Moreover, some precious metals enjoy increased industrial demand, along with their safe-haven status. For example, palladium has climbed this year due to a combination of auto sales or increased industrial usage and the extended low-rate environment, which has been supportive of metals group.
The increasing demand, notably high demand in emerging markets where there is a growing middle-income group, will continue to support the precious metals group.
“With a lot of these metals, it comes down to a really easy concept: a lot of demand and lack of supply,” Dunn said. “In that type of situation, you have sort of a rise in prices, and that’s what you see in things like the platinum and palladium world.”
Many of these precious metals are experiencing a net deficit where there is not as much supply being extracted from the earth.
Investors can look to number of precious metals through physically backed ETFs as a way to diversify a traditional stock and portfolio, including ETFS Physical Swiss Gold Shares (NYSEArca: SGOL), ETFS Physical Silver Shares (NYSEArca: SIVR), ETFS Physical Platinum Shares (NYSEArca: PPLT) and ETFS Physical Palladium Shares (NYSEArca: PALL). ETF investors can also use the ETFS Physical Precious Metals Basket Shares (NYSEArca: GLTR) as a catch-all of all four precious metals.