August 11, 2025 • 44 mins
Discover why savvy investors are turning their attention to platinum in this comprehensive investment masterclass. Join our panel of precious metals experts as they break down:
• The unique supply-demand dynamics making platinum increasingly valuable
• How platinum compares to gold and silver in a diversified investment portfolio
• Industrial applications driving long-term platinum demand
• Strategic approaches to platinum investment: ETFs, physical holdings, and mining stocks
• Risk management techniques when investing in precious metals
• Expert price projections and market analysis for 2025-2030
Whether you’re a seasoned investor looking to diversify or a newcomer exploring precious metals for the first time, this webinar provides actionable insights to help you make informed decisions about platinum investments.
Don’t miss this opportunity to get ahead of the market—watch now and discover if platinum deserves a place in your investment strategy.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The problem with recycling is that, between what
you can sort of see in thischart here is between 2013 and
2021, you sort of saw a sort ofbroad uptrend in recycling
supply, and so that sort ofalleviated a lot of fears that
mining supply might sort ofunderperform.
However, recycling supply hasactually also begun to
(00:22):
underperform.
Also began to underperform, andagain this is a function of
lower prices for PGMs,disincentivizing the sort of
economic rationale to collectscrapped autocatalysts.
Additionally, since COVID andwork-from-home trends have sort
of arisen, people are tending todrive less, and another factor
(00:46):
that's sort of reducing thesupply of scrapped vehicles is
that new car prices havesubstantially risen over the
last three years.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Do me a favor for those of you that are financial
advisors If you happen to be inan office with other financial
advisors, please let them knowthat this isn't going to be
happening during this rough hourtime period.
I think you'll find interesting.
I think a lot of yourcolleagues will find this
interesting, with a part of thecommodity space which is, if you
haven't noticed, gone kind ofvertical.
We're going to get into thereasons why, with some real
experts here.
For those that are here for theCE credits from the CFP board,
(01:28):
I will email you after thiswebinar, get your information,
submit those.
So just stay tuned for that.
You will get an email from meto get that relevant information
to submit for the CE credits.
And, as always, appreciate thosethat attend these webinars that
I host on a pretty regularbasis now with various clients
of Lead Lag Media.
So, with all that said, my nameis Michael Guy, a publisher of
(01:49):
Lead Lag Report.
I want to introduce my friend,mr Matt Lamb of Granite Chairs,
and then we'll get right intotoday's topic around Platinum's
Moments.
So, matt, go ahead.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
Morning everybody, and thank you for your
attendance.
We greatly appreciate it.
We're really excited around themetal of platinum.
Matt Lamb, I am the point ofcontact here at Granite Shares
and our alternative analyst.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Of course, the man of the hour, mr Wade.
Napier Wade, introduce yourself, and you know this is going to
be your show, so we'll be in thebackground, but feel free to
show the slides when ready.
And, by the way, folks, if youwant to do a Q&A or ask
questions, type it in the chat,type in the Q&A.
We'll address it towards theend.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
So go ahead, wade.
Thanks, michael, thanks forhaving us this afternoon or
morning, wherever you are, andthank you, matt, for hosting us
today.
My name is Wade Napier.
I'm the sort of senior analystat the World Platinum Investment
Council.
I'm the sort of senior analystat the World Platinum Investment
Council.
Obviously, our role as anindustry organization is to
(02:55):
promote platinum andspecifically to promote investor
interest in platinum andholding platinum as an
investment asset, obviously forprice appreciation.
Just a little bit of mybackground.
I come from a soul side equityresearch background specifically
covering a full suite ofcommodities ranging from the
(03:16):
precious metals themselves tobulk commodities, as well as
forestry and paper.
So that's just a little bitabout me Today.
I'm just going to run everyonethrough the investment case for
platinum as we see it.
As with all presentations,please feel free to read the
copyright and disclaimer notice.
I'm not going to go throughthat now.
(03:37):
I have briefly touched on whothe World Platinum Investment
Council is, but just for thesake of repeating myself, our
shareholders are Platinum GroupMetal Miners.
They founded the World PlatinumInvestment Council in 2014.
And ultimately, our goal is toprovide actionable insights and
(03:58):
market development for platinumas an investment asset.
We have partners around theworld who we work with,
developing the physical bar andcoin market for platinum
products I won't go through themand then we also offer a suite
of investment-based research onplatinum markets and that is all
(04:23):
freely available on the WorldPlatinum Investments Council's
website.
So feel free to go to thewebsite.
As I said, everything is freeand there is a lot of
information within the sort ofstanding library.
But maybe sort of jumping intothe crux of the presentation
(04:44):
today, that's sort of the agendaI have sort of mapped out and I
think I'm going to start thingsoff quite simple and just
really go through Platinum'sbackground and just starting
with, what is Platinum?
What does the supply ofPlatinum look like like?
(05:09):
I think, broadly speaking, wethink platinum alongside its
sister precious metals, namelygold and silver.
But the unique thing withplatinum is really its scarcity,
in that it is about 120th themarket size of gold and about
130th the market size of silver.
So this is a very scarce metaland I think to add context to
the scarcity of platinum, youreally need to look to see where
(05:33):
does this metal come from, andthat is the chart on the
right-hand side of the slidewhich really highlights that
about 70% of global mine supplyof platinum annually comes from
South Africa.
So it's very concentrated toSouth Africa and then, further
to that concentration in SouthAfrica, another 10% would
(05:55):
roughly come from Russia andanother 10% roughly from
Zimbabwe.
So when you think aboutplatinum supply, specifically
mine supply, when you thinkabout platinum supply
(06:28):
specifically mine supply, veryconcentrated to what you would
in no uncertain terms say fairlyrisky geographies trends are
with regards to sort of resourcenationalization and sort of the
global sort of scramble forcritical minerals that are
particularly useful in greentransitions and technology
developments going forward.
So very concentrated sort ofsupply side dynamics for
platinum.
Just looking at sort of a briefsnapshot of demand and just to
give the audience a little bitof a flavor there, there's four
(06:51):
key demand sort of drivers forplatinum.
First is the automotive sector,which accounts for about 40% of
annual demand, where platinumis used in catalytic converters,
essentially emission controltechnology reducing harmful
emissions out of the back ofyour vehicle's tailpipe.
So it's specifically used incombustion engine vehicles and
(07:15):
hybrid vehicles.
There's no catalytic converterneeded for a battery electric
vehicle.
The other sector is jewelry.
Self-explanatory Platinumcompetes with gold jewelry and
white gold jewelry in the sortof higher-end market space and
jewelry demand accounts forroughly 30% of the annual
(07:38):
platinum demand.
Sorry, third key segment isindustrial applications.
Platinum has very uniquephysiochemical properties and
really what platinum's role inindustrial applications is to
support process efficiency andenergy efficiency, ultimately
increasing product yields from amultiple suite of end markets.
(08:06):
So namely sort of chemicalindustry, petrochemical industry
, glass fiber manufacturing,electronics industries, medical
industry.
So industrial is sort of like acatch-all sort of segment where
platinum has multiple, multipleapplications and again
accounting for about one quarterof annual demand.
(08:28):
And then finally investment,and that is physical platinum
bars and coins or alternatively,etfs, and I'm sure Matt will be
happy to elaborate on sort ofETFs later in the presentation.
So, tying supply and demandtogether, we get this process
(08:51):
flow diagram and again I thinkthe important points to
reiterate is that if you look onthe left-hand side, supply is
quite concentrated to SouthAfrica and if you look on the
right-hand side, demand isactually fairly nicely
diversified across the four keysegments that we discussed.
