages have shifted some. I'd suspect usage rates have risen in the petrol, chemicals and alternative energy space.
