Palladium’s New-Year Surge Hits A Pause, But The Uptrend Still Leads

Key Points

• Palladium traded around $1,904 on a major CFD feed, while spot screens showed the metal mostly in the mid-$1,800s, highlighting unusually wide venue-to-venue spreads.
• A one-week rally was powered less by a single palladium headline and more by macro fear, precious-metals momentum, and a market that can still tighten fast.
• Charts show a cooling pullback on the 4-hour view, but daily and weekly signals still point upward unless prices crack key support zones.

Palladium opened Monday with a classic late-rally question hanging over it: is this a breakout that can sustain itself, or a surge that needs to breathe? On the TradingView/OANDA CFD feed at 08:05 UTC, palladium was near $1,904 after failing just below $1,926.

Yet spot pricing told a more cautious story. Reuters placed palladium around $1,865 earlier in the session, while one popular retail screen showed a broad band of roughly $1,851 bid to $1,891 ask.

On CME, the active futures contract traded near $1,874, with volume around 7,435 contracts. That spread matters. It is a reminder that palladium, unlike deeper metals, can shift quickly when liquidity fragments and physical availability becomes the plot.

The forward curve also leaned mildly upward, with cash prices below later months into the low-$1,900s, a shape that often appears when the market prizes near-term supply.

Palladium surges safe haven bid

The past week’s move was forceful. Early January gains accelerated, with palladium jumping from the high-$1,600s to above $1,800, and then pushing into the high-$1,800s and $1,900s. The broader precious-metals complex helped.

A market strategist, Tim Waterer at KCM Trade, tied the surge in safe-haven demand to geopolitical stress and fresh scrutiny around the U.S. Federal Reserve chair, calling it a “green light” for gold to run. Palladium followed the same current.

Under the surface, the fundamentals remain contested. UBS has argued the market is tighter than previously expected, citing investment demand and supply friction, and noting comments from Nornickel about high lease rates changing buying behavior.

Heraeus, by contrast, expects a widening surplus over time as electric vehicles reduce autocatalyst demand. Investors have been leaning in.

The main U.S. palladium ETF showed net inflows of about $22 million over five days, $116 million over one month, and $185 million over three months, with assets near $1.15 billion and average daily volume around 561,000 shares.

Technically, the message is mixed but not broken. The 4-hour chart shows a pullback with momentum cooling, while daily and weekly readings remain firm.

The next test is whether pullbacks hold the mid-$1,800s. Above that, the market keeps aiming at $1,930 and the psychological $2,000 line.

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