Physical Platinum, Palladium ETFs Set to Expand
Thursday, June 3rd, 2010Michael Johnston submits:
ETF Securities, the giant in the European ETF scene that made the jump to the U.S. market last year, announced this week that it plans to issue new shares of two of its most popular physically-backed commodity ETFs. Effective May 26, the number of shares registered for the ETFS Physical Platinum Shares (PPLT) increased from 4.78 million to 11.22 million, while the registered shares of the ETFS Physical Palladium Shares (PALL) will grow from 12.88 million to 18.8 million.
Each share of PPLT and PALL entitles the holder to approximately one-tenth of an ounce of the underlying metal, meaning that PPLT’s platinum holdings can now grow to just over 1.1 million ounces and the palladium held by PALL may now total almost 1.9 million ounces. In both cases, holdings at those levels would represent a significant portion of global supply. According to the prospectus filed by ETF Securities, total platinum demand in 2008 totaled just over 7.3 million ounces; palladium supply in the same year was about 7.9 million ounces.
