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Palladium Price to Benefit From Continuing Supply Deficits
ETF Securities – Palladium Price to Benefit From Continuing Supply Deficits. We believe the palladium price has the potential to perform strongly over the next few months on a combination of price supportive supply and demand fundamentals. Supply side issues in the two main producer countries, Russia and South Africa, coupled with better than expected Chinese growth and early signs of a European recovery are likely to support the palladium price going forward. Currently the palladium price is 13% below the high reached on February 2011. We think the decline has been overdone and expect price gains over the next six to twelve months to be underpinned by strong fundamentals.
Strong Deficit Expected
The palladium market experienced a large deficit last year and demand is expected to outstrip supply by at least 850 thousand ounces in 2013 equivalent to 10% of global supply, according to a number of industry experts. With supply structurally limited by falling ore grades and the expected depletion of Russian government stocks, the palladium price appears to be in a good position to benefit from the recent pick-up in auto sales.
Demand Side
With over 65% of palladium demand coming from autocatalysts, the palladium price is strongly linked to the outlook for vehicle sales in China and the US, the two biggest auto markets in the world. Combined annual sales in China and the US amounted to over 35 million vehicles in 2012 and were up 14% in the nine months to September 2013 compared to a year earlier. However, this sharp rise appears not to have been reflected in the palladium price yet (Figure 2). With China auto sales expected to surpass 20 million2 this year and US light vehicle sales forecasted to climb to
15 million3, we believe palladium price has upside potential.
Supply Side
Palladium mine supply has been declining by an annual rate of 2% since 2007. Norilsk Nickel, the biggest producer of palladium, recently announced a 3% cut in production for 2013. While a pick-up in palladium utilisation in catalytic converters since the mid-1990s has resulted in a sharp increase in supply from recycling, it might not be enough to compensate for dwindling mine supply and the depletion of Russian government stock sales. Decreasing ore grades in the two biggest producing countries, Russia and South Africa, are also likely to cap any upside production potential in palladium supply going forward.
Outlook
The palladium market is likely to remain plagued by a structural deficit due to a combination of increasing demand for autocatalysts and declining supply. We believe that the palladium price has strong upside potential. From a technical point of view, the palladium price appears to be well supported, after having breached its 50dma and 200dma a few weeks ago (Figure 4). We identify the next resistance level in the region of US$760-780oz. Should this be breached, palladium is expected to return to trade above US$800oz, targeting the 2011 highs of US$858oz.
Watch the video summary of this research note, published by Simona Gambarini, Research Analyst at ETF Securities
Important Information
This communication has been provided by ETF Securities (UK) Limited (”ETFS UK”) which is authorised and regulated by the United Kingdom Financial Conduct Authority.
Every month, our research team will present the cryptoassets of the month that increased or dropped in value by more than 15%. With a data-driven approach, we highlight the most important developments and events causing price movements.
Figure 1 – 30-Day Performance: Cryptoassets of the Month vs. Traditional Asset Classes
Data Source: 21Shares, CoinGecko, and Yahoo Finance, from 30-Apr-2023 to 31-May-2023 (Close Price)
Ethereum (ETH)
Ethereum traded down 0.57% over the past month. On May 15, Lido V2 went live, enabling users to withdraw their stETH (staked Ether). As of May 31, Lido has processed over 460k stETH withdrawals without voluntarily exiting a single validator. The protocol achieved this by implementing a buffer that accumulates ETH via daily deposits, partial withdrawals, and rewards. On the scaling front, Aztec revealed its “hybrid zk-rollup,” which will enable private smart contract execution, allowing users to protect their data and on-chain activity with programmable anonymity. Finally, Ethereum’s beacon chain suffered a technical issue that caused the network to stop finalizing blocks briefly.
Bitcoin (BTC)
Bitcoin traded down 7.21% over the past month. On May 17, Tether announced it would use 15% of its monthly net operating profits (i.e., the realized gains from T-bills and similar investments) to buy Bitcoin. The move aims to diversify Tether’s reserve surplus. In addition, it could have a considerable effect on BTC’s structural supply and demand dynamics, as it can offset a significant portion of the selling pressure we can expect from the 41k BTC that the U.S. government intends to sell this year. On another front, transaction fees on the Bitcoin network rose five-fold from $23.5 million in April to $124 million in May, primarily driven by Ordinals and BRC-20 tokens.
