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Platinum 
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Platinum futures are hedging tools for commercial producers and users of platinum, and serve as a means of global price discovery. In addition, they provide:

  • Extensive trading opportunities due to the price volatility of the metal
  • The benefits of central clearing, including guaranteed counterparty credit and segregation of customer funds
  • Price transparency, giving all market participants equal access while maintaining anonymity in all bids and offers

Things to know about the contracts:

  • Physically delivered
  • Traded electronically, virtually around the clock, on CME Globex
  • Can be traded off-exchange for clearing only through CME ClearPort

About platinum
Because of platinum’s importance as an industrial material, its relatively low production and concentration among a few suppliers, prices can be volatile. For this reason, platinum is often considered attractive to investors.

Platinum is the principal metal of the six-metal group that bears its name; the other platinum group metals are palladium, rhodium, ruthenium, osmium, and iridium. All possess unique chemical and physical qualities that make them vital industrial materials.

Jewelry creates the largest demand for platinum, followed by automotive, chemical and petroleum refining uses.

Platinum is used in the computer industry and in other high-tech electronic applications since it is an excellent conductor of electricity, does not corrode, and has a low reactivity with other metals.

Platinum is among the world's scarcest metals. Supplies of platinum are concentrated in South Africa, with significantly smaller supplies in Russia and North America.