rbaggio said:
IMHO the downside to buying platinum now is the industrial use - If we see a big global downturn (esp. automotive), platinum will go down further.
Platinum went from US$2075 on 1 July 2008 to US$760 on 27 Oct 2008.
Platinum did have that spectacular crash in the GFC - much more severe than gold. However let's look at the prices of both metals at the extreme moments:
Platinum Peak 'London fix' July 1 2008 US$2,075
Gold Peak 'London fix' March 17 2008 US$1,011
Platinum Low 'London fix' October 27 US$763
Gold Low 'London fix' October 12 US$712
So Platinum's crash was double that of gold's - roughly speaking
When Platinum peaked in 2008 it was a bit more than 2x the price of gold. This was way above the historical median ratio of Pt/Gold going back over 30 years. Plat's GFC crash was accentuated because it was too expensive relative to gold perhaps. Maybe it had a double crash - the GFC, plus its own little popped bubble which brought it back into alignment with gold.
My point is that, with the Pt/Gold ratio today less than 1, it does not seem likely that Pt would crash more severely than Gold. So while they might crash together, if you are going to risk buying gold today you will run no more risk buying Platinum?
The Pt/Gold ratio has got lower than this only a couple of times in the last 36 years. In 1982 it got down almost to 0.7, and in 1985 it got down to almost 0.8. I don't think you'd say that either of those events would be severe if they happened today from a ratio of a bit over 0.9. Also those extremes were short-lived; the ratio was back to 1 again in about 6 months