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Ruthenium Prices Explode!
Ruthenium prices have soared to record highs above of $800 an ounce this month, buoyed by an explosive growth in demand for hard disc drives and news that a new generation of chip from Intel may involve the metal.
The minor member of the platinum group metals saw its price surge by 40 percent this year and hit an all-time high of $885 an ounce on February 7th 2007.
Since then, prices have eased to around $795/835 on Tuesday, but ruthenium remains much more expensive than it was a year ago, when it changed hands at less than $100 an ounce.
"Ruthenium met a bit of resistance in the last days after traders started to offload some of their holdings," refiner Heraeus said in a recent report. But the uptrend is likely to continue on a combination of industrial as well as speculative buying, it added.
Praised for its great resistance and ability to harden platinum and palladium, ruthenium has seen its industrial applications widen recently. It is now used in the chemical, electrical and aviation sectors, but the strongest utilisation growth has been recorded in magnetic data storage (hard disc drives).
Platinum is up $13 dollars today. If this continues, and it very well may, due to the weak dollar and Iran, Platinum jewelry prices will increase.
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