A Johnson Matthey base price is a quoted price for wholesale platinum group metals in sponge form, set by JM's own trading desks in the United States, Hong Kong and the United Kingdom rather than by an exchange. Rhodium, iridium and ruthenium have no futures contract and no regulated benchmark anywhere in the world, so a Johnson Matthey base price is the de facto reference for three of the six platinum group metals (PGMs). Heraeus and Umicore publish parallel quotes for the same five metals Johnson Matthey covers, and osmium, the sixth PGM, has no wholesale quote from any of the three. This page compares how each refiner forms its number, how often it moves, and why osmium stands apart from all of them.
What Is a Johnson Matthey Base Price?#
Johnson Matthey defines its base prices as "quoted prices for our customers of wholesale quantities of platinum group metals," reflecting JM's own assessment of prevailing market conditions rather than a survey or an auction result (Johnson Matthey PGM management FAQs, matthey.com). JM's trading desks in the United States, Hong Kong and the United Kingdom set that assessment, so the resulting figure is one firm's quote to its own customers, not a market-wide average of trades. Access to trade on a JM account requires a genuine manufacturing need, credit approval and know-your-customer checks, not a speculative order, which keeps the base price a wholesale industrial number rather than a retail one. Every platinum group metal's current number, including the five Johnson Matthey quotes, is collected on platinum group metal prices today, the hub this page's price sources feed.
Which Metals Johnson Matthey Quotes#
Johnson Matthey quotes five PGMs: platinum, palladium, rhodium, iridium and ruthenium, and does not quote osmium (Johnson Matthey PGM management FAQs, matthey.com, correcting an earlier assumption that JM covers all six). The five quoted metals share one physical form and one unit, listed below.
| Metal | Quoted by JM | Physical form | Unit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Platinum | Yes | Sponge | USD per troy oz |
| Palladium | Yes | Sponge | USD per troy oz |
| Rhodium | Yes | Sponge | USD per troy oz |
| Iridium | Yes | Sponge | USD per troy oz |
| Ruthenium | Yes | Sponge | USD per troy oz |
| Osmium | No | n/a | n/a |
Johnson Matthey, the refiner behind this base-price set, publishes the figures through its own PGM management pages, in the same sponge form and per-troy-ounce unit for every metal it covers.
How Often Johnson Matthey Updates Its Prices#
Johnson Matthey resets its base prices four times each business day: 08:30 and 14:30 Hong Kong time, 09:00 London and 09:30 US Eastern time, and adjusts them off-schedule when markets move sharply (Johnson Matthey PGM management FAQs). The four settings publish separately, Hong Kong opening, Hong Kong closing, London and New York, plus an average across all four regions, so a single metal carries four simultaneously valid numbers on the same day.
That regional fragmentation is itself worth stating plainly: a Johnson Matthey base price is not one daily number, it is four.
Why Rhodium, Iridium and Ruthenium Have No Exchange Price#
No exchange anywhere lists a rhodium, iridium, ruthenium or osmium contract; none of the four appears in the CFTC's Commitments of Traders report for NYMEX, and none is covered by the LBMA benchmark family or displayed by the London Platinum and Palladium Market (LPPM). For rhodium, iridium and ruthenium, that absence makes Johnson Matthey's base price the de facto reference price, since "the rhodium price" quoted in most market commentary almost always means the JM base price for sponge, set by a trading desk at one of four fixed times a day rather than by a survey or an auction. Coverage differs sharply by source and by metal, set out below.
| Price source | Platinum | Palladium | Rhodium | Iridium | Ruthenium | Osmium |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LBMA/IBA benchmark auction | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| NYMEX futures | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| Johnson Matthey base price | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Umicore daily quote | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Heraeus price series | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Osmium-Institut crystalline price | No | No | No | No | No | Yes |
Platinum and palladium sit in the top rows of that matrix because both trade on NYMEX and both clear through the LBMA Platinum and Palladium Price auction. Rhodium, iridium and ruthenium sit one row down, covered only by the three refiners, and osmium sits alone in the last column with no refiner coverage at all.
Base Price vs Benchmark: What's the Difference#
A base price is a single firm's quote to its own customers, not a regulated benchmark: unlike the LBMA Platinum and Palladium Price, a Johnson Matthey, Heraeus or Umicore quote carries no Financial Conduct Authority authorisation, no independent oversight committee and no published error policy. The LBMA benchmark is administered by ICE Benchmark Administration under the UK Benchmarks Regulation, with a Precious Metals Oversight Committee reviewing its methodology at least annually; a refiner's base price has no equivalent structure, because it is priced by the refiner rather than cleared through an auction. That distinction matters for how each number should be read, not only for who publishes it: a benchmark clears a market, a base price merely quotes it.
