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\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n \n \t\t\u00a9 Thomson Reuters 2012 All rights reserved<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" * Speculators bet on fall in S. Africa platinum output * Charts show platinum near overbought territory * Gold-platinum spread narrows after platinum rally * U.S. Redbook retail sales data Tuesday By Frank Tang NEW YORK, Aug 20 (Reuters) – Platinum prices jumped nearly 2 percent on Monday, hitting a two-month high after deadly violence […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-13701","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13701\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}* Speculators bet on fall in S. Africa platinum output\n * Charts show platinum near overbought territory\n * Gold-platinum spread narrows after platinum rally\n * U.S. Redbook retail sales data Tuesday\n\n\n By Frank Tang\n NEW YORK, Aug 20 (Reuters) - Platinum prices jumped nearly 2\npercent on Monday, hitting a two-month high after deadly\nviolence at a mine in top producer South Africa triggered heavy\nspeculative buying on supply worries.\n Bullion prices edged up as trading volume for U.S. gold\nfutures was on track to hit a 2012 low, while silver jumped\nalmost 3 percent as platinum's rally triggered short-covering.\n Investors bought platinum on worries that mines in South\nAfrica may produce less of the metal after 44 people were killed\nduring a strike at the Marikana mine owned by Lonmin \n, which accounts for 12 percent of global platinum\noutput. \n \"Platinum could test its 200-day moving average above $1,500\non the possibility that the Marikana mine can be shut down for\nan extended period of time or that strike ends up spreading to\nother mines,\" said Phillip Streible, senior commodities broker\nat futures brokerage R.J. O'Brien.\n Spot platinum rose 1.6 percent to $1,487.49 an ounce,\nafter hitting a high of $1,492.99 an ounce by 3:03 p.m. EDT\n(1903 GMT), which marked its highest since June 18.\n Trading volume of U.S. NYMEX platinum futures was 25 percent\nabove its 30-day average, preliminary Reuters data showed.\n Last week, platinum posted a 5-percent rally, its biggest\nweekly rise since February.\n The metal soared 7 percent in the past three sessions,\nbringing its year-to-date gain to 7 percent, which means\nplatinum has outperformed gold, silver and copper so far in\n2012. On technical charts, platinum's relative strength index is\nat 69.8, just a hair below 70 which is seen as overbought.\n \"Markets that are overbought can very easily get a lot more\noverbought before they go down,\" said Adam Sarhan, CEO of Sarhan\nCapital.\n Speculative fervor in platinum futures was evident even as\nabout a third of the workforce trickled back to work at Lonmin\non Monday. Analysts said the lost platinum production due to the\nwork stoppage at Lonmin has been negligible so far.\n Deutsche Bank said in a note that platinum market's expected\nsurplus for 2012 \"could easily be wiped out\" if labor violence\nprolonged at Lonmin or if the unrest spread to other mines.\n Platinum's climb also benefited sister metal palladium\n, which rose to an eight-week high at $608.50 an ounce in\nearly trade. It was up 0.4 percent at $607.70.\n\n PLATINUM DISCOUNT NARROWS\n Platinum's rise narrowed its discount to gold to less than\n$130 an ounce from above $230 an ounce a week ago. \n Platinum's rally has lifted gold and silver, which have been\nrecently trading in a range on speculation about whether the\nU.S. Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank could launch\nmore gold-friendly monetary stimulus.\n Spot gold was down 0.3 percent at $1,620.74 an ounce\nby 3:03 p.m. EDT (1903 GMT).\n U.S. December gold futures for December delivery\nsettled up $3.60 an ounce at $1,623.\n Silver gained 2.7 percent at $28.79 an ounce.\n Buying by central banks, a major support to bullion prices\nthis year, was evident again last month, after Russia's central\nbank said on Monday that it added another 18.7 tonnes of gold to\nits reserves in July. \n 3:03 PM EDT LAST\/ NET PCT LOW HIGH CURRENT\n SETTLE CHNG CHNG VOL\n US Gold DEC 1623.00 3.60 0.2 1611.80 1624.70 64,435\n US Silver SEP 28.593 0.591 2.1 27.875 28.750 29,253\n US Plat OCT 1498.20 25.10 1.7 1461.00 1498.60 13,829\n US Pall SEP 607.70 2.60 0.4 597.00 609.80 2,631\n \n Gold 1620.74 5.15 0.3 1610.70 1622.40 \n Silver 28.790 0.760 2.7 27.960 28.800\n Platinum 1487.49 22.99 1.6 1464.25 1492.99\n Palladium 604.10 1.80 0.3 600.52 608.50\n \n TOTAL MARKET VOLUME 30-D ATM VOLATILITY\n CURRENT 30D AVG 250D AVG CURRENT CHG\n US Gold 66,868 155,146 185,326 16.71 0.03\n US Silver 35,531 39,460 56,400 22.53 -0.67\n US Platinum 14,326 11,465 9,529 23.01 1.65\n US Palladium 3,498 4,925 4,385<\/pre>\n