So that's just a little bit ofan intro into Platinum and now
(09:11):
we're sort of just going to lookat the supply-demand balance
and the sort of outlook over thenext five years or so.
I'm not going to go through thistable line by line.
It is a little bit detailed andfeel free to sort of browse
over this at your own leisure,but I think the key points
really to make here is, if welook at sort of total supply,
(09:35):
it's really stable at aroundseven to seven and a half
million ounces per year.
And if we look at sort of totaldemand, it's again sort of
around that 8 million ounces ayear.
So if you just sort of do thebasic maths and look at the last
line in this table, platinummarkets are undersupplied and
(09:57):
they've been in a supply deficitsince 2023, and a fairly
meaningful supply deficit atthat, with annual supply
shortfalls upwards of 10% oftotal demand.
So significant marketimbalances going on at the
moment and this chart is reallyjust showing the platinum market
(10:25):
surplus or deficit over alonger period of time, dating
back to 2013.
But again, I think the keypoint is obviously
forward-looking, where theforecasts are for substantial
and consecutive market deficitsout to at least 2029.
And I think I would just pointout that the WPIC only sort of
(10:47):
forecasts five years out.
So if we were to forecastfurther afield, I think the
logical conclusion is thatdeficits continue.
So I guess, looking at morerecent market dynamics and
really what's driving prices,let's just touch on prices
(11:07):
because that is the big talkingpoint at the moment.
These two charts are justyear-to-date price relatives.
Looking at platinum, the topleft-hand charts are really
looking at platinum against asort of basket of other
commodities palladium, gold,silver, copper, nickel and iron
(11:28):
ore.
Really platinum was sort ofmiddle of the road for much of
the year but price action reallystarted to kick off in May and
year to date it is sort ofobviously the standout performer
amongst a sort of suite ofcommodities.
And then, similarly, if youcompare platinum to other asset
classes, including equity andthe dollar et cetera, again
(11:51):
platinum is comfortablyoutperforming year to date.
And so really, if we're tryingto sort of crystallize well,
what's driving this priceperformance, we sort of want to
sort of summarize it in sixcharts and we do go into a
little more detail later in thepresentation, just unpacking
these six themes.
(12:11):
But I'll sort of briefly goover them now.
So the first is what we've kindof already touched on is we see
the platinum market in thelong-term deficit of being
undersupplied.
So that's the long-term deficitof being undersupplied.
So that's the long-term theme.
The short-term theme is reallythe top chart on the middle here
(12:31):
and that's a market that's goneinto deep backwardation in your
London OTC swap markets andreally what that's saying is
that users of platinum arereally willing to pay a
significant premium to get metalimmediately as opposed to
getting metal three to sixmonths out.
(12:53):
And really I'll dig into what'sdriven that, but it's really
been sort of tariffs and a lotof geopolitical sort of moves
that is driving that sort ofthat deep backwardation and the
sort of lack of physicalavailability in your sort of
loco London and Zurich markets.
(13:15):
Top right-hand chart is reallylooking a little bit deeper at
the supply side dynamics and thelong-term trend, sort of going
back to 2013, is really adownward trend in platinum
supply and that is coming bothfrom mining as well as sort of
recycling and that's a trendthat is likely to continue.
And then bottom left-hand trendis the automotive demand sort
(13:38):
of story.
I think platinum has sort ofsuffered from a narrative of the
electrified drivetrain and avery rapid adoption of electric
vehicles globally and this isgoing to cause a lot of demand
erosion and whilst we do seesome downside risks to platinum
demand in the automotiveindustry, I think there are
(13:59):
definite upside signals that arecoming out the market and that
is likely to sort of materiallyslow the rate of demand erosion
in platinum.
Another key narrative that'songoing at the moment the center
graph, at the bottom row ofcharts there is really a jewelry
(14:19):
story where the sharp uptick ingold prices is leading
consumers to look foralternative jewelry purchasing
options, and platinum has reallybeen a beneficiary of that, and
so we've seen strong platinumjewelry demand in the first
quarter.
We are getting strongindications in the second
(14:39):
quarter, and then the final sortof theme that we'll chat about
is really platinum's catch-uptrade to gold.
That's on the bottom right-handchart where platinum prices
until two months ago hadsignificantly, on a relative
basis, underperformed that ofgold.
I think investors were seeingattractive relative valuations.
(15:02):
So let's just touch on thefirst of those 16s that I just
sort of went over there andthat's really the long-term
dynamics of Platinum and, as Isort of noted, we sort of see
the market in substantial supplyshortfalls for a very long time
.
Looking into the future,implication of this is that
(15:50):
where you have above groundplatinum holdings and sort of
vaults across Switzerland andconstantly being required to
meet market demand, shortfallsand therefore depleting, and we
see a depletion of this aboveground metal sometime in 2028,
2029.
And ultimately, what adepletion of this volatile metal
means is that you need toeither see price increases
(16:12):
incentivize new supply coming tothe market or you need to see
demand erosion, and what we'veseen in the last few months is
really the first of thoseinstances happening.
That is, price increasesbeginning to incentivize some
new forms of supply andparticularly out of ETFs.
And that's the bottom chart, onthe bottom graph on this slide,
(16:35):
where really you sort of seethe line the blue line there is
platinum prices.
On your right-hand axis and thegray sort of bars there are ETF
holdings and we sort of see, asprices begin to increase, you
start to see an unwind of ETFholdings.
Roughly sort of 250,000 ounceshave been sold in July and
(16:58):
that's really reflecting someprofit taking where we sort of
estimate a lot of these ETFholdings were accumulated at
around $1,000 to $1,100 an ounce.
So at obviously $1,400 an ounceplatinum prices, it is natural
that you start to see someinvestors capitalize and take
(17:20):
some profits.
The second theme that we alludedto was very much short-term
based and short-term markettightness.
So how did the short-termmarket tightness really arise.
Really, the sort of threat oftariffs following Donald Trump's
(17:47):
election in November 2024 sortof began to emerge towards the
back end of last year, and so,with the risk of platinum facing
import tariffs into the UnitedStates, what we began to see is
an accumulation of stocks onyour NIMEX exchange.
So these stocks are reallybacking your derivative
(18:13):
contracts on volumes traded onNYMEX, and so really, us
participants were sort of frontrunning potential tariffs and
moving metal from Europe toNorth America, and you can sort
of see that uptick in metalmoved across in the top
left-hand graph.
(18:33):
And as Liberation Day came, onthe 2nd of April, you saw
platinum holdings peak at around630,000 ounces on NYMEX and
subsequently decline to around280,000 ounces over the next two
or three months, as we foundout that platinum is not
(18:56):
directly going to face importtariffs into the US.
However, we again see theseholdings tick up in the last
month or so as we sort of as theUS administration has now
placed tariffs on copper imports.
So this again raises the sortof risk that platinum and other
(19:20):
white metals may be subject totariffs, and so drawing this
metal out of Europe has sort oftightened European sort of OTC
markets and we sort of, andthat's created that sort of deep
level of backwardation that youcan see in the top right-hand
(19:41):
chart, and alongside thatbackwardation you sort of see
platinum lease rates in Europesort of spiking as well, and
lease rates going from sort ofless than 5% for much of the
last two years to, at one point,north of 20% in the last couple
(20:01):
of days is really sort ofhighlighting that there is
functionally a lack of physicalplatinum metal in Europe and so
the market is really sort ofstruggling to sort of find metal
, and that is supporting sort ofplatinum prices, particularly
(20:24):
at the moment.
