It’s all change within the precious metals space in recent months.
Up until late April, gold was the main outperformer amongst the precious metals in 2025 (i.e. gold, silver, platinum and palladium – FIG 1). The price had rallied sharply into April and was 30% higher YTD by the middle of that month (NB while the rest of the precious metals were unchanged at that time – see FIG 1). Gold then peaked on the 22nd, with an intraday high of $3,486, and has since traded sideways (in a range of $3,125 to $3,450). Of late, that range has been narrowing as the price has generated a pennant formation (a technical price pattern from which a breakout is likely in coming weeks).
Whilst gold has consolidated its price gains, though, other precious metals have taken up the (bullish) running. Silver, platinum and palladium have all been rallying sharply in recent weeks: Silver is up almost 20% since late May; palladium, having been unchanged from late 2023 through to early June this year, has rallied sharply since then; while platinum has been the standout performer with its futures up around 40% in the past 2 months (FIG 3). Multiple reasons have been put forward by market participants as to why platinum has been so strong including:
“supply constraints from South Africa”; “China’s growing appetite (for the metal)”; “Tariff concerns”; “supply deficit” and so on…
Source: International Precious Metals Institute (IPMI), 5th July 2025, https://www.ipmi.org/news/rally-platinum-prices-40-surge-reshapes-2025-market
Interestingly though, from a positioning perspective, Silver’s net speculative LONG positioning is back at record highs; Gold’s LONG positioning has been at high levels for a number of months (as highlighted in prior publications); while platinum positioning has picked up in recent weeks, as the commodity has rallied. It hasn’t, though, reached record levels. Palladium speculative positioning, meanwhile, is still net SHORT.
Overall, therefore, net LONG positioning in the precious metal space is high but not back at extreme levels (and not, therefore, signalling SELL on the group as a whole). Helping the case for silver, palladium and platinum, they all have industrial usage coupled with their traditional monetary/precious metal value status (unlike gold which is a pure monetary metal). As a global cyclical upswing likely emerges over the coming year, therefore, that is likely to further enhance the case for continued outperformance versus the pure monetary metal, i.e. versus gold.
FIG 1: Precious metals year to date price performance (% cumulative)
FIG 2: Precious metals net LONG speculative positioning (all four aggregated) vs. GSCI precious metals index (price return)
FIG 3: Platinum futures price ($/Oz)
