Platinum Drops on Mounting Signs of Global Auto Output Slump

Platinum fell for a fourth day in Asian trading as plunging credit investments in the U.S. damped global growth and crimped demand for the metal in auto exhausts.

Prices have fallen 23 percent this month as the world's biggest automakers cut production and forecast sales declines for the year. Honda Motor Co., Japan's second-largest automaker, said today it will delay opening its second car factory in India as the market is growing slower than the company had expected.

''General concerns about economic growth worldwide are affecting platinum,'' Manqoba Madinane, a commodity analyst at Standard Bank Group Ltd. in Johannesburg, said today by phone. The metal may decline further should a report due out in the U.S. later today show worse-than-expected economic growth, he said.

Metal for immediate delivery dropped $39.80, or 3.4 percent, to $1,145.70 an ounce at 10:04 a.m. in London.

Platinum for August delivery sank 5.8 percent to close at 3,806 yen a gram ($1,123 an ounce) on the Tokyo Commodity Exchange.

Honda aims to open the plant in the northern Indian state of Rajasthan by October 2010 at the latest from its original schedule of 2009, spokesman Sakae Uruma said today by phone.

Automakers account for more than 60 percent of global demand for platinum, according to Johnson Matthey Plc, which makes about a third of the world's automobile catalysts.

U.S. gross domestic product growth will probably slow to 0.55 percent in the fourth quarter, according to a Bloomberg News survey. A Commerce Department report today is expected to show the pace of expansion was 3.3 percent last quarter, the same as estimated a month ago, a separate Bloomberg survey showed.

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