Platinum and Palladium are down hard today (nearly 3%) to $1616 and $693 on breaking reports that the South African Lonmin’s Marikana mine strike has been resolved, as authorities have backed down and agreed to a 22% wage hike for the striking workers.
Reuters reports that all of Lonmin’s operations have resumed:
The six-week conflict in the mining sector, which claimed 45 lives, had also ignited criticism against President Jacob Zuma and his ruling African National Congress. They face accusations from political rivals that they have neglected poor workers and sided with wealthy business owners.
”Anglo American Platinum Limited (Amplats) confirms that all of its Rustenburg operations have resumed, effective from today’s morning shift,” the company said in a statement.
We hope our readers have already converted their platinum and palladium into gold and silver on the recent strike induced spike.
![[Most Recent Quotes from www.kitco.com]](http://www.kitconet.com/images/live/s_silv.gif)
![[Most Recent Quotes from www.kitco.com]](http://www.kitconet.com/images/live/s_gold.gif)
Anyone stashing diamonds might want to unload them now, too. It seems the Russians have announced they have a diamond pit with trillions of carats and they are going to start digging. An ancient asteroid impact left a crater and mega tons of diamonds in their back yard, lucky devils.
http://www.bullionstreet.com/news/diamond-deposits-at-russias-popigai-astroblem-enough-for-3000-yrs/2892
Like I stated so eloquently in a previous post. There appeared to be a raid going on. Although I mentioned on Silver was down -.40 at the time and did not check on Gold and being Dr. does have the Kitco 24 hour price back up yet. I always keep the Monex ticker up most of the day. You could obviously see that a raid was taking place
Platinum is a strong buy here at $1630 imo
I heard that platinum is more rare than gold because they are found in very small amounts. Plus, platinum has more uses than gold. I wish that there were platinum bars for sale at my local coin shops so that I’ll be able to buy a few pieces.