Tokyo precious metals futures rose across the board on Tuesday, with platinum breaking a five-day bear run as it rode the coattails of a brisk recovery in spot prices.
The strength of TOCOM platinum's rally was likely to be tested after Japan's long "Golden Week" holidays, brokers said.
Markets are closed for Golden Week on Thursday and for the first three days of next week.
"If, however, platinum's (benchmark contract) maintains a level above 2,700 yen on Wednesday, players are likely to think the market is firm," said Nihon Unicom Corp Manager Chen Chair-Shi.
The new April 2005 platinum futures contract, which debuted on Tuesday on the Tokyo Commodity Exchange (TOCOM), closed at 2,795 yen per gram after opening at 2,690 yen. It moved between 2,685 and 2,798 yen.
Spot dollar-based platinum was quoted at $846/$851 per ounce shortly after TOCOM's close, compared with $820/$825 last quoted in New York.
The metal fell to a low of $819 an ounce on Monday, its lowest level since February 6.
TOCOM gold futures also finished modestly higher in short covering ahead of US data awaited by traders seeking to judge if US interest rates could rise than generally thought.
Consumer confidence data is due out later in the day, while US gross domestic product figures will be released on Thursday.
The new April 2005 gold contract finishing at 1,389 yen per gram after debuting at 1,386 yen.
Activity was relatively quiet, with the yen largely unchanged against the dollar.
In the spot market, bullion was trading at $397.50/8.25 shortly after TOCOM's closing bell, compared to New York's last quoted level of $395.55/$396.05.
The dollar was fetching 108.56/8.61 yen, flat from late US levels.
Latest figures by the Ministry of Finance on Tuesday showed that Japan's imports of gold in March fell about 77 percent from a year earlier to 1.53 tonnes.
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