The third theme that we sort oftouched on was a long-term
supply erosion theme, and thisis both from recycling and
mining supply.
So we'll first just look atmining supply, and this chart
sort of just highlights firstquarter refined production over
the last sort of six or sevenyears in each of the key
(20:47):
geographies, and I think thescale is quite important here in
that South Africa, as I alludedto, is around 70% of global
supply and that's just reallybeen on a downward trend
consistently over a long-termbasis.
And what's really been drivingthis is stagnant platinum prices
(21:10):
since around 2018, 2017, sortof being sub $1,000 and else,
and so the miners have notinvested in new supply and
ultimately mines do takeanywhere from seven to 10 years
to develop, and so the recentuptick in platinum prices is not
(21:34):
going to sort of change what isfundamentally a long-term trend
of supply erosion.
So I think the market is reallysort of cottoning on to this
idea that demand is strong andsupply is structurally facing
erosion, and so you do havethese entrenched sort of
(21:55):
supply-demand imbalances.
The other aspect of supply isrecycling volumes.
So functionally recycling comesfrom as a vehicle gets scrapped
, the autocatalyst on thatvehicle is removed and stripped
and taken to a refinery wherethe PGMs on the autocatalyst are
(22:16):
recovered through various sortof pyrometallurgical processes.
The problem with recycling isthat you know, between what you
can sort of see in this charthere is between 2013 and 2021,
you sort of saw a sort of broaduptrend in recycling supply and
so that sort of alleviated a lotof fears that mining supply
(22:38):
might sort of underperform.
Other recycling suppliesactually also began to
underperform and again this is afunction of lower prices for
(22:58):
PGMs, disincentivizing the sortof economic rationale to collect
scrapped auto catalysts.
Additionally, since COVID andwork from home, trends have sort
of arisen.
People are tending to driveless are tending to drive less
and another factor that's sortof reducing the supply of
scrapped vehicles is that newcar prices have substantially
(23:19):
risen over the last three yearsand that was sort of initially a
function of your semiconductorshortages which sort of played
into higher new car pricing andwith higher new car prices a lot
of consumers turn to secondhandvehicles, which raise the value
of secondhand prices andfunctionally, if the value of a
secondhand car is worth more tokeep it on the road, it doesn't
(23:40):
find its way into a scrapyard,which ultimately means that the
auto catalyst is not gettingrecycled, means that the
autocatalyst is not gettingrecycled.
So a lot of factors haveculminated into recycling supply
actually underperforming and soagain now, in combination with
weaker and eroding mine supply,that's really sort of informing
(24:01):
the total supply outlook for themedium to longer term as being
fairly depressed.
The sort of fourth theme that Iwanted to touch on was
automotive demand and some ofthe upside scenarios that we are
potentially seeing, and Ishould say sort of upside
relative to, I guess, a fairlysomber base case of sort of
(24:23):
demand erosion.
What we've really seen isrenewed narratives of tightening
emission legislation.
So out of China, severalgovernment agencies have looked
at emission legislation andthere has been accusations of
(24:44):
cheating, particularly amongstthe commercial vehicle segment.
And so there's a review inprogress of Chinese regulations.
And then alongside that, chinawill sort of publish a draft
proposal of what they call China7 emission legislation in 2026
(25:05):
for potential implementation in2028.
And with each new sort ofpublication of emission
legislation standards tend totighten, which functionally
means that regulators andgovernment officials want to see
stricter emission standardsimplemented, which means less
(25:27):
harmful emissions being releasedby the tailpipe, which
functionally means more PGMsgoing into catalytic converters.
So there is upside comingthrough in China as well as the
US.
Whilst the narrative coming outof the US is anti-electric
vehicle, that doesn'tnecessarily mean they're anti
(25:52):
sort of emission control.
I think that's an importantsort of distinction to make.
And so within the US if thereis downside risk to electric
vehicle, there's electricvehicle demand.
There's obviously upside riskto combustion engine vehicle
demand and hybrid vehicle demand.
And so we sort of see thatplaying out in the medium term
(26:13):
as well relative to some of ourprevious base case forecasts.
So where we had a base casedemand erosion of around one and
a half percent per annum forplatinum demand in the
automotive sector.
You know, that's potentiallypotentially sort of closer to
half a percent per annum if someof these upside narratives play
out.
(26:34):
The other thing we touched onwas jewelry demand and really
this is a relative sort of themeagainst gold, as I sort of
alluded to, platinum is reallycompeting against gold jewelry
and also white gold jewelry andwhat we've sort of seen here the
top chart is focusing on thefirst quarter of this year, with
(26:56):
higher gold prices, goldobviously increasing at the
start of the year from around$2,800 per ounce to around
$3,400 per ounce.
Those price increases falteredthrough to, obviously, jewelry
prices and what we sort of sawin China.
Gold jewelry demand was downroughly a third in the first
quarter and platinum prices tothat point hadn't really sort of
(27:20):
risen all that much in Q1.
And so we saw a lot of thatdemand sort of shift into
platinum.
I will sort of just quicklypoint out there are very
different scales of the Chinesemarket where gold jewelry demand
is.
Those bars are based on tonsand platinum is based on kilo
(27:42):
ounces.
So you're talking about thegold market being massive.
Relative to platinum it'sroughly sort of 35 times the
size, just for some context.
So for platinum you only reallyneed to get small market share
gains from gold jewelry in Chinato really have a meaningful
(28:05):
sort of impact on the totalplatinum market.
And I think that's what we'vestarted to see towards the back
end of Q1 and particularly intoQ2.
And the bottom graph here ismore of a, I guess, a developed
market story where platinum isreally competing against white
gold in North America and Europe.
(28:25):
And again this comes down tothe relative pricing dynamics of
the underlying metals, wheregold has been very strong and
that has pushed up the price ofwhite gold.
And so at a retail level whatwe're starting to see is that on
like-for-life jewelry piecesplatinum is actually priced at
(28:49):
parity or even sometimes at adiscount to white gold jewelry.
And I think with a lot of yourdeveloped market consumers, when
offered the choice betweenwhite gold and platinum, most
consumers would choose platinum,just based on that entrenched
sort of I guess consumer sort ofperception that platinum is the
(29:11):
premium metal.
If you sort of think aboutbronze, silver, gold, platinum
in that sort of consumer slashmarketing narrative.
So when you start to get thatretail prosperity between white
gold and platinum, there reallyis that sort of consumer demand
stimulus coming through forplatinum, that sort of consumer
(29:31):
demand stimulus coming throughfor platinum, and that's a very
positive demand story that weare seeing playing out currently
.
In summary, I'll sort of circleback to the six charts that we
sort of used to summarize things.
We've got long-term deficits.
We've got short-term markettightness.
We've got a weak outlook forsupply, both on the mining side
(29:57):
and recycling side.
We've got upside potential forautomotive demand.
We've got immediate upsidepotential for jewelry demand,
platinum's catch-up traderelative to gold, which are
really sort of all culminatingtogether to sort of support the
(30:17):
50-odd percent increase that wehave seen in platinum prices to
date.
I think the other factor which Ithink deserves its own sort of
discussion point has really beenChina, particularly this year.
What we've seen out of China isextremely, extremely strong
(30:38):
demand from that market for bothinvestment products as well as
jewelry.
The chart on the left-hand sideshows volumes on the Shanghai
Gold Exchange, shows volumes onthe Shanghai Gold Exchange.
What we can see here in 2025,volumes on the SGE have already
(30:59):
sort of exceeded that of 2023full-year volumes and are
broadly catching up to 2024'sfull-year volumes, even though
we are only effectively halfwaythrough the year, even though we
are only effectively halfwaythrough the year.
