Palladium demand destructionThanks for viewing,
Some view platinum and palladium not as investment petals for various reasons, others disagree. I prefer (in rank) 1. gold (bullish), 2, silver (neutral), platinum (bearish). Platinum makes the list because I can purchase it in small increments - while palladium was only available in a minimum of 1oz coins (which had high premiums - as coins in general do). That said, I expect platinum to also show future weakness - potentially going sub $350ish - which is okay as it is a strategic metal that is relevant to defence applications among other things. The reasons I expect weakness in demand for Platinum (currently oversupplied) are the same as for Palladium (under-supply);
Palladium has had a huge run since 2008 - peaking at 16.5x and now at 10.5x over that time period. The major driver was a supply demand mis-match caused from strong demand from auto-catalysts for petrol vehicles. All that has changed dramatically in a short period. Demand has been destroyed for new motor vehicles. Light vehicle sales were down 34.6% in March www.marklines.com and that drop will be over-shadowed by the April drop. Hopefully, these drops are short-term and will bounce back shortly - like vehicle demand in China did - although estimates vary on the time-frame. I suspect we will see near-term demand reduced from 2019 levels for all of 2020.
Medium and long term factors are both negative for those expecting internal combustion light vehicles production levels to bounce bank to new highs. The most major impact will come from an unfolding de-leveraging. For those that blame the health crisis for 100% of the economic woes, please cast your eye a few months back when we had;
- an inverted yield curve,
- downgrades of global and regional GDP growth announced by the IMF, World Bank, BOJ, ECB, Fed etc etc,
- Cautions on the level of sovereign, corporate, and household debt levels,
- Interest rates in the US repo market spiking to over 11%,
- The Fed started QE4, or what they called "definitely not QE4",
- Large investment banks were announcing they were advising their clients to sell US equities because they saw limited upside remaining,
- The US continued on its longest and weakest economic expansion in history.
My general view is that this health crisis with its associated economic contraction brought forward (and exacerbated) what was already just around the corner - a recession.
Any deleveraging event was always going to have to be more significant than 2008-9 simply because debt levels are so much greater now - while incomes have stayed flat. So this will necessarily impact on discretionary consumer demand (and availability of consumer credit) for some time.
Price targets; 1300 should provide some support, stronger support at the $1140, and $1100 levels. 1:1 extension of the recent steep drop at $1060. This level may cause a strong bounce in 6 - 12 months (depending on industrial demand pick-up) - but after that who knows. The trajectory now seems to be away from diesel vehicles, especially since the VW scandal (which hasn't yet fully unfolded to reveal just how wide-spread the massaging of emissions results among the industry as a whole). Medium to long-term, there is every possibility that Palladium's new home will be below $1100.
Protect those funds everyone
