Gold 0.21%
£3,218.63 OZ
Silver -2.37%
£48.56 OZ
Platinum -0.49%
£1,360.95 OZ
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Platinum has lit up investor dashboards in recent weeks — surging 40% in just eight weeks, and notching its biggest monthly gain since 1986. For a metal that spent the past decade lagging behind gold, palladium, and even rhodium at times, this kind of breakout demands a closer look.
So, what’s driving platinum’s resurgence? The answer lies in a rare combination of supply disruption, investor repositioning, Chinese demand, and a short-term squeeze in physical liquidity — all unfolding at once.
Platinum has been one of the standout performers in commodities markets this year, surging over 40% since mid-May 2025. For investors, the question is no longer if the rally is real, but why it happened — and whether it can continue. The answer lies in a rare convergence of factors: a sharp supply crunch in South Africa, strategic stockpiling triggered by U.S. trade tensions, and a powerful wave of Chinese demand. Each force alone might have nudged prices higher. Together, they lit the fuse under a platinum market already primed for a breakout. Here’s how it unfolded.
Platinum’s price momentum can be traced back to one of its most basic fundamentals: a squeeze in supply.
South Africa, which accounts for over 70% of global mine production, reported exceptionally weak output in early 2025. In April alone, mined platinum group metals (PGMs) production plunged 24% year-over-year. This followed a dismal first quarter marked by power cuts, water shortages, and a refinery stocktake at Anglo American Platinum that slowed refined output.
Although these issues were largely expected to be temporary, they caused a real-time shortage in available refined platinum just as investor interest was heating up. With production only starting to normalize, supply tightness has lingered — and prices have soared in response.
Late 2024 fears of new U.S. import tariffs triggered heavy physical flows of platinum into CME warehouses. Even though PGMs were ultimately excluded from the April 2025 tariff rollout, the uncertainty surrounding U.S. trade policy lingered — and physical platinum availability in global markets dropped sharply as a result.
This created an unusual situation in early 2025: short-term lease rates for platinum jumped above long-dated ones, a classic sign of immediate scarcity. At one point in June, one-month lease rates hit 22.7% — forcing industrial users and traders to buy metal outright rather than borrow.
In other words, traders trying to ride out the tariff storm helped tighten the very market they feared would tighten. That self-fulfilling cycle helped fuel the rally.
Another big catalyst: China returned to the platinum market in force.
Chinese imports jumped sharply in April (10 metric tons) and May (10.5 tons), driven by large-bar investment demand, a revival in jewellery fabrication, and speculative trading volumes on the Shanghai Gold Exchange. Research from the World Platinum Investment Council (WPIC) showed that platinum jewellery fabrication rose 26% year-on-year in Q1.
Some of this buying may have been opportunistic — investors scooping up platinum when it was still undervalued — but the volumes were enough to make a significant dent in global inventories. That, combined with already tight supply conditions, created what one trader called “an explosive mixture for higher prices.”
The rally became supercharged in June when hedge funds and speculative traders piled in, reacting to the tightening lease market, bullish Chinese data, and technical breakout signals. Platinum broke out of its decade-long range, attracting momentum traders and retail inflows alike.
The futures curve even flipped into backwardation — a rare signal in the platinum market indicating that spot prices are higher than future contracts. That signaled immediate tightness and added more fuel to the rally.
Platinum is a significantly undervalued metal compared to its peers. Auronum’s Platinum price target shows a significant upside from current levels. Auronum has a view that Platinum will once again trade at its median value against Silver which is set at 77 ounces of Silver to an ounce of Platinum. The graph above shows how much Platinum must outperform Silver prices to get back to this median. Whilst the pace of the recent techncial breakout in the Platinum market looks set for a techncial correction, mid-to-longer term Platinum prices are heading much, much higher.
The 40% rally since May 19 has been dramatic — but perhaps not surprising when you consider how many bullish forces converged at once: supply disruptions, trade uncertainty, Chinese demand, and speculative firepower.
Platinum may now be at an inflection point. The rally has brought it back onto the radar of global investors, and its fundamental undervaluation relative to gold and palladium has narrowed. But with supply normalizing and demand potentially softening, the case for further near-term upside is less clear.
Still, the market remains in structural deficit — and platinum’s role in the energy transition, hydrogen economy, and industrial applications could offer longer-term support.
As one trader put it, “Platinum doesn’t need to stay on fire to be valuable — it just needs to stop being ignored.”
Investing in Platinum
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