Platinum Hits 10-Year High in Euros, Silver ETFs Expand at 2012 Prices
Wednesday, 6/11/2025 15:10
PLATINUM and SILVER continued to trade independently of the gold price on Wednesday, extending their sudden price strength as US President Trump declared an "excellent" trade-tariff deal with China but the Dollar fell on the FX market following weaker-than-expected US inflation data.
With the
industrial precious metals now outpacing gold price gains in gold year-to-date, crude oil hit 2-month highs.
But the price of copper − sometimes known as the metal with a PhD in economics because of its positive correlation with global growth − fell to its lowest in a week despite Trump's claim that US-China trade talks in London are "done, subject to final approval [from] President Xi and me."
The gold price spiked $20 to a 4-session high of $3360 per Troy ounce as the Dollar briefly sank against other major currencies after government statisticians said the Consumer Price Index rose only 0.1% last month from April, half the pace forecast by analysts.
Excluding food and fuel, so-called 'core' inflation slowed beneath 2.8% per year, the softest pace since March 2021.
Now marking its 5th year of global
supply deficits versus demand, silver slipped further from Monday's new 13-year high, dipping within 5 cents of $36.00 per ounce. That was the highest since February 2012 when first breached last Thursday.
Platinum meantime added another $50 per Troy ounce to $1275 during Asian trading this morning, and rose through New Year 2022's highs in British Pounds to reach 4-year highs for UK investors above £940 per Troy ounce.
Platinum also broke higher in Euro terms to touch €1117, a sudden 10-year high.
That marks platinum's highest price in Euros since March 2015, back before that year's
Dieselgate scandal hit sentiment towards the precious metal − which still finds its single largest use in autocatalysts to reduce harmful emissions from fossil-fuel vehicles − by crushing European demand for diesel-engine passenger cars.
"It appears Western entities are borrowing platinum," says Bruce Ikemizu, CEO of the Japan Bullion Market Association, "perhaps to roll over industrial customer leases" as shown by
the cost of 1-month platinum lease rates hitting new all-time highs.
The rise in lease rates is "indicating
a severe shortage of platinum in London and Zurich," Ikemizu says.
"This shortage is likely being driven by China importing physical metal from these locations. If that's the case, the shortage of platinum account metal may intensify, potentially pushing prices even higher.
"Holding platinum could be a winning strategy − shorting would be risky."
Investors using BullionVault have taken profit as a group on platinum's 31.1% price jump since the end of April, cutting their aggregate holdings 13.7% by weight to 2.0 tonnes.
Platinum-backed ETF trust funds, in contrast, continue to swell, with the 2 largest such products − the aberdeen PPLT and WisdomTree's PHPT − expanding 5.0% so far this month to need 56.1 tonnes of bullion backing.
Silver's giant iShares ETF trust fund (NYSEArca: SLV) expanded by 0.2% yesterday after seeing its first daily outflow in 3 weeks on Monday, edging it below the 6-month record size seen at the end of last week.
Closed-end competitor the Sprott silver trust (NYSEArca: PSLV) meantime grew the amount of silver held to back its shares to a fresh record for the 5th session running.
The PSLV's stock-market price, however, continued to hold below the value of the bullion backing each share, trading 3.2% beneath net asset value and extending the discount to NAV which investors in Sprott's silver trust fund have now experienced for 4 years without a break.
Giant gold trust fund the GLD shrank a little Tuesday from its largest size in more than 3 weeks, while smaller and cheaper competitor
gold ETF the iShares IAU product held unchanged at the largest in a fortnight.
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