Platinum production falling in South Africa

Precious metals sold off again yesterday, but have staged a small recovery this morning – buoyed by news that the eurozone economy as a whole avoiding slipping back into recession, with 0% GDP growth in Q1 (it’s come to something when 0% growth is deemed “good news”). Relatively robust German growth of 0.5% contrasted with stagnation in France, and a 0.8% decline in Italy – the latter worse than the 0.7% fall economists had been expecting. Nevertheless, the German number is leading the news, which has for the moment at least arrested the drop in the euro and encouraged tentative buying of stocks and commodities.

The gold price chart looks healthier than silver at the moment; more bad economic news will likely push silver down below $28, at which point a look at a weekly silver price chart shows $26.25 as key support. Strong buying showed up around this price late last December, so we’ll just have to wait and see what happens. As far as upside moves in silver are concerned, buyers will need to push it back above $30 for there to even be a hint that we are out of the woods as far as this latest drawdown is concerned.

Johnson Matthey’s Platinum 2012 survey was released yesterday, which states that there will likely be a decline in shipments of platinum from South Africa – which has 80% of the world’s known Platinum Group Metal reserves within its borders – owing to production difficulties. As Reuters reports, some of this is because of the government’s laudable aim of increasing safety at mines, though labour unrest and power outages have also slowed production. Either way, long-term platinum price prospects are bullish from a supply-side perspective.