Platinum is the headline name, but five sister metals share its geology and many of its uses. A practical guide to the full PGM family for serious investors.
Most precious metals investors stop at gold, silver, and platinum. The PGM family has six members, and understanding how they trade together is essential for anyone serious about the complex.
The Six PGMs
Platinum (Pt) is the largest and most liquid, with diversified demand. Palladium (Pd) is gasoline-catalyst focused and dominated by Russian and South African supply. Rhodium (Rh) is the volatility king, used in tiny quantities in three-way catalysts but capable of wild price moves. Iridium (Ir) is the PEM electrolyser metal and crucible material. Ruthenium (Ru) serves chip and chemical markets. Osmium (Os) is essentially a curiosity outside specialised alloys.
How They Come Out of the Ground
- Bushveld ores typically run 60% Pt, 25% Pd, smaller fractions of Rh, Ir, Ru
- Russian Norilsk ore is palladium-dominant by mass and value
- North American Stillwater ore favours palladium over platinum 3:1
- Recovery sequences extract metals jointly, not individually
- Refining stages take 6-8 weeks from concentrate to refined ounces
"You do not produce rhodium. You produce platinum and rhodium falls out as 0.5% of the basket. That is why rhodium prices behave the way they do." - PGM refining engineer, Brimsdown
Price Behaviour and Volatility
Rhodium is the standout. It traded around $700 in 2017, peaked near $29,000 in March 2021, and has since collapsed back below $5,000. The market is tiny, illiquid, and dominated by automotive demand. Iridium has shown similar amplitude on the upside, briefly trading above $7,000 during the hydrogen narrative peak in 2022.
Palladium has been the second-largest market by value in recent years, sometimes overtaking platinum entirely. Its current decline reflects substitution, EV concerns, and Russian sanctions noise. Ruthenium has quietly risen on chip industry demand and is now finding new applications in hard drive coatings and chlor-alkali catalysts.
The investment implication is that PGM exposure is rarely pure. A long position in Sibanye-Stillwater is implicitly a basket trade across Pt, Pd, Rh, Ir, and Ru. Basket pricing matters more than spot platinum for mining equity returns. Investors who track only platinum spot will routinely misread mining company earnings.
Direct exposure to the smaller PGMs is harder. There is no liquid rhodium ETF, no iridium futures market, and ruthenium trades over the counter only. Specialist refiners and a few sophisticated funds run physical positions, but most retail investors gain exposure through mining equities or platinum-dominant ETFs.
For the WPIC and Johnson Matthey reports, the PGM basket is the actual subject of analysis even when platinum is the headline. Reading those documents linearly pays dividends because the cross-metal demand and supply dynamics show up in detail nowhere else.
Bottom line: the PGM family is six metals that share geology and refining but trade with very different liquidity, volatility, and demand drivers. Understanding the basket transforms how you evaluate mining equities and price moves. Anyone trading platinum without context on rhodium, iridium, and ruthenium is trading half the picture.
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