Platinum briefly tops $1,000 per ounce

Precious metals prices were mixed Wednesday platinum and palladium seeing gains while gold and silver both declined.

April platinum added $21.90 to $990.10 per troy ounce in New York after rising past $1,000 for a time to $1,011.60 per troy ounce, the first time it has done that since October.

Meanwhile, palladium added $1.50 to $200.55 per troy ounce.

Both metals, which are used in the production of automobile pollution-control devices as well as for jewelry and in other industrial applications, saw gains after General Motors (NYSE: GM) said that loans from the US government will keep it from going under.

GM recently received a $13.4 billion loan from the US Treasury while GMAC, its financial services division, received $6 billion.

On the other hand, February gold dropped $24.30 to $841.70 per troy ounce and March silver was down 34 cents to $11.11 per troy ounce.

Among base metals, March copper fell 7 cents to $1.51 per pound in New York.