Metals fall on European debt concerns

Metals prices fell Wednesday, with platinum and palladium taking especially deep plunges, on investor concern that debt problems in Europe will not be controlled soon, and after Germany moved to ban naked short-trades of shares for 10 banks and insurers and to stop naked credit-default swaps of government bonds from European nations.

The moves by Germany, which Chancellor Angel Merkel is trying to convince other European nations to adopt, sent the euro to a new four-year low versus the US dollar.

May platinum was down $84.80 to $1,603.70 per troy ounce while July contracts for the metal used in jewelry and in the manufacture of pollution-control devices for motor vehicles dropped $93.30 to $1,597.20 per troy ounce.

June palladium was down $44.91 to $62.10 per troy ounce.

June gold, meanwhile, dropped back below $1,200 per troy ounce, falling $20.90 to $1,193.70 per troy ounce, while silver was down 77 cents to $18.11 per troy ounce.

Base metals prices fell as well, with May copper down 7 cents to $2.95 per pound in afternoon trade in New York, while three-month copper was down 2.3 percent to $1,597.20 per tonne on the London Metal Exchange.

Three-month contracts for nickel were 4.1 percent lower to $21,250 per tonne in London trade.