Palladium Rises to New Record High

By: Taarek Refaat

WASHINGTON, Jan. 8 (SEE)- Palladium climbed more than 1 percent on Tuesday, hitting a new record high in 2019, after being the best performer a year earlier.

The shortage of the metal used in diesel and gasoline-powered vehicles forced demand to increase, pushing up its price, widening the price differential gap with rival platinum to more than $ 500 an ounce.

The spot price of the white metal surged 1.2 percent to record $ 1321.38 an ounce after touching $ 1329.48 earlier in the trading to record its highest value in history.

Meanwhile, the price of platinum fell by 0.5 percent to record $ 817.56 per ounce.

Palladium continued to succeed gold, amidst a price drop of the yellow metal to record $ 1287.50 per ounce.

By the end of 2018, palladium achieved annual earnings of more than 18 percent, to be the best performing metal last year.

Palladium is one of the scarcest ores with about 15 times rarer than platinum and 30 times than gold. Around 50 percent of the global palladium production takes place in Russia and 30 percent in South Africa.