Heraeus and Umicore Base Prices for PGMs#
Heraeus and Umicore each publish a parallel base-price quote for the same five metals Johnson Matthey covers, in a different format and currency. Heraeus publishes interactive price charts for platinum, palladium, rhodium, iridium and ruthenium, not osmium, plus a numbered weekly market report; issue No. 28, dated 3 August 2026, covered PGM demand alongside rising battery-electric and hybrid vehicle sales (heraeus-precious-metals.com). Umicore publishes a daily euro-per-gram quote for the same five metals through its Precious Metals Management price-export tool (pmm.umicore.com). All three refiners exclude osmium from their published quotes, which makes them a closed group of three rather than a broad market of many quoters.
Umicore's Six Price Types#
Umicore's price-export tool distinguishes six price types: Opening, Purchase, Sales Unfabricated, Sales Fabricated, Fixing and Post Fixing, corrected from an earlier count of five once the Post Fixing type was confirmed (pmm.umicore.com). Each type answers a different question about the same metal, set out below.
| Umicore price type | What it represents |
|---|---|
| Opening | The refiner's start-of-day reference quote |
| Purchase | What Umicore will pay a customer for metal |
| Sales Unfabricated | What Umicore will sell raw metal for |
| Sales Fabricated | Raw metal priced plus fabrication into a usable form |
| Fixing | Referenced to the LBMA benchmark, where one exists |
| Post Fixing | Published after that day's benchmark fixing |
On 5 August 2026, Umicore's quote for rhodium stood at 254.95 euro per gram, the market figure this page uses as its identity triple: a price, its unit and its date, from a named source (pmm.umicore.com). The gap between Umicore's purchase and sales-unfabricated quote is the refiner's own bid-offer spread, and it is never one bare euro-per-gram figure without stating which of the six types it is.
Why a Euro Quote Cannot Simply Be Converted to Dollars#
Converting a Umicore euro-per-gram quote to US dollars is unreliable because the quote type and the FX timestamp are both ambiguous on the public page: a conversion needs the exact price type from the six above, the grams-to-troy-ounce factor, and a euro-dollar exchange rate captured at the same moment, and only the first of those three is stated on the page itself. A derived dollar figure for any Umicore-quoted metal, back-calculated from the euro price, is not published on this page for that reason. The safer practice, and the one this page follows, is to quote Umicore's euro-per-gram figure exactly as published, with its date, rather than a derived dollar number.
How a Rhodium, Iridium or Ruthenium Price Actually Forms Each Day#
A refiner forms a minor-PGM quote each day by weighing its own inventory position, the day's enquiries, primary supply from South Africa and Russia, recycling flow and the exchange-traded metals as a sentiment proxy, according to price-formation practice documented from Johnson Matthey, Heraeus and Umicore public materials. Whole days can pass with no wholesale iridium or ruthenium transaction at all, yet a price still publishes, because it is a quote, not a print of an actual trade. The refiner's desk works through five inputs before setting that number, listed below.
- Weigh its own forward book and current inventory position in the metal.
- Review the day's firm enquiries and orders from industrial customers.
- Track primary mine supply, dominated by a handful of South African and Russian producers.
- Account for recycling flow from spent autocatalyst, chemical and electronic catalyst.
- Watch exchange-traded platinum and palladium as a sentiment proxy for the wider PGM complex.
Current numbers for rhodium price today, iridium price today and ruthenium price today update on each metal's own schedule, drawn from this same refiner-quote process rather than from any exchange.
Why Minor PGM Bid-Ask Spreads Are So Wide#
Rhodium's bid-ask spread was 15.24% of the bid on Kitco's 5 August 2026 quote, about 325 times wider than gold's spread that same day once both percentages are computed unrounded, and iridium and ruthenium are not continuously two-way quoted on that page at all. The snapshot below, recorded at 23:50 New York time on 5 August 2026, sets rhodium against gold, silver, platinum and palladium.
| Metal | Bid (USD per oz) | Ask (USD per oz) | Spread (USD per oz) | Spread (% of bid) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gold | 4,260.50 | 4,262.50 | 2.00 | 0.05% |
| Silver | 61.90 | 62.15 | 0.25 | 0.40% |
| Platinum | 1,749.00 | 1,759.00 | 10.00 | 0.57% |
| Palladium | 1,356.00 | 1,396.00 | 40.00 | 2.95% |
| Rhodium | 8,200.00 | 9,450.00 | 1,250.00 | 15.24% |
A roughly 15% quoted bid-ask spread is not a market failure, it is the price of immediacy in a metal with no exchange, no benchmark and only a few thousand ounces of typical daily wholesale turnover. Spreads widen with illiquidity in a consistent order, gold narrowest, then silver, platinum, palladium and rhodium widest of the five quoted two-way at all; iridium and ruthenium carry no public two-way quote to measure a spread from in the first place.
