Commodities : Tuesday, Aug. 4, 1987 : Platinum Prices Advance

Platinum futures prices advanced Tuesday when active purchases by Japanese investors tugged speculators into the buying at the New York Mercantile Exchange, analysts said.

On other markets, oil futures were lower; grain and soybean futures declined; hog futures were lower but other livestock and meats were mostly higher.

Weakness in the Japanese yen appeared to be responsible for the Japanese interest in platinum, said Stephen W. Platt, an analyst in Chicago with Dean Witter Reynolds.

All the precious metals have attracted buying in recent times by foreign investors worried about any weakness showing up in their own currencies, Platt said.

Economic uncertainties and tensions in the Mideast are behind much of the flight to metals, he said.

“The strong Japanese buying (on Tuesday) touched off fresh speculative buying,” said Platt.

Traders said plantinum also got a psychological lift from an impending strike by miners in South Africa. While gold and coal mines are the operations directly effected, plantinum got sympathetic support.