Followers of our weekly review roundups may recall the reservations we wrote of concerning the price of PGMs and platinum in particular. The point we were making was simply that while we were bullish of gold and silver, we had concerns for PGMs in a world where industrial activity was likely to slow.

Today we note that car manufacturers in the US are likely to experience sales declining to a fifteen year low and one major Japanese manufacturer has already announced that it is cutting its 2008 sales target by 350,000 units.

Sixty percent of platinum demand is for Auto catalyst converters with much of the remainder made up by the jewelry industry, where a decline in platinum demand is also reported.

One result has been that the shares of Anglo Platinum and Impala Platinum, the two principal South African platinum miners, have fallen. This, despite earlier forecasts of a shortfall in demand due to production difficulties and the advent of a Platinum ETF buying the physical metal. to deposit in bullion vaults.

This situation represents a practical opportunity to research the platinum market for opportunities to go long or short. Is the expected shortfall in supply going to result in the price going to the $2500 mark by the year end as forecast by some analysts as recently as two weeks ago or will lack of demand lead to a surplus?

Do not forget to factor in that the automotive use is as a catalyst and as such is, in theory, all reclaimable and recyclable.

The question is whether platinum is the first hard commodity to have peaked and will it lead the other metals down or is this a temporary blip? Will the Chinese and Indian growing auto manufacturing industry and demand take up any slack and continue the shortfall in supply that has been forecast?

One way or the other there is a clear opportunity to profit from this situation. The price of the metal and its producers will move sharply in the near future. If you fancy a gamble and get it right it will be good money in the bank, but we hesitate to give you our take on which way it will go.

All we dare say is that it has given us an opportunity to have a flutter.