Why this platinum bull is bearish on buying bars at Costco
Costco (COST) sells platinum (PL=F) bars on its site, adding to its precious metal bar offerings. The wholesaler made headlines when it started selling physical gold bars to members. The abrdn director of ETF investment strategy Robert Minter, who manages the largest platinum ETF on the market, sits down with Josh Lipton and Jared Blikre on Market Domination Overtime to explain why he views platinum as a solid investment but is skeptical that investors buying bars from Costco will see the gains. “Investment-wise, it's actually a great story. It's just the execution of it that we would really disagree with,” Minter tells Yahoo Finance. He explains that a large portion of platinum demand comes from internal combustion engines and hybrid vehicles. As investors expected consumers to shift to electric vehicles, platinum prices fell, but EV adoption has been weak compared to initial expectations. "People need to do their homework before they buy these Costco or any other warehouse platinum bars. It can be really expensive to sell those at your local metals dealer. It can be upwards of 10% ... I have heard that a lot of people are actually buying the physical metals at a warehouse store to get the 2% cash back from the credit card. So math is your friend here. And 10% is obviously bigger than 2%. So you're going to lose all of it and then some in some transaction fees to sell it.” For those interested in investing in platinum, Minter says ETFs are a better option than purchasing physical bars through Costco. To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Market Domination Overtime here. This post was written by Naomi Buchanan.