And I think what's important tonote about SGE volumes is that
it's actually a one-way flow, soyou're only able to buy
(31:23):
platinum on SGE.
You're not actually able tosell it back on SGE.
So, given that it's one-wayflow, this ultimately is
indicative of end-user demandand less so of investors trading
back and forth.
So I think that's an importantpoint to note.
(31:48):
Specifically within the grayline is Chinese platinum imports
, which were until this year,you know, on a fairly sort of
consistent downtrend since themiddle of 2023.
And they've sort of broken outof their sort of downtrend in
the last sort of quarter or soand specifically in the second
(32:10):
quarter of 2025, chineseplatinum imports were up 26%.
So really and that sort ofreally accelerated price moves
on a global basis for platinum.
And so what's really drivingthe China demand story is really
(32:30):
two things.
It's both investment demand andthat's for physical investment
products, so bars and coins, aswell as jewelry, or it doesn't
have any sort of exchange, suchas a 9X exchange which you could
(32:55):
sort of trade derivativecontracts for platinum.
So for investors to getexposure to this metal, it is
largely a physical market, andso we've seen an explosion of
demand for platinum bar and coin.
And I've just come back fromShanghai and Shenzhen two weeks
ago and speaking to some of thebar and coin fabricators, you
(33:20):
have fabricators who last yearwere doing average production
volumes of around 50 kilograms amonth.
This year they're sort ofrecording some months doing 500
kilograms in a single month.
They're recording some monthsdoing 500 kilograms in a single
month.
So in one month they hadeffectively done what they did
(33:41):
the entirety of last year.
So an explosion of demand fromfabricators.
But in addition to that sort oflike-for-like demand increase,
you've seen an increase inactual the number of fabricators
.
You've seen an increase inactual the number of fabricators
.
So, anecdotally, last yearthere were about 8 to 10
fabricators producing platinumbars of coins in China.
That number is probably closerto 25 to 30 at the moment.
(34:04):
So not only are you seeing thefabricators from last year
increasing their like-for-likevolumes, you're seeing more
participation in the market.
So that just gives you an ideaof the activity that's happening
in China.
And it's a similar story injewelry, albeit not as explosive
.
So again speaking to some ofthe jewelry manufacturers
(34:29):
Fabricator last year doing onaverage around 350, 360
kilograms per month.
This year his monthly averageis up to about 600 kilograms per
month, so a comfortable 50%year-on-year increase in
fabrication volumes.
And that is really incombination with the investment
(34:51):
narrative driving things forward.
And to translate thefabrication component into a
sort of more wholesale andretail component, we've gone to
the sort of wholesale markets inShenzhen in China.
Like I said, I was there abouttwo weeks ago and where last
(35:11):
year you sort of saw very much ascarcity of platinum jewelry
counters and stores.
You've seen a number of newstores open up this year in
Shenzhen, sort of pushingplatinum that really comes from.
(35:33):
As I sort of alluded to earlier, chinese gold demand for
jewelry was down 30% in thefirst quarter, driven by the
high gold price drivingconsumers away into cheaper
platinum, which at the time wasone-third the price of gold.
So it's really been quite astrong story and some of the
(35:54):
feedback from Shanghai Platinum,which was two weeks ago, was
strong jewelry, stronginvestment demand.
I'm not going to go through eachof the bullet points and I
think I did allude to earlierupside potential within the
automotive sector which isexpecting to see some new,
tighter emission legislationcome through in the next couple
of years which will sort ofsupport a sort of step change in
(36:19):
platinum, palladium and rhodiumdemand.
So I think China's been anexceptionally positive story
this year and I think that sortof speaks to what I alluded to
earlier is markets competing forvery scarce and critical mud
rolls where China is sort ofpulling in a lot of metal.
(36:39):
Europe clearly has a shortageof metal where you can sort of
see that market in backwardAsian and North America also
pulling in a lot of metal tosort of de-risk against
potential tariffs.
So you sort of are seeing thesesort of geographic dislocations
and sort of that is sort ofsupporting platinum markets
(37:00):
alongside the underlyingfundamentals which I alluded to
are very attractive.
But just talking of geopoliticsand tariffs, I mentioned that
platinum is not directlytariffable under the sort of
latest US tariff guidelines.
However, there are someelements of platinum that are
(37:23):
tariffable and specificallythese are finished platinum
products.
So platinum jewelry will besubject to a tariff and platinum
bars be subject to a tariff anduh, platinum bars are subject
to a tariff.
So so platinum, so platinumcoins which would be defined as
legal tender are not tariffable.
(37:44):
And then you know, raw platinumin sponge or in good form are
not tariffable.
So to sort of hopefullysimplify this for the audience
automakers who need platinum fortheir catalytic converters or
industrial petrochemical usersof platinum, for instance, they
(38:05):
will import platinum in whatthey call sponge form, so that
won't be subject to a tariff.
But if you're importing finishedproducts like platinum jewelry
or platinum bars for investmentpurposes, that is subject to a
tariff, which currently standsat the baseline tariff of 10%,
(38:30):
and that's potentially and Ithink Matt may want to sort of
allude on this that makessomething like ETF, investing in
ETFs, a more attractiveproposition for the time being
than something like physicalbars and coins, which do face
tariff risk.
And I think I alluded to thefact that lease rates were
(38:51):
exceptionally high in Europe andthose high lease rates are
actually sort of restrictingsupply of platinum coins as well
.
So again, etf as a form ofinvestment looks very clean at
this point in time and theoutlook from that aspect is
quite appealing.
(39:12):
That's what I sort of wanted totouch on and I appreciate I've
gone through quite a lot andpotentially there are sort of
gaps where I haven't sort ofcovered and I'm sort of happy to
sort of elaborate further.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
Perfect Again, folks, for those that are here for the
CE credits, I'll email youafter this webinar.
Stick around for a little bitmore here.
I feel like we should touch onGraniteShares in the context of
this, by the way.
Phenomenal presentation,incredible data.
Everybody that's watching thisfound it very interesting,
because it does obviouslyexplain a good amount of this
move.
But, Matt, talk aboutGraniteShares and some of the
(39:51):
exposure that you guys offer.
Speaker 3 (39:54):
So Granite Shares.
We sponsor the ETF PLTM, that'sPaul, larry, tom, mary.
It is a physically backed ETF.
We have our vault located inLondon, right near the LNE, to
make things extremely efficient.
(40:15):
What we focus on here atGranite Shares is tracking the
spot price and making sure thatwe are doing it in a
cost-efficient manner.
We're offering our ETF at thelowest expense ratio in the
marketplace, and we wanted tomake sure that we increased
transparency as well, so eachand every one of our platinum
(40:35):
bars is serial marked and listedon our website, so that way,
you can track them all yourself.
It's a metal that we'reextremely excited about.
Our volumes have been extremelyhealthy.
We've seen a tremendous amountof inflows this year, and the
spreads tend to be extremelytight.
It's a metal that we're goingto be continuously promoting and
(40:57):
, for people that have signed on, I'm going to be reaching out
to you to address any questionsthat you may have on it or on
the ETF in particular.
Speaker 2 (41:05):
Is there a way for those that might be curious to
get a copy of this presentation,for them to do so?
Speaker 1 (41:09):
Absolutely.
This presentation is not on ourwebsite, but if someone wants
to reach out to myself orBrendan, or either yourself,
michael or Matt, we can send itthrough to you and we're happy
that this presentation getsdistributed to participants on
the call.
