The tipping point – chatting about the future whilst falling off the cliff…

My optimistic expectations for the PGM market, captured in ZBS Edition #1, proved well founded and supported by almost all the PGM experts that spoke at the PGM Day on 3 April 2025.

But as is often the case, some trigger events, like President Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs, removed a core underpin of all assumptions, resulting in the type of uncertainty last caused by the spread of the deadly COVID-19 virus.

The world’s largest PGM Producers’ CEOs, as well as market analysts and PGM users, were all reasonably supportive of PGM’s price outlook, especially for Platinum, due to a significant supply-demand shortfall.

A lot of this positivity came from the fact that the tsunami of BEVs, although still growing, is not pushing ICE vehicles out of existence as fast as previously predicted. Sometimes, a ‘stay of execution’ gives more time to adjust to a changing world.

But, President Trump’s long threatened first salvo, in what may turn out to be the start of a full-scale trade war, impacted the conversations in real time.

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3 Steps to Chaos

1 April- April Fools Day

2 April- Liberation Day Tariffs announced

3 April- PGM Day discussions with confusion and chaos in metal markets and share prices starting a drop last seen in 2020

I will forever remember the 3rd of April 2025!

Any realistic analysis of the PGM industry (including assumptions about the well-advertised tariffs) was upended by the sheer scale and lack of logic that shook the world that day.

Time will tell if there was a grand strategy or whether this was the first salvo in a full-scale war, most certainly a trade war with tariffs, trade restrictions, and currency manipulations.

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As a previous US President said:

“It’s the economy, stupid!”