Gold has always been a safe haven, when times get hard – as of now, the price has pushed ahead to US$950 an ounce. (That’s a troy ounce – precious metals still work in pennyweights etc., from when silver and gold were the currency…) The other precious metals have always tended to be coupled with gold – silver is up around 20% in the last 2 months, platinum and palladium around 15%.

A significant factor in this bullish market is a correction from the lows of 2008 – platinum was particularly hard-hit, going from US$2,000 down to $800.

Market Demand
If you’re going to have a market in a commodity, in theory there has to be some end-user demand. Gold has always had the demand from jewellery – the other metals also, but less so. 60% of consumed platinum and palladium goes into auto catalytic converters. For silver, electronics make up the industrial demand.

Over this next year, the safe-haven bullish market forces are going to be balanced by surpluses in the market – the question now is whether investors will be able to keep prices at the same levels and even push on upwards, without demand also driving…