Speaker 3 (41:28):
I'll be more than happy to send that out to
anybody that requests it.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
Appreciate everybody joining again.
Look out for an email from mefor the CE credit and hopefully
we'll see you on the nextwebinar.
Again, this webinar issponsored by Granite Shares.
Thank you buddy, thank you Wade, thank you Matt.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
Thank you everybody, thanks everyone.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
Cheers everybody.
The problem with recycling is that, between what
you can sort of see in thischart here is between 2013 and
2021, you sort of saw a sort ofbroad uptrend in recycling
supply, and so that sort ofalleviated a lot of fears that
mining supply might sort ofunderperform.
However, recycling supply hasactually also begun to
(00:22):
underperform.
Also began to underperform, andagain this is a function of
lower prices for PGMs,disincentivizing the sort of
economic rationale to collectscrapped autocatalysts.
Additionally, since COVID andwork-from-home trends have sort
of arisen, people are tending todrive less, and another factor
(00:46):
that's sort of reducing thesupply of scrapped vehicles is
that new car prices havesubstantially risen over the
last three years.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Do me a favor for those of you that are financial
advisors If you happen to be inan office with other financial
advisors, please let them knowthat this isn't going to be
happening during this rough hourtime period.
I think you'll find interesting.
I think a lot of yourcolleagues will find this
interesting, with a part of thecommodity space which is, if you
haven't noticed, gone kind ofvertical.
We're going to get into thereasons why, with some real
experts here.
For those that are here for theCE credits from the CFP board,
(01:28):
I will email you after thiswebinar, get your information,
submit those.
So just stay tuned for that.
You will get an email from meto get that relevant information
to submit for the CE credits.
And, as always, appreciate thosethat attend these webinars that
I host on a pretty regularbasis now with various clients
of Lead Lag Media.
So, with all that said, my nameis Michael Guy, a publisher of
(01:49):
Lead Lag Report.
I want to introduce my friend,mr Matt Lamb of Granite Chairs,
and then we'll get right intotoday's topic around Platinum's
Moments.
So, matt, go ahead.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
Morning everybody, and thank you for your
attendance.
We greatly appreciate it.
We're really excited around themetal of platinum.
Matt Lamb, I am the point ofcontact here at Granite Shares
and our alternative analyst.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Of course, the man of the hour, mr Wade.
Napier Wade, introduce yourself, and you know this is going to
be your show, so we'll be in thebackground, but feel free to
show the slides when ready.
And, by the way, folks, if youwant to do a Q&A or ask
questions, type it in the chat,type in the Q&A.
We'll address it towards theend.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
So go ahead, wade.
Thanks, michael, thanks forhaving us this afternoon or
morning, wherever you are, andthank you, matt, for hosting us
today.
My name is Wade Napier.
I'm the sort of senior analystat the World Platinum Investment
Council.
I'm the sort of senior analystat the World Platinum Investment
Council.
Obviously, our role as anindustry organization is to
(02:55):
promote platinum andspecifically to promote investor
interest in platinum andholding platinum as an
investment asset, obviously forprice appreciation.
Just a little bit of mybackground.
I come from a soul side equityresearch background specifically
covering a full suite ofcommodities ranging from the
(03:16):
precious metals themselves tobulk commodities, as well as
forestry and paper.
So that's just a little bitabout me Today.
I'm just going to run everyonethrough the investment case for
platinum as we see it.
As with all presentations,please feel free to read the
copyright and disclaimer notice.
I'm not going to go throughthat now.
(03:37):
I have briefly touched on whothe World Platinum Investment
Council is, but just for thesake of repeating myself, our
shareholders are Platinum GroupMetal Miners.
They founded the World PlatinumInvestment Council in 2014.
And ultimately, our goal is toprovide actionable insights and
(03:58):
market development for platinumas an investment asset.
We have partners around theworld who we work with,
developing the physical bar andcoin market for platinum
products I won't go through themand then we also offer a suite
of investment-based research onplatinum markets and that is all
(04:23):
freely available on the WorldPlatinum Investments Council's
website.
So feel free to go to thewebsite.
As I said, everything is freeand there is a lot of
information within the sort ofstanding library.
But maybe sort of jumping intothe crux of the presentation
(04:44):
today, that's sort of the agendaI have sort of mapped out and I
think I'm going to start thingsoff quite simple and just
really go through Platinum'sbackground and just starting
with, what is Platinum?
What does the supply ofPlatinum look like like?
(05:09):
I think, broadly speaking, wethink platinum alongside its
sister precious metals, namelygold and silver.
But the unique thing withplatinum is really its scarcity,
in that it is about 120th themarket size of gold and about
130th the market size of silver.
So this is a very scarce metaland I think to add context to
the scarcity of platinum, youreally need to look to see where
(05:33):
does this metal come from, andthat is the chart on the
right-hand side of the slidewhich really highlights that
about 70% of global mine supplyof platinum annually comes from
South Africa.
So it's very concentrated toSouth Africa and then, further
to that concentration in SouthAfrica, another 10% would
(05:55):
roughly come from Russia andanother 10% roughly from
Zimbabwe.
So when you think aboutplatinum supply, specifically
mine supply, when you thinkabout platinum supply
(06:28):
specifically mine supply, veryconcentrated to what you would
in no uncertain terms say fairlyrisky geographies trends are
with regards to sort of resourcenationalization and sort of the
global sort of scramble forcritical minerals that are
particularly useful in greentransitions and technology
developments going forward.
So very concentrated sort ofsupply side dynamics for
platinum.
Just looking at sort of a briefsnapshot of demand and just to
give the audience a little bitof a flavor there, there's four
(06:51):
key demand sort of drivers forplatinum.
First is the automotive sector,which accounts for about 40% of
annual demand, where platinumis used in catalytic converters,
essentially emission controltechnology reducing harmful
emissions out of the back ofyour vehicle's tailpipe.
So it's specifically used incombustion engine vehicles and
(07:15):
hybrid vehicles.
There's no catalytic converterneeded for a battery electric
vehicle.
The other sector is jewelry.
Self-explanatory Platinumcompetes with gold jewelry and
white gold jewelry in the sortof higher-end market space and
jewelry demand accounts forroughly 30% of the annual
(07:38):
platinum demand.
Sorry, third key segment isindustrial applications.
Platinum has very uniquephysiochemical properties and
really what platinum's role inindustrial applications is to
support process efficiency andenergy efficiency, ultimately
increasing product yields from amultiple suite of end markets.
(08:06):
So namely sort of chemicalindustry, petrochemical industry
, glass fiber manufacturing,electronics industries, medical
industry.
So industrial is sort of like acatch-all sort of segment where
platinum has multiple, multipleapplications and again
accounting for about one quarterof annual demand.
(08:28):
And then finally investment,and that is physical platinum
bars and coins or alternatively,etfs, and I'm sure Matt will be
happy to elaborate on sort ofETFs later in the presentation.
So, tying supply and demandtogether, we get this process
(08:51):
flow diagram and again I thinkthe important points to
reiterate is that if you look onthe left-hand side, supply is
quite concentrated to SouthAfrica and if you look on the
right-hand side, demand isactually fairly nicely
diversified across the four keysegments that we discussed.
So that's just a little bit ofan intro into Platinum and now
(09:11):
we're sort of just going to lookat the supply-demand balance
and the sort of outlook over thenext five years or so.
I'm not going to go through thistable line by line.
It is a little bit detailed andfeel free to sort of browse
over this at your own leisure,but I think the key points
really to make here is, if welook at sort of total supply,
(09:35):
it's really stable at aroundseven to seven and a half
million ounces per year.
