Unlike gold or silver, rhodium has no futures market, no ETF, and trades in a thin OTC market. Understanding who sets the price — and how — is essential for anyone tracking rhodium.
The London Platinum and Palladium Market (LPPM) plays a crucial role in establishing benchmark prices for platinum group metals, including rhodium. Twice a day, at 09:30 and 14:00 London time, the LPPM conducts electronic auctions to determine the benchmark fixing prices.
This fix works through an iterative bid-ask auction among LPPM member bullion banks and market makers. Unlike a continuous exchange, the fix attempts to clear buy and sell orders at a single equilibrium price, matching industrial demand against available supply in a concentrated daily window.
While the LBMA gold fix is supported by massive global liquidity and continuous futures trading, the LPPM rhodium fix operates in a much thinner market. Because there is far less liquidity, the rhodium fix can sometimes jump significantly between the AM and PM sessions, reflecting the underlying scarcity and volatile nature of the metal.
It's important to understand that the LPPM fix provides a daily reference for the industry (especially for long-term supply contracts), but it is not a price at which you can instantly buy or sell physical metal on an open exchange. The actual OTC trading price can deviate from the fix depending on real-time supply constraints.
A central feature of the rhodium market is its complete lack of a futures exchange. Unlike gold and silver (which trade heavily on COMEX) or even platinum and palladium (which have NYMEX contracts), rhodium operates without the stabilizing force of a continuous, transparent futures market.
This has immense consequences for price discovery. Without an exchange, there is no transparent public order book. Prices are extremely opaque, determined privately between major buyers and sellers. Furthermore, there is no effective way for automotive OEMs to hedge their future rhodium exposure through futures contracts, leading to significant price risk within the supply chain.
Crucially, the absence of a futures market means there is no mechanism for short selling. In liquid markets, short sellers can temper runaway price spikes by betting against overvaluation. In rhodium, when demand surges, the price can enter a purely unidirectional bubble, as witnessed during the run-up to the 2021 all-time high of $29,800 per ounce.
Without an exchange, the price of rhodium is dictated entirely by over-the-counter (OTC) bilateral trading. The participants in this market are highly concentrated: a handful of major South African mining companies (the suppliers), global refining and chemical companies like Johnson Matthey, BASF, and Umicore (the intermediaries), and automotive OEMs (the consumers).
Historically, Johnson Matthey's daily base price was the primary reference for the industry. While the LPPM fix provides a structured benchmark, day-to-day and intraday physical trading is negotiated privately between these massive industrial players. The price is essentially set by the urgency of industrial buyers needing material against the willingness of a few suppliers to part with their scarce sponge.
| Company | JSE Ticker | Approx. Rh Output | Key Mines |
|---|---|---|---|
| Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) | JSE: AMS | ~35–40% | Mogalakwena, Unki, Mototolo |
| Impala Platinum (Implats) | JSE: IMP | ~25–30% | Rustenburg, Marula, Zimplats |
| Sibanye-Stillwater | JSE: SSW | ~20–25% | Kroondal, Marikana, Rustenburg |
| Others (Northam, Norilsk, etc.) | — | ~10–15% | Russia, Zimbabwe |
The rhodium market is essentially an oligopoly. With over 80% of global rhodium mined in South Africa, these three primary producers possess immense, albeit indirect, pricing power. They are fully aware that automotive demand for rhodium is highly inelastic — catalytic converters require rhodium to meet emissions standards, and there is no cheap substitute.
Because OEMs are forced buyers, the producers do not need to discount heavily to move inventory. Any hint of supply disruption, such as Eskom power outages or labor strikes in the Bushveld complex, allows these producers to dictate terms in the OTC market, knowing that buyers have no alternative source to turn to.
Because rhodium trades over-the-counter in an illiquid market, it suffers from massive bid-ask spreads. When buying or selling physical rhodium, investors and even industrial players face a large gap between the buying price (ask) and the selling price (bid).
For gold, this spread is often a fraction of a percent due to immense global liquidity. For rhodium, buying retail sponge can incur spreads of 10% to 25%. This makes short-term trading of physical rhodium virtually impossible and severely penalizes retail investors seeking exposure. Read more in our guide to rhodium price vs dealer price.
The headline LPPM fix or spot price is a wholesale, unallocated market reference. Retail buyers purchasing physical rhodium sponge will always pay a significant premium above this spot price and will be offered a price below spot when selling, effectively trapping them in a wide spread.
| Feature | Gold | Silver | Platinum | Rhodium |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Futures Market | COMEX, massive | COMEX, massive | NYMEX, liquid | None |
| ETF Products | Huge (GLD, IAU) | Huge (SLV) | Available (PPLT) | None |
| Daily Volume | $100B+ | $20B+ | Moderate | Opaque (Tiny) |
| Fix Mechanism | LBMA (Continuous) | LBMA (Continuous) | LPPM (AM/PM) | LPPM (AM/PM) / JM |
| Bid-Ask Spread | 0.1 - 0.3% | 1 - 3% | 2 - 5% | 10 - 25% |
| Short Selling | Easy (Futures) | Easy (Futures) | Possible | No |
The official reference price is determined by the London Platinum and Palladium Market (LPPM) through their twice-daily fix, and historically by the Johnson Matthey daily base price. However, the actual trading prices are set via OTC bilateral trading between major South African mining companies, global refiners, and automotive OEMs.
Rhodium is traded in such small volumes (around 30 tonnes annually) and the market is so physically concentrated among a few buyers and sellers that it lacks the broad participation and liquidity required to support a functional, continuous futures exchange. Learn more about what affects rhodium prices.
The spot price (or LPPM fix) is the wholesale, unallocated reference price for massive industrial volumes. The dealer price is what retail buyers pay for physical metal, which includes steep premiums for small bar sizes, minting, storage logistics, and the dealer's bid-ask spread. For a deep dive, see our guide on rhodium price vs dealer price.
The official LPPM reference price changes twice daily during the AM (09:30) and PM (14:00) London fixes. However, the underlying OTC spot market can fluctuate continuously as private deals are negotiated. Track live updates on our live rhodium price page.