Palladium: Your Next Precious Metal Frontier

We see trends reversed this week over last, with platinum and palladium higher, with gold and silver marginally lower. Gold was down 1% to $1,954, and silver was down a fraction to $23.65, as the dollar exhibited short-term strength. Both platinum and palladium climbed 2% for the week, reaching $1,035 and $1,436, respectively.

From a year ago today, we have gold and silver up 6%, platinum up 2%, and palladium down 28%.

Palladium was valued at approximately half the price of platinum from 2008-2016 and significantly lower before that. But with tightening environmental standards, the demand for palladium began to rise. Palladium’s main usage has been as a catalyst in catalytic converters, converting vehicle exhaust into something less toxic when it exits the tailpipe.

Palladium is also the rarest metal of the PMG metals (Platinum Metals Group), comprised of platinum, palladium, rhodium, osmium, ruthenium, and iridium. Palladium is sometimes used in an alloy with gold to make white gold for jewelry, but it’s primarily used in catalytic converters for gasoline engines.

Palladium is slightly darker in color than platinum, and the US Mint first released a 1-ounce American Palladium Eagle coin in 2017.