We mentioned the recent intraday volatility in the Precious Metals futures markets and how it has translated through ETF trading in products such as GLD (SPDR Gold Trust, Expense Ratio 0.40%), IAU (iShares Gold, Expense Ratio 0.25%) and SLV (iShares Silver Trust, Expense Ratio 0.50%), and this presents an opportunity to speak about a related but perhaps lesser known precious metal, Platinum.
PPLT (ETFS Physical Platinum Shares, Expense Ratio 0.60%) is the most prominent name in the ETP space, having gathered $715 million in assets under management since its debut in 2010.
Interestingly, average trading volume is not terribly high at about 36,000 shares, which suggests that the assets that have accumulated in this fund are sticky buy and hold type assets.
Platinum prices have considerably lagged Gold prices since PPLT’s inception about four years ago, but there is clearly institutional interest in the metal as an asset judging by the popularity of this particular ETF. Intraday volatility in Platinum has not been as extreme as that in Gold or Silver in recent days, but that has not stopped PPLT from trading above average volume on this recent upswing in prices.
Asset flows have been somewhat quiet for PPLT lately, with net flows of -$20 million in the trailing one month but perhaps this changes given the recent choppiness in the Precious Metals markets. For those that are looking to aggressive trade in trending markets in the Platinum space, VelocityShares offers two little known funds, LPLT (VelocityShares 2X Long Platinum ETN, Expense Ratio 1.35%) and IPLT (VelocityShares 2X Long Platinum ETN, Expense Ratio 1.35%) which debuted in 2011.