Palladium rose to its strongest in 17 months on Wednesday due to a robust outlook for demand and concerns over supply, while gold inched down, although purchases by jewellers after the Lunar New Year break limited losses. Spot palladium also got a boost from the most active palladium contract on the Tokyo Commodity Exchange (TOCOM), currently December, which rallied to its highest since mid-2001 at 2,334 yen a gram.
Palladium rose to $772.25 an ounce, its strongest since September 2011, before easing to $768.22 by 0721 GMT, little changed from the previous session. Platinum gained $2.18 to $1,715.67 an ounce, still within sight of a 177-month peak struck last week Spot gold fell $1.40 an ounce to $1,649.00 after rising as high as $1,653.20. US gold was little changed at $1,649.40 an ounce.