And if we look at sort of totaldemand, it's again sort of
around that 8 million ounces ayear.
So if you just sort of do thebasic maths and look at the last
line in this table, platinummarkets are undersupplied and
(09:57):
they've been in a supply deficitsince 2023, and a fairly
meaningful supply deficit atthat, with annual supply
shortfalls upwards of 10% oftotal demand.
So significant marketimbalances going on at the
moment and this chart is reallyjust showing the platinum market
(10:25):
surplus or deficit over alonger period of time, dating
back to 2013.
But again, I think the keypoint is obviously
forward-looking, where theforecasts are for substantial
and consecutive market deficitsout to at least 2029.
And I think I would just pointout that the WPIC only sort of
(10:47):
forecasts five years out.
So if we were to forecastfurther afield, I think the
logical conclusion is thatdeficits continue.
So I guess, looking at morerecent market dynamics and
really what's driving prices,let's just touch on prices
(11:07):
because that is the big talkingpoint at the moment.
These two charts are justyear-to-date price relatives.
Looking at platinum, the topleft-hand charts are really
looking at platinum against asort of basket of other
commodities palladium, gold,silver, copper, nickel and iron
(11:28):
ore.
Really platinum was sort ofmiddle of the road for much of
the year but price action reallystarted to kick off in May and
year to date it is sort ofobviously the standout performer
amongst a sort of suite ofcommodities.
And then, similarly, if youcompare platinum to other asset
classes, including equity andthe dollar et cetera, again
(11:51):
platinum is comfortablyoutperforming year to date.
And so really, if we're tryingto sort of crystallize well,
what's driving this priceperformance, we sort of want to
sort of summarize it in sixcharts and we do go into a
little more detail later in thepresentation, just unpacking
these six themes.
(12:11):
But I'll sort of briefly goover them now.
So the first is what we've kindof already touched on is we see
the platinum market in thelong-term deficit of being
undersupplied.
So that's the long-term deficitof being undersupplied.
So that's the long-term theme.
The short-term theme is reallythe top chart on the middle here
(12:31):
and that's a market that's goneinto deep backwardation in your
London OTC swap markets andreally what that's saying is
that users of platinum arereally willing to pay a
significant premium to get metalimmediately as opposed to
getting metal three to sixmonths out.
(12:53):
And really I'll dig into what'sdriven that, but it's really
been sort of tariffs and a lotof geopolitical sort of moves
that is driving that sort ofthat deep backwardation and the
sort of lack of physicalavailability in your sort of
loco London and Zurich markets.
(13:15):
Top right-hand chart is reallylooking a little bit deeper at
the supply side dynamics and thelong-term trend, sort of going
back to 2013, is really adownward trend in platinum
supply and that is coming bothfrom mining as well as sort of
recycling and that's a trendthat is likely to continue.
And then bottom left-hand trendis the automotive demand sort
(13:38):
of story.
I think platinum has sort ofsuffered from a narrative of the
electrified drivetrain and avery rapid adoption of electric
vehicles globally and this isgoing to cause a lot of demand
erosion and whilst we do seesome downside risks to platinum
demand in the automotiveindustry, I think there are
(13:59):
definite upside signals that arecoming out the market and that
is likely to sort of materiallyslow the rate of demand erosion
in platinum.
Another key narrative that'songoing at the moment the center
graph, at the bottom row ofcharts there is really a jewelry
(14:19):
story where the sharp uptick ingold prices is leading
consumers to look foralternative jewelry purchasing
options, and platinum has reallybeen a beneficiary of that, and
so we've seen strong platinumjewelry demand in the first
quarter.
We are getting strongindications in the second
(14:39):
quarter, and then the final sortof theme that we'll chat about
is really platinum's catch-uptrade to gold.
That's on the bottom right-handchart where platinum prices
until two months ago hadsignificantly, on a relative
basis, underperformed that ofgold.
I think investors were seeingattractive relative valuations.
(15:02):
So let's just touch on thefirst of those 16s that I just
sort of went over there andthat's really the long-term
dynamics of Platinum and, as Isort of noted, we sort of see
the market in substantial supplyshortfalls for a very long time
.
Looking into the future,implication of this is that
(15:50):
where you have above groundplatinum holdings and sort of
vaults across Switzerland andconstantly being required to
meet market demand, shortfallsand therefore depleting, and we
see a depletion of this aboveground metal sometime in 2028,
2029.
And ultimately, what adepletion of this volatile metal
means is that you need toeither see price increases
(16:12):
incentivize new supply coming tothe market or you need to see
demand erosion, and what we'veseen in the last few months is
really the first of thoseinstances happening.
That is, price increasesbeginning to incentivize some
new forms of supply andparticularly out of ETFs.
And that's the bottom chart, onthe bottom graph on this slide,
(16:35):
where really you sort of seethe line the blue line there is
platinum prices.
On your right-hand axis and thegray sort of bars there are ETF
holdings and we sort of see, asprices begin to increase, you
start to see an unwind of ETFholdings.
Roughly sort of 250,000 ounceshave been sold in July and
(16:58):
that's really reflecting someprofit taking where we sort of
estimate a lot of these ETFholdings were accumulated at
around $1,000 to $1,100 an ounce.
So at obviously $1,400 an ounceplatinum prices, it is natural
that you start to see someinvestors capitalize and take
(17:20):
some profits.
The second theme that we alludedto was very much short-term
based and short-term markettightness.
So how did the short-termmarket tightness really arise.
Really, the sort of threat oftariffs following Donald Trump's
(17:47):
election in November 2024 sortof began to emerge towards the
back end of last year, and so,with the risk of platinum facing
import tariffs into the UnitedStates, what we began to see is
an accumulation of stocks onyour NIMEX exchange.
So these stocks are reallybacking your derivative
(18:13):
contracts on volumes traded onNYMEX, and so really, us
participants were sort of frontrunning potential tariffs and
moving metal from Europe toNorth America, and you can sort
of see that uptick in metalmoved across in the top
left-hand graph.
(18:33):
And as Liberation Day came, onthe 2nd of April, you saw
platinum holdings peak at around630,000 ounces on NYMEX and
subsequently decline to around280,000 ounces over the next two
or three months, as we foundout that platinum is not
(18:56):
directly going to face importtariffs into the US.
However, we again see theseholdings tick up in the last
month or so as we sort of as theUS administration has now
placed tariffs on copper imports.
So this again raises the sortof risk that platinum and other
(19:20):
white metals may be subject totariffs, and so drawing this
metal out of Europe has sort oftightened European sort of OTC
markets and we sort of, andthat's created that sort of deep
level of backwardation that youcan see in the top right-hand
(19:41):
chart, and alongside thatbackwardation you sort of see
platinum lease rates in Europesort of spiking as well, and
lease rates going from sort ofless than 5% for much of the
last two years to, at one point,north of 20% in the last couple
(20:01):
of days is really sort ofhighlighting that there is
functionally a lack of physicalplatinum metal in Europe and so
the market is really sort ofstruggling to sort of find metal
, and that is supporting sort ofplatinum prices, particularly
(20:24):
at the moment.
The third theme that we sort oftouched on was a long-term
supply erosion theme, and thisis both from recycling and
mining supply.
So we'll first just look atmining supply, and this chart
sort of just highlights firstquarter refined production over
the last sort of six or sevenyears in each of the key
(20:47):
geographies, and I think thescale is quite important here in
that South Africa, as I alludedto, is around 70% of global
supply and that's just reallybeen on a downward trend
consistently over a long-termbasis.
