Thoughts on buying platinum?

[Foster88]

Hi all,

For some time I’ve been considering buying what would be considered small amounts of platinum. Perhaps a few half ounces now and again. The reason why, I’ll explain below.

Now when I was in my teens approx 20 ish years ago Platinum was the metal to buy, not gold. It was for some time before then, they’d say the latest record in the charts had gone ‘platinum’ not gold.

However in recent years the ‘gold stuff’ has beaten platinum by a furlong and some.

Now I know platinum is used in cataliatic converters in diesel cars which are being phased out. Granted that’s just one use but is platinum now a good investment or is it just a once preferred by product that will become just that, a by product?

Enlighten me and opinions are very much welcome.

Edited February 2, 2021 by Foster88

[Roy]

BYB has chatted about platinum recently:

 

[Pete]

Platinum was once more expensive than gold and in jewellery, for example, the “rich man’s” gold as gold is to silver.

It is one of the few inert elements and the cost of mining likely to be higher than gold and it is rarer. It should be more expensive but at least the same as gold. It has more industrial uses than gold but that could be a reason to depress the value of platinum. If it became too expensive then these applications would disappear and the miners would not maintain sales. You could argue that maybe gold is over priced. Certainly compared to silver with the Au/Ag ratio of late, albeit not at its peak. The price of PMs are manipulated by the banks and governments that attach value to these metals. By comparison look at the historic price of oil and try to make sense of this. Impossible to predict the future prices of PMs and explain logically why Pt is so much less than Au. Personally this could be seen as an investment for the long term. I would buy Pt if it wasn’t for VAT and high dealer margins right now.  When more metal becomes available to the market the dealer margins should return to normal but for us in the UK the VAT is a challenge.

[Tattoedamat]

To give an idea of towel worthwhile it is investing in platinum group metals look at how well platinum group shares and stocks are doing against the rest of the precious metal ones.

Should you invest simple answer yes but it's the most volatile of all all so careful watching of the markets is definitely required as Pete has already outlined

[silvernewbie]

Its hard to find coins for sale iv been looking for a while

[Tattoedamat]

Not that hard to find but our are at less than stupidly high premium

[watchesandwhisky]

VAT kills it for me, If i could buy closer to spot I think id have some.

[Foster88]

2 hours ago, watchesandwhisky said:

VAT kills it for me, If i could buy closer to spot I think id have some.

This is what is putting me off and the reason why I haven’t yet bought any.

[Pete]

Pity sellers in the EU could not rebrand a nice one ounce platinum Queens Beast or Britannia as "white gold" in the description and avoid the VAT which also kills any interest from me.

 

[Arganto]

If the premium over spot on secondary market coins (buying on TSF essentially for me) was closer to 10% at weights of around an oz I'd actually start to consider it as it likely does have future potential. With premiums usually way more than that by a fair margin and VAT added to buying new from dealers I don't even bother looking. 

I'm not saying it should be 10%, I know nothing about the platinum market, it's just a figure that would make it a more palatable proposition for me personally.

[StackemHigh]

I'd be buying any Pt coins or bars any size just as long as the price is right.

[Kman]

If I were bullish on platinum then an etf or miner seems like a much better way to go about it

Liquid, no vat paid, no tax on gains in an isa 

Not as fulfilling as holding but as an investment it makes a lot more sense 

 

 

[Stuntman]

I think it's still a relatively compelling proposition but clearly not as good as it was about 6 months ago.  

I was a buyer (in a platinum ETF) for most of last year when the spot price was under £700 an ounce.  
If I didn't already have this investment I would probably still look to buy some platinum, but at the moment I think that gold represents better relative value.

As others have said, it's quite difficult to buy the physical for anything remotely resembling a decent price.  I have 5 oz of physical which I bought at an average price of £832 per ounce (including premiums, VAT and delivery), but these are coins I wanted to collect, rather than stack.  They are only for selling if I'm desperate and I'd probably only sell two of them anyway!

But even in the UK, buying an ounce of physical platinum is still considerably cheaper than buying an ounce of physical gold - so maybe it's still cheap 🙂

[MancunianStacker]

Sprott has a physical allocated Platinum ETF if anyone is partial 

[silvernewbie]

On 02/02/2021 at 20:20, Kman said:

If I were bullish on platinum then an etf or miner seems like a much better way to go about it

Liquid, no vat paid, no tax on gains in an isa 

Not as fulfilling as holding but as an investment it makes a lot more sense 

 

 

If you dont hold it you dont own it

[Nugget]

I am planning to grab 2 Oz of platinum soon.  Then I will have some cash in the three main PMs. 

[Kman]

5 hours ago, silvernewbie said:

If you dont hold it you dont own it

You don't get ahead by abiding by this cliché type of rhetoric

You need to try and explore every opportunity available to you

[cliveb13]

I own some Pt, and when I started, the Pt coins were the first coins I bought. I had bought an ounce of Au, Pt, Pd & Rh for my wife as a present & bought some for me as interest rates were low & I had somewhat lost faith in shares after the 2009 crash. 
 

I still have almost all my PMs but recently sold 2 Rh & 2 Pd. 
 

I couldn’t give anyone advice but vat or not, Pt as proof and good coins looks fantastic on display. And that is my main motivation. 
good luck. 
cb 

[Spark268]

looking at the few completed listings on eBay for Platinum, its interesting to see that the 1g price of plat is in the > GBP 55 range, which is very close to the price of the more numerous 1g gold bars.

 

 

[GoldStatue]

52 minutes ago, Spark268 said:

looking at the few completed listings on eBay for Platinum, its interesting to see that the 1g price of plat is in the > GBP 55 range, which is very close to the price of the more numerous 1g gold bars.

 

 

That's a really unhealthy premium! I guess people are looking at the affordable price and not thinking about the premium.

[Stuntman]

I'm feeling quite smug today as the price of Platinum appears to have gone mental.  Over £900 per ounce at the time of posting!

[Stuntman]

This forecast was published in December and is bang on the money so far...

https://investinghaven.com/forecasts/platinum-price-forecast/#:~:text=According to our platinum forecast,of 35% to 50%.

[GoldStatue]

I didn't realise it had gone up 11% in just a week, there's still a way to go before it gets back to parity with gold again, even if this quick jump gets corrected. 

[Metalisreal]

Here in the States platinum in smaller amounts and coin form seem to be very popular. I tend to think, however, that buyers of one oz bars and coins would rather take their chance on gold instead. I had a 1/10 oz Baird bar unfortunately i had to sell it to get out of a financial bind. No problem selling those. I plan on picking up more fractional platinum in the near future but I will stick with at least 1/10 oz bars and coins (not gram bars). 

[JohnGalt]

Platinum is the metal to accumulate right now, for industrial value it has a lot of potential, but what makes a metal useful for long term investment in my opinion is low supply and useful in jewelry, that makes it "precious" and that means it has a potential monetary value after the fiat collapse. I own some in ETF 100% backed by the metal, I don't see the use of holding it, too risky and expensive and I don't think it will ever be accepted in barter by itself. I attach a chart I created of the value of silver and platinum vs XAU.