Hedge funds have been scrambling for alternatives to bet on a further weakening of Europe's economy and on rising uncertainty about member nations' commitment to the euro zone. Currency and sovereign-debt markets already are swarming with traders. The platinum market, which until recently was relegated to commodity specialists, is luring a broader range of investors.

At a "Delivering Alpha" conference in New York recently, Ms. Kelley recommended a bet against platinum, citing slowing auto sales in Europe, to a room packed with pension-fund managers and other institutional investors.

Since the end of February, speculative investors, which include the hedge funds and other money managers, have expanded their bets on falling prices fivefold to a record 17,584 contracts valued at $1.2 billion as of July 31, according to the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission. These positions now account for a third of the $3.7 billion platinum futures and options market, up from a weekly average of 12.6% since 1995, when the data became available, according to the CFTC.

"These are extremely short positions," said Wiktor Bielski, global head of commodities research at VTB Capital, referring to the bearish bets that futures traders employ. While funds also have increased bullish bets on platinum this year, the rise was muted by the spike in negative bets.

David Fuller's view Now we know why the platinum / gold ratio has fallen to its lowest level in decades. If you think that gold is heading higher, and I do, then platinum (weekly & daily) is resting in a coiled spring or a catapult prior to launch.

I do not even think that the analysis of today's platinum bears is correct, especially relative to the euro which will be printed with abandon. Platinum's low price is causing a reduction in production and increased investment demand, as the article above points out. Europe's top car and truck manufacturers are Autonomies, selling their vehicles around the world. If they are smart, they will be stockpiling platinum while it is cheap and artificially depressed due to short selling. Lastly, a production outage in South Africa due to either strikes, temporary mine closures or another power outage would cause the price to spike higher.

Subscribers who agree can play platinum in the racy, high risk futures market (I just reopened my long position) or more conservatively in the ETFS Physical Platinum Fund (PHPT LN). The Library also lists the riskier ETFS Leveraged Platinum, an Exchange Traded Commodity (ETC) (LPLA LN), the Swiss-listed ZKB Platinum ETF (ZPLA SW) and the Julius Baer Physical Platinum Fund (JBPLGA SW).