Market Report
Learn more about all important trends in the precious metals markets in our market reports on a regular basis.
In 2024, gold takes first place
No. 44 | 02nd December 2024
Gold and silver finished last week’s trading on level-pegging in year-to-date gains. Despite outperforming for most of the year, silver has slipped more than gold in recent weeks, meaning gold is (to date) the best-performing precious metal in 2024. Gold is up 29% on the year as of last Friday’s close, while silver is up 28%. Expectations of, and the initiation of, the Fed’s rate-cutting cycle are the most obvious catalyst for the rise in bullion prices this year and have provided the impetus for gold recording 36 new all-time highs as of the end of last week. Looking beyond the dollar, gold has been rising faster in a number of other major currencies. In yuan, euro and rupee terms, gold is up more than 30% year-to-date. This has resulted in some softening in consumer gold demand in price-sensitive markets such as China and India.
Alongside the macroeconomic drivers of the silver price, its industrial demand side has also been strong and driven again by the solar sector. Global industrial demand for silver is on track to reach a record high of at least 700 moz this year. Solar PV demand is the most important growth sector for industrial demand. China’s installations are on track to match 2023 levels, and installations are also growing in other regions – all of which contribute to more demand for silver paste. Silver has been the most volatile precious metal this year, with movement skewed to the upside.
Platinum and palladium have been relatively well-matched this year in terms of price performance, and for much of 2024 have been trading at near-parity. This is more reflective of palladium’s weakness than platinum’s strength, however. Despite a fundamental deficit in the platinum market, the price has declined year-to-date. The deficit has failed to boost the price owing to the significant volume of stocks after several years of oversupply. Those stocks are unlikely to be meaningfully depleted without several more years of undersupply.
EV sales forecast revisions have all been to the downside and have helped to improve palladium’s fundamentals but not the price. Palladium has essentially traded sideways for most of this year, with some volatility, having retraced all of the gains since 2019. While the slowdown in non-catalysed vehicle sales growth is a positive aspect, overall palladium autocatalyst demand is forecast to fall this year. Russian trade flows of palladium into China have risen this year (Asia is now the source of >50% of Nornickel’s revenues), which could mean Chinese end-users are less active on the spot market and thus local autocatalyst demand has not been as influential in driving the price.
The fate of the small PGM prices were remarkably similar until late September, when the ruthenium price rose sharply. Both iridium and ruthenium were in steady decline for most of the year. Underwhelming hydrogen market development has reduced expected PGM demand in electrolysis and fuel cell technology. Ruthenium’s price spike in late September was likely driven by hard-disk manufacturing and a demand recovery in China.
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