Jack Ryan, Elise Harris and Yihui Xie

Thu, Jun 26, 2025, 9:22 AM2 min read

(Bloomberg) -- Platinum climbed to the highest level since 2014 as supply concerns and a wave of speculative buying led by the US and China jolted the market.

Most Read from Bloomberg

• US Renters Face Storm of Rising Costs

• Philadelphia Transit System Votes to Cut Service by 45%, Hike Fares

• Mapping the Architectural History of New York’s Chinatown

• Squeezed by Crowds, the Roads of Central Park Are Being Reimagined

• US State Budget Wounds Intensify From Trump, DOGE Policy Shifts

The precious metal surged as much as 4.6%, while palladium gained more than 6% to reach the highest since November. The dominant platinum spot market in London and Zurich has shown signs of tightness for months, after approximately half a million ounces surged into US warehouses, spurred by a lucrative arbitrage and fear of tariffs.

“The market is completely wrong-footed because everybody expected there to be a drag on demand resulting from these tariffs,” said Daniel Ghali, a commodity strategist at TD Securities. “There’s absolutely no evidence of that as of yet. Instead, what we see is stockpiling in China competing with stockpiling in the US, both driven by different incentives, but both contributing to a depletion in global inventories.”

Forward prices for platinum are now trading well below spot, a situation known as backwardation, which indicates tight market conditions. The implied cost of borrowing the metal is also still high, at an annualized rate of roughly 13% for a one-month lease, well above the usual rate of close to zero.

“If you look across various raw materials, there is evidence that global inventory systems are fragmenting,” Ghali said. “It is evident that there is very little platinum that is available to trade.”

Gold edged lower as traders closely monitor the easing geopolitical tensions amid Israel and Iran honoring the truce organized by US President Donald Trump.

Platinum surged 3.8% to $1,406.44 an ounce as of 12:17 p.m. in New York, and palladium jumped 5.9% to $1,130.29. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index declined 0.5%.

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

• How to Steal a House

• Inside Gap’s Last-Ditch, Tariff-Addled Turnaround Push

• America’s Top Consumer-Sentiment Economist Is Worried

• Apple Test-Drives Big-Screen Movie Strategy With F1

• Luxury Counterfeiters Keep Outsmarting the Makers of $10,000 Handbags

©2025 Bloomberg L.P.