Since the second half of 2012, I have been bullish on platinum and palladium (PGM). I have focussed on a North American producer Stillwater Mining (SWC) and a junior developer Wellgreen Platinum (WGPLF) in the Yukon. Labor strikes in South Africa combined with economic sanctions on Russia could spark a renewed interest in North American PGM production. Remember South Africa, Russia and Zimbabwe are the world's largest supplier of this valuable metal and all these jurisdictions are extremely volatile right now. South Africa is the leading platinum producer and Russia is the world’s leading palladium exporter. Both these metals are outperforming in 2014 and the rally could just be beginning because demand for these metals are rising annually. PGM's are both a monetary metal as well as an industrial metal used in catalytic converters to reduce noxious emissions. Palladium is outperforming platinum and gold breaking through the $850 mark and platinum is also breaing. Watch nickel which exploded from the $6 area to over $9.50. The three reasons nickel is soaring in price is because Indonesia the largest nickel producer announced an export ban, Russia a large nickel producer has economic sanctions against it and existing producers such as Vale are announcing production problems. We have already seen nice gains in Royal Nickel (RNX) and Stillwater Mining (SWC) which have already made doubles and triples. The breakout move in nickel, palladium and platinum is just beginning and incredibly Wellgreen Platinum (WGPLF), which is highly leveraged to all three of these metals is sitting with a market cap below $50 million. Wellgreen has not yet participated with the rally in nickel and palladium, but that could change soon as they just announced a new resource estimate which shows the massive size of this deposit.
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