Palladium climbed to a 13-year high in the longest run of gains in more than a month in New York on concern supply will lag demand and add to shortages. Gold fell.
Palladium, mostly used in catalytic converters in cars alongside platinum, advanced 25 percent this year as auto companies used more and as supply was cut by a mine strike that ended in June in South Africa, the second-biggest producer. Prices also rose as tension over Ukraine led to the U.S. and European Union slapping sanctions on Russia, the top supplier.
There have been no sanctions yet on palladium, which is heading for a third annual supply shortfall. Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said talks on the conflict in Ukraine haven’t produced a resolution, with the only progress made being on the passage of humanitarian aid. He expects truckloads of Russian aid for the Luhansk region to be delivered soon.
“Palladium has very good fundamentals,” Robin Bhar, an analyst at Societe Generale SA in London, said today by phone. There are “potential threats on Russian exports. The after- effects of the South African strike means output will suffer. There’s a sense that China and U.S. car sales remain buoyant.”
