Platinum futures slid more than 6 percent early Wednesday, driven by heavy selling related to talk of an exchange-traded fund and profit taking ahead of a US holiday. Sharply lower lease rates and active over-the-counter options trading also pushed platinum lower, traders said.
January platinum dropped $62.10, or 5.1 percent, to $1,157 at 11:06 am EST (1606 GMT) on the New York Mercantile Exchange's COMEX division. It had tumbled as much as 6 percent to a low of $1,140 an ounce earlier. Spot platinum fetched $1,1600/1,180, down from New York's last quote of $1,230/1,235 on Tuesday.
"Yesterday the market reversed technically and we hit almost a vacuum of buying. We are starting to see a little bit of buying coming to the market now for January futures around the $1,156, $1,157 level," said AG Edwards commodities commentator Jimmy Quinn. Quinn said that one-month platinum lease rates - rates at which someone borrows a metal - fell aggressively, and that contributed to Wednesday's downfall.
Platinum futures had gained more than 21 percent during the past month on speculation of an exchange-traded fund launch before retreating. "There was tremendous profit taking going on in platinum," said George Gero, senior vice president at RBC Capital Markets. Gero said that platinum's fundamentals a lot better than its market performance as the metal was in demand. But "large institutional trading will influence the market unduly over the short term," he added.
"Unless there is an ETF in the foreseeable horizon, it was overdone in price," Gero said. ETFs, which are often backed by a physical commodity, enable investors to trade securities on an exchange and give investors a return based on commodities prices, without trading futures or taking physical delivery. With the markets closed Thursday and Friday for the US Thanksgiving Day holiday, other precious metals were mixed early Wednesday.
December gold at the COMEX was up $2.70 at $631.40 an ounce. It traded in a relatively tight range of $626.40 and $635. Spot gold bullion was quoted at $629.20/629.95, up from $627.90/628.90 at Tuesday's close. Bullion dealers fixed London's afternoon spot reference price at $631.80.
COMEX December silver edged down 2.5 cents to $13.06 an ounce. It traded between $13.02 and $13.25. Spot silver was unchanged at $13.04/13.11 from Tuesday's last quote. Tuesday's fix was at $13.07. December palladium fell $3.35 to $325 an ounce. Spot palladium traded at $322/327 an ounce.