And what's really been drivingthis is stagnant platinum prices
(21:10):
since around 2018, 2017, sortof being sub $1,000 and else,
and so the miners have notinvested in new supply and
ultimately mines do takeanywhere from seven to 10 years
to develop, and so the recentuptick in platinum prices is not
(21:34):
going to sort of change what isfundamentally a long-term trend
of supply erosion.
So I think the market is reallysort of cottoning on to this
idea that demand is strong andsupply is structurally facing
erosion, and so you do havethese entrenched sort of
(21:55):
supply-demand imbalances.
The other aspect of supply isrecycling volumes.
So functionally recycling comesfrom as a vehicle gets scrapped
, the autocatalyst on thatvehicle is removed and stripped
and taken to a refinery wherethe PGMs on the autocatalyst are
(22:16):
recovered through various sortof pyrometallurgical processes.
The problem with recycling isthat you know, between what you
can sort of see in this charthere is between 2013 and 2021,
you sort of saw a sort of broaduptrend in recycling supply and
so that sort of alleviated a lotof fears that mining supply
(22:38):
might sort of underperform.
Other recycling suppliesactually also began to
underperform and again this is afunction of lower prices for
(22:58):
PGMs, disincentivizing the sortof economic rationale to collect
scrapped auto catalysts.
Additionally, since COVID andwork from home, trends have sort
of arisen.
People are tending to driveless are tending to drive less
and another factor that's sortof reducing the supply of
scrapped vehicles is that newcar prices have substantially
(23:19):
risen over the last three yearsand that was sort of initially a
function of your semiconductorshortages which sort of played
into higher new car pricing andwith higher new car prices a lot
of consumers turn to secondhandvehicles, which raise the value
of secondhand prices andfunctionally, if the value of a
secondhand car is worth more tokeep it on the road, it doesn't
(23:40):
find its way into a scrapyard,which ultimately means that the
auto catalyst is not gettingrecycled, means that the
autocatalyst is not gettingrecycled.
So a lot of factors haveculminated into recycling supply
actually underperforming and soagain now, in combination with
weaker and eroding mine supply,that's really sort of informing
(24:01):
the total supply outlook for themedium to longer term as being
fairly depressed.
The sort of fourth theme that Iwanted to touch on was
automotive demand and some ofthe upside scenarios that we are
potentially seeing, and Ishould say sort of upside
relative to, I guess, a fairlysomber base case of sort of
(24:23):
demand erosion.
What we've really seen isrenewed narratives of tightening
emission legislation.
So out of China, severalgovernment agencies have looked
at emission legislation andthere has been accusations of
(24:44):
cheating, particularly amongstthe commercial vehicle segment.
And so there's a review inprogress of Chinese regulations.
And then alongside that, chinawill sort of publish a draft
proposal of what they call China7 emission legislation in 2026
(25:05):
for potential implementation in2028.
And with each new sort ofpublication of emission
legislation standards tend totighten, which functionally
means that regulators andgovernment officials want to see
stricter emission standardsimplemented, which means less
(25:27):
harmful emissions being releasedby the tailpipe, which
functionally means more PGMsgoing into catalytic converters.
So there is upside comingthrough in China as well as the
US.
Whilst the narrative coming outof the US is anti-electric
vehicle, that doesn'tnecessarily mean they're anti
(25:52):
sort of emission control.
I think that's an importantsort of distinction to make.
And so within the US if thereis downside risk to electric
vehicle, there's electricvehicle demand.
There's obviously upside riskto combustion engine vehicle
demand and hybrid vehicle demand.
And so we sort of see thatplaying out in the medium term
(26:13):
as well relative to some of ourprevious base case forecasts.
So where we had a base casedemand erosion of around one and
a half percent per annum forplatinum demand in the
automotive sector.
You know, that's potentiallypotentially sort of closer to
half a percent per annum if someof these upside narratives play
out.
(26:34):
The other thing we touched onwas jewelry demand and really
this is a relative sort of themeagainst gold, as I sort of
alluded to, platinum is reallycompeting against gold jewelry
and also white gold jewelry andwhat we've sort of seen here the
top chart is focusing on thefirst quarter of this year, with
(26:56):
higher gold prices, goldobviously increasing at the
start of the year from around$2,800 per ounce to around
$3,400 per ounce.
Those price increases falteredthrough to, obviously, jewelry
prices and what we sort of sawin China.
Gold jewelry demand was downroughly a third in the first
quarter and platinum prices tothat point hadn't really sort of
(27:20):
risen all that much in Q1.
And so we saw a lot of thatdemand sort of shift into
platinum.
I will sort of just quicklypoint out there are very
different scales of the Chinesemarket where gold jewelry demand
is.
Those bars are based on tonsand platinum is based on kilo
(27:42):
ounces.
So you're talking about thegold market being massive.
Relative to platinum it'sroughly sort of 35 times the
size, just for some context.
So for platinum you only reallyneed to get small market share
gains from gold jewelry in Chinato really have a meaningful
(28:05):
sort of impact on the totalplatinum market.
And I think that's what we'vestarted to see towards the back
end of Q1 and particularly intoQ2.
And the bottom graph here ismore of a, I guess, a developed
market story where platinum isreally competing against white
gold in North America and Europe.
(28:25):
And again this comes down tothe relative pricing dynamics of
the underlying metals, wheregold has been very strong and
that has pushed up the price ofwhite gold.
And so at a retail level whatwe're starting to see is that on
like-for-life jewelry piecesplatinum is actually priced at
(28:49):
parity or even sometimes at adiscount to white gold jewelry.
And I think with a lot of yourdeveloped market consumers, when
offered the choice betweenwhite gold and platinum, most
consumers would choose platinum,just based on that entrenched
sort of I guess consumer sort ofperception that platinum is the
(29:11):
premium metal.
If you sort of think aboutbronze, silver, gold, platinum
in that sort of consumer slashmarketing narrative.
So when you start to get thatretail prosperity between white
gold and platinum, there reallyis that sort of consumer demand
stimulus coming through forplatinum, that sort of consumer
(29:31):
demand stimulus coming throughfor platinum, and that's a very
positive demand story that weare seeing playing out currently
.
In summary, I'll sort of circleback to the six charts that we
sort of used to summarize things.
We've got long-term deficits.
We've got short-term markettightness.
We've got a weak outlook forsupply, both on the mining side
(29:57):
and recycling side.
We've got upside potential forautomotive demand.
We've got immediate upsidepotential for jewelry demand,
platinum's catch-up traderelative to gold, which are
really sort of all culminatingtogether to sort of support the
(30:17):
50-odd percent increase that wehave seen in platinum prices to
date.
I think the other factor which Ithink deserves its own sort of
discussion point has really beenChina, particularly this year.
What we've seen out of China isextremely, extremely strong
(30:38):
demand from that market for bothinvestment products as well as
jewelry.
The chart on the left-hand sideshows volumes on the Shanghai
Gold Exchange, shows volumes onthe Shanghai Gold Exchange.
What we can see here in 2025,volumes on the SGE have already
(30:59):
sort of exceeded that of 2023full-year volumes and are
broadly catching up to 2024'sfull-year volumes, even though
we are only effectively halfwaythrough the year, even though we
are only effectively halfwaythrough the year.
And I think what's important tonote about SGE volumes is that
it's actually a one-way flow, soyou're only able to buy
(31:23):
platinum on SGE.
You're not actually able tosell it back on SGE.
So, given that it's one-wayflow, this ultimately is
indicative of end-user demandand less so of investors trading
back and forth.
