Platinum is an intriguing commodities investment/trade because the metal is actually scarcer than gold and amongst the scarcest in the world. There are only a couple of places on the planet you can mine platinum, in South Africa and a couple of remote regions in Russia. As an aside, you can also find it on the moon. I like platinum more than gold because if the economy strengthens you also get industrial uses from catalytic converters, fuel cells, electric components, hard disks, and other areas.
There is a relatively new ETF for platinum: PPLT
