What is the current price of palladium today?
The price of palladium opened at $947.10 per ounce, as of 9 a.m. ET. That’s up 3.08% from the previous day’s palladium price per ounce and down 13.86% since the beginning of the year.
The lowest trading price within the last day: $919.51 per ounce. The highest palladium spot price in the last 24 hours: $952.33 per ounce.
Palladium spot price
Palladium price chart
The chart below shows how the spot price of palladium is trending over the year.
Year to date, palladium is down 13.86%, as of 9 a.m. ET. The 52-week high reached $1,647.85 on Apr. 18, 2023, and the 52-week low dropped to $854.70 on Feb. 13, 2024.
Palladium is currently trading at $947.10.
The precious, silvery-colored metal is priced in U.S. dollars. This means that the fluctuations in the value of the U.S. dollar can impact its price.
The price of XPD/USD reflects the value of one ounce of palladium in U.S. dollars, and it is traded like traditional currency pairs. Because these trades occur globally, investors can also track the spot price of palladium in other currencies, such as XPD/EUR for euros and XPD/GBP for British pounds.
Factors that can influence the price of palladium include changes in demand, geopolitical events and tensions in major palladium-producing countries. Of course, investor opinion and speculation can also affect prices.
Analysts speculate that the rise of electric vehicles could send palladium prices in retreat. Palladium’s price slump in 2023 is likely attributable to the decline in demand for traditional catalytic converters, a common usage of palladium.
Precious metals spot prices
Palladium is one of four main precious metals investors can trade via physical bullion, exchange-traded products or futures contracts. Gold, silver and platinum spot prices are also updated 24/7 in various currencies.
What is palladium?
Palladium is one of the most abundant metals, occurring in the Earth’s crust at 0.015 parts per million. The metal named after the asteroid Pallas was first discovered in the early 1800s by English chemist and physicist William Hyde Wollaston.
Canada, Russia, South Africa and the U.S. were the world’s leading producers of palladium in the early 21st century. It’s usually produced as a byproduct when refining copper and nickel ores, but palladium has its own merits.
Palladium is easy to work with and is commonly found in electrical and dental equipment and as a substitute for platinum in jewelry. It can even be beaten into a thin leaf for decoration, but its primary use is in automobile catalytic converters.
Palladium price history
Limited supply and rising demand drove palladium prices up through the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The supply side is very restrictive because two of the world’s leading producers, Russia and South Africa, lack internal investments and have poor infrastructure. As a result, output isn’t consistent.
For the past decade, the palladium spot price has trended between $500 and $1,000 per ounce. The silvery metal was on the tear in 2020 and 2021 and surpassed the price of gold when it traded above $2,000 per ounce.
Palladium’s price peaked at $3,440 in March 2022 as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine constrained supply.
Since its peak, the price of palladium has, for the most part, been on a steady decline. In 2023, palladium spot levels dropped below $1,500 for much of the year. Experts attribute the decline to the rise in electric vehicles, which don’t have catalytic converters.
Palladium vs. gold prices
Currently, palladium trades at $947.10 per ounce, as of 9 a.m. ET, compared to gold, which trades at $2,047.71 per ounce. Year to date, palladium prices are down 13.86% and gold prices are down by 0.90%.
Palladium historically has generally been cheaper than gold. But there have been a few instances when palladium has outperformed gold.
In 1999, palladium’s spot price outperformed gold’s, and palladium was above gold for most of 2001.
While gold’s price increased from 2001 through 2011, palladium’s price entered a trough. It only consistently began to climb out of the $400 per ounce threshold in 2011 when it broke levels above $800.
After dipping below $500 per ounce in early 2016, palladium’s spot price continued to climb, breaking above $1,000 by September 2018. At that point, gold’s spot price had fallen to $1,200 per ounce. By May 30, 2019, palladium was trading much higher than gold at $1,378 per ounce versus gold’s $1,290.
When looking at the gold-to-palladium price ratio, gold dipped below palladium from August 2019 to November 2021. Gold spot prices didn’t consistently outperform palladium until December 2022, and palladium prices have been slipping ever since.
Palladium futures
Palladium futures contracts allow you to speculate on the future price of palladium. A futures contract is an agreement between a buyer and a seller to trade a fixed amount of the underlying asset — palladium, in this case — at a specified price on a future date.
Unlike a spot price, which determines how much palladium costs for immediate delivery, futures contracts designate a price to be delivered at a later date.
These contracts can be fulfilled by trading the physical commodity or exchanging cash in place of the underlying asset. They are usually traded through an exchange.
Frequently asked questions (FAQs)
The highest price palladium ever reached was $3,440 in March 2022.
Palladium can be a good investment if demand continues to outpace supply in the future. Given the metal’s primary use is in catalytic converters for combustion engines, the future may not be so bright for palladium with the continual shift to electric vehicles.