So I think that's an importantpoint to note.
(31:48):
Specifically within the grayline is Chinese platinum imports
, which were until this year,you know, on a fairly sort of
consistent downtrend since themiddle of 2023.
And they've sort of broken outof their sort of downtrend in
the last sort of quarter or soand specifically in the second
(32:10):
quarter of 2025, chineseplatinum imports were up 26%.
So really and that sort ofreally accelerated price moves
on a global basis for platinum.
And so what's really drivingthe China demand story is really
(32:30):
two things.
It's both investment demand andthat's for physical investment
products, so bars and coins, aswell as jewelry, or it doesn't
have any sort of exchange, suchas a 9X exchange which you could
(32:55):
sort of trade derivativecontracts for platinum.
So for investors to getexposure to this metal, it is
largely a physical market, andso we've seen an explosion of
demand for platinum bar and coin.
And I've just come back fromShanghai and Shenzhen two weeks
ago and speaking to some of thebar and coin fabricators, you
(33:20):
have fabricators who last yearwere doing average production
volumes of around 50 kilograms amonth.
This year they're sort ofrecording some months doing 500
kilograms in a single month.
They're recording some monthsdoing 500 kilograms in a single
month.
So in one month they hadeffectively done what they did
(33:41):
the entirety of last year.
So an explosion of demand fromfabricators.
But in addition to that sort oflike-for-like demand increase,
you've seen an increase inactual the number of fabricators
.
You've seen an increase inactual the number of fabricators
.
So, anecdotally, last yearthere were about 8 to 10
fabricators producing platinumbars of coins in China.
That number is probably closerto 25 to 30 at the moment.
(34:04):
So not only are you seeing thefabricators from last year
increasing their like-for-likevolumes, you're seeing more
participation in the market.
So that just gives you an ideaof the activity that's happening
in China.
And it's a similar story injewelry, albeit not as explosive
.
So again speaking to some ofthe jewelry manufacturers
(34:29):
Fabricator last year doing onaverage around 350, 360
kilograms per month.
This year his monthly averageis up to about 600 kilograms per
month, so a comfortable 50%year-on-year increase in
fabrication volumes.
And that is really incombination with the investment
(34:51):
narrative driving things forward.
And to translate thefabrication component into a
sort of more wholesale andretail component, we've gone to
the sort of wholesale markets inShenzhen in China.
Like I said, I was there abouttwo weeks ago and where last
(35:11):
year you sort of saw very much ascarcity of platinum jewelry
counters and stores.
You've seen a number of newstores open up this year in
Shenzhen, sort of pushingplatinum that really comes from.
(35:33):
As I sort of alluded to earlier, chinese gold demand for
jewelry was down 30% in thefirst quarter, driven by the
high gold price drivingconsumers away into cheaper
platinum, which at the time wasone-third the price of gold.
So it's really been quite astrong story and some of the
(35:54):
feedback from Shanghai Platinum,which was two weeks ago, was
strong jewelry, stronginvestment demand.
I'm not going to go through eachof the bullet points and I
think I did allude to earlierupside potential within the
automotive sector which isexpecting to see some new,
tighter emission legislationcome through in the next couple
of years which will sort ofsupport a sort of step change in
(36:19):
platinum, palladium and rhodiumdemand.
So I think China's been anexceptionally positive story
this year and I think that sortof speaks to what I alluded to
earlier is markets competing forvery scarce and critical mud
rolls where China is sort ofpulling in a lot of metal.
(36:39):
Europe clearly has a shortageof metal where you can sort of
see that market in backwardAsian and North America also
pulling in a lot of metal tosort of de-risk against
potential tariffs.
So you sort of are seeing thesesort of geographic dislocations
and sort of that is sort ofsupporting platinum markets
(37:00):
alongside the underlyingfundamentals which I alluded to
are very attractive.
But just talking of geopoliticsand tariffs, I mentioned that
platinum is not directlytariffable under the sort of
latest US tariff guidelines.
However, there are someelements of platinum that are
(37:23):
tariffable and specificallythese are finished platinum
products.
So platinum jewelry will besubject to a tariff and platinum
bars be subject to a tariff anduh, platinum bars are subject
to a tariff.
So so platinum, so platinumcoins which would be defined as
legal tender are not tariffable.
(37:44):
And then you know, raw platinumin sponge or in good form are
not tariffable.
So to sort of hopefullysimplify this for the audience
automakers who need platinum fortheir catalytic converters or
industrial petrochemical usersof platinum, for instance, they
(38:05):
will import platinum in whatthey call sponge form, so that
won't be subject to a tariff.
But if you're importing finishedproducts like platinum jewelry
or platinum bars for investmentpurposes, that is subject to a
tariff, which currently standsat the baseline tariff of 10%,
(38:30):
and that's potentially and Ithink Matt may want to sort of
allude on this that makessomething like ETF, investing in
ETFs, a more attractiveproposition for the time being
than something like physicalbars and coins, which do face
tariff risk.
And I think I alluded to thefact that lease rates were
(38:51):
exceptionally high in Europe andthose high lease rates are
actually sort of restrictingsupply of platinum coins as well
.
So again, etf as a form ofinvestment looks very clean at
this point in time and theoutlook from that aspect is
quite appealing.
(39:12):
That's what I sort of wanted totouch on and I appreciate I've
gone through quite a lot andpotentially there are sort of
gaps where I haven't sort ofcovered and I'm sort of happy to
sort of elaborate further.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
Perfect Again, folks, for those that are here for the
CE credits, I'll email youafter this webinar.
Stick around for a little bitmore here.
I feel like we should touch onGraniteShares in the context of
this, by the way.
Phenomenal presentation,incredible data.
Everybody that's watching thisfound it very interesting,
because it does obviouslyexplain a good amount of this
move.
But, Matt, talk aboutGraniteShares and some of the
(39:51):
exposure that you guys offer.
Speaker 3 (39:54):
So Granite Shares.
We sponsor the ETF PLTM, that'sPaul, larry, tom, mary.
It is a physically backed ETF.
We have our vault located inLondon, right near the LNE, to
make things extremely efficient.
(40:15):
What we focus on here atGranite Shares is tracking the
spot price and making sure thatwe are doing it in a
cost-efficient manner.
We're offering our ETF at thelowest expense ratio in the
marketplace, and we wanted tomake sure that we increased
transparency as well, so eachand every one of our platinum
(40:35):
bars is serial marked and listedon our website, so that way,
you can track them all yourself.
It's a metal that we'reextremely excited about.
Our volumes have been extremelyhealthy.
We've seen a tremendous amountof inflows this year, and the
spreads tend to be extremelytight.
It's a metal that we're goingto be continuously promoting and
(40:57):
, for people that have signed on, I'm going to be reaching out
to you to address any questionsthat you may have on it or on
the ETF in particular.
Speaker 2 (41:05):
Is there a way for those that might be curious to
get a copy of this presentation,for them to do so?
Speaker 1 (41:09):
Absolutely.
This presentation is not on ourwebsite, but if someone wants
to reach out to myself orBrendan, or either yourself,
michael or Matt, we can send itthrough to you and we're happy
that this presentation getsdistributed to participants on
the call.
Speaker 3 (41:28):
I'll be more than happy to send that out to
anybody that requests it.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
Appreciate everybody joining again.
Look out for an email from mefor the CE credit and hopefully
we'll see you on the nextwebinar.
Again, this webinar issponsored by Granite Shares.
Thank you buddy, thank you Wade, thank you Matt.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
Thank you everybody, thanks everyone.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
Cheers everybody.
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