Platinum futures prices dropped to their lowest levels in more than five years Friday as overseas selling socked a market that is still bruised over prospects for slackening auto-industry demand.
Prices of other precious metals also retreated.On other commodity markets, grains and soybeans were mixed; oil futures were mixed; and livestock and meat were mixed.
Platinum futures settled $5 to $5.10 lower on the New York Mercantile Exchange with the contract for delivery in June at $368.90 a troy ounce, the lowest settlement of a near-term platinum contract since Feb. 14, 1986.
Gold futures finished $3.10 to $3.50 lower on New York's Commodity Exchange with June at $367.10 a troy ounce; silver was 9.3 cents to 10 cents lower with July at $4.427 a troy ounce.
Platinum's plunge marked the market's steepest daily decline since May 30, when prices plunged more than $20 an ounce after Nissan Motor Co. said it had developed a platinum-free catalytic converter.
Use of the metal in the pollution-control devices accounts for about 40 percent of world platinum consumption.
The platinum market, always volatile because it is thinly traded, has been prone to weakness since the Nissan announcement, said Bette Raptopoulos, metals analyst at Prudential-Bache Securities Inc. in New York.