Platinum and other precious metals had a strong close to a good week with existing or planned exchange-traded funds partially responsible for the heavy investor demand. Platinum was perhaps the biggest mover on Friday in the precious metals market, however, with July platinum climbing on continued anticipation of a platinum exchange-traded fund soon to be launched in Europe.
Dow Jones reported that June gold rose $7.50 to finish at $695.80 a troy ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. July platinum soared $31.40 to $1,341.20 an ounce, May silver rose 22 cents to $13.955 an ounce, and June palladium climbed $8.25 to $388.25 an ounce.
Prices of copper have also be moving upwards fueled by rising demand from developed and especially emerging market countries like China. On the supply side, strikes and depleted exchange inventories have taken available supply off the table and created tight markets.
There isn't a copper ETF yet but there is the PowerShares DB Base Metals (DBB), which holds one-third each of copper, aluminum and zinc. Barclays has also filed for a Chile ETF and roughly 50% of its exports are copper exports.
By Carl Delfeld of the Chartwell ETF Advisor
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