Decentraland (MANA)
Decentraland (MANA) traded down 15.08% over the past month as activity in the decentralized virtual world waned significantly. About 2,740 unique wallet addresses interacted with Decentraland throughout May, down ~26% from April. In other news, on May 18, Decentraland DAO introduced “Decentraland Studios,” a platform to connect creators who want to build experiences on the platform but lack the technical skills to do it. This move is part of a broader trend in crypto attempting to lower the barrier of entry for new developers and creators.
Stacks (STX)
Stack’s native token STX traded down 16.47% over the past month. On May 23, ALEX – the most prominent decentralized exchange (DEX) on the Stacks network – introduced permissionless listings for BRC-20 tokens. Despite the combined market cap of BRC-20 tokens reaching close to $500 million, they mainly consist of “meme coins” because Bitcoin does not natively support smart contracts, nor is it designed for fast performance. Thus, Bitcoin needs Layer 2s like Stacks to be usable at scale and open the segway for new use cases. Regarding ecosystem traction, the Stacks networks reached 65,000 deployed smart contracts on May 25.
Avalanche (AVAX)
Avalanche’s native token AVAX traded down 17.85% over the past month despite exciting ecosystem developments. On May 24, Ava Labs announced AvaCloud, a launchpad that allows businesses to deploy custom, fully managed blockchains using an intuitive no-code portal. In addition, the AvaCloud product suite includes managed validators with automated installation for enhanced security, comprehensive data tools, and chain interoperability between all blockchains on the Avalanche network. If successful, the release could mark a paradigm shift in enterprise adoption by removing the complexity of building a public or private blockchain.
Algorand (ALGO)
Algorand’s native token ALGO traded down 18.34% over the past month, underperforming the broader market. The Algorand Foundation recently released AlgoKit, an application that handles the developer environment setup, project generation, and deployment. AlgoKit aims to lower the barrier of entry for developers entering the ecosystem. In this regard, attracting new talent is an area Algorand has struggled with – the blockchain had only 38 full-time developers as of April 2023, according to Electric Capital. The network’s inability to attract new talent may be worrisome as developer engagement is an early and leading indicator of value creation.
Fantom (FTM)
Fantom’s native token FTM traded down 26.28% over the past month. On May 8, the Fantom Hackathon Q2 2023 opened for submissions with a prize pool of over $300k for innovative dApps built on the blockchain. On May 17, the Fantom Foundation released Fantom Academy, a series of lessons for developers, including Solidity basics, token standards, and more. Finally, regarding ecosystem traction, Fantom became available on The Graph, allowing developers to leverage subgraphs to load data on the Fantom blockchain securely and reliably into their dApps.
Strategies of the Month: March 2023
Every month, our research team will also present the best-performing strategies of the month in our product suite. With a data-driven approach, we highlight the most important developments and events causing price movements.
Figure 2: 30-Day Performance: Strategies of the Month vs. Traditional Asset Classes Data
Source: 21Shares Index Management Console and Yahoo Finance, from 28-Apr-2023 to 31-May-2023 (Close Price)
SBTC
The 21Shares Short Bitcoin ETP (SBTC) rose 5.72% over the past month. SBTC seeks to provide a -1x return to the performance of Bitcoin for a single day. Despite its strong fundamentals, BTC’s implied annual volatility has consistently been above 70% and has experienced drawdowns from its all-time high of more than 80%. By comparison, the annual volatility of the S&P 500 sits around 20%. As a result, sophisticated investors with stringent risk-management practices may benefit from tactical short-term inverse exposure to BTC.
Research Newsletter
Each week the 21Shares Research team will publish our data-driven insights into the crypto asset world through this newsletter. Please direct any comments, questions, and words of feedback to research@21shares.com
Disclaimer
The information provided does not constitute a prospectus or other offering material and does not contain or constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of any offer to buy securities in any jurisdiction. Some of the information published herein may contain forward-looking statements. Readers are cautioned that any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties and that actual results may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements as a result of various factors. The information contained herein may not be considered as economic, legal, tax or other advice and users are cautioned to base investment decisions or other decisions solely on the content hereof.
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