Osmium: The PGM With No Wholesale Quote at All#
Osmium has no exchange, no LBMA benchmark, no Johnson Matthey base price and no Umicore quote; its only regularly published number is the Osmium-Institut's daily price for crystalline, collector-grade osmium, published at osmium-preis.com. That crystalline price sits a factor of roughly 41.8 times above the institute's own raw Fine-Osmium grade on the same day, because it prices a proprietary, serial-numbered, crystallised collector product, not wholesale metal, and it should never be called "the osmium price" without naming that grade. No integrated refiner extends a wholesale sponge quote to osmium the way Johnson Matthey, Heraeus and Umicore do for the other five PGMs, which makes osmium the single extreme case in this page's whole comparison rather than a partial exception to it. Current numbers for osmium price today come from that same crystalline series, clearly labelled as a collector-grade figure rather than a wholesale one.
Where to Find Today's Minor PGM Prices#
Current numbers for each minor PGM, updated on its own schedule, sit on its own live price page rather than on this explanatory page. Rhodium, iridium and ruthenium each carry a Johnson Matthey base price, a Heraeus figure and a Umicore quote side by side with their own dated history; osmium carries only the Osmium-Institut's crystalline series.
Johnson Matthey, Heraeus and Umicore as Refiners#
Johnson Matthey, Heraeus and Umicore are each accredited PGM refiners with their own company pages, and each also publishes a live price a reader may want next.
- Johnson Matthey: the base-price publisher covering platinum, palladium, rhodium price today, iridium price today and ruthenium price today.
- Heraeus: a parallel price-chart and weekly-report publisher for the same five metals.
- Umicore: a daily euro-per-gram quote publisher for the same five metals, with no osmium price today equivalent.
Base Prices vs the LBMA Benchmark and Platinum Premiums#
Platinum and palladium have a regulated benchmark on top of their base prices; rhodium, iridium and ruthenium do not, which is why their quoted spreads run far wider than platinum's or palladium's. The LBMA platinum price sets that regulated reference for platinum, administered by ICE Benchmark Administration since 1 July 2026, with no equivalent auction for any of the three minor PGMs. Retail buyers feel a separate layer on top of any of these wholesale figures: platinum premiums over spot covers what dealers add for bars, coins and fabricated product, a markup that applies to platinum and palladium bullion but has no minor-PGM bullion equivalent to speak of. Rhodium, iridium and ruthenium bypass that retail bullion layer almost entirely, since nearly all of their trade is industrial sponge sold under the base-price and refiner-quote system this page describes, not bars or coins sold to individual investors.
What is the difference between a base price and a spot price?#
A base price is a dealer's own quote; a benchmark like the LBMA Platinum Price is set by a regulated auction with no single firm's discretion. Johnson Matthey, Heraeus and Umicore each set a base price on their own assessment; only platinum and palladium additionally clear through the LBMA benchmark auction, so a spot price for those two metals reflects an auction outcome that rhodium, iridium, ruthenium and osmium simply do not have.
Is rhodium rarer than gold?#
Yes on primary supply: world rhodium primary production was 21.8 tonnes (701,000 ounces) in 2025, a small fraction of annual gold mine output, according to Johnson Matthey's May 2026 PGM Market Report. That scarcity in annual supply, not price alone, is part of why rhodium has no exchange or futures market while gold does; the drivers behind rhodium's own price swings sit on the rhodium market.
Why don't rhodium, iridium and ruthenium have a futures market?#
Rhodium, iridium and ruthenium have no futures market because their annual volumes are too small and too fragmented to support exchange trading, and all three are mined mainly as by-products of platinum and palladium rather than as primary targets. An exchange needs enough standardised, fungible volume to clear two-way trading every day, and with no futures contract anywhere in the world, Johnson Matthey's, Heraeus's and Umicore's base prices remain each metal's most-cited number by default. Platinum and palladium cleared that bar decades ago on NYMEX; rhodium, iridium and ruthenium have not, and nothing in current production trends points to an exchange launch for any of the three.
What is the Johnson Matthey base price for rhodium today?#
Johnson Matthey's rhodium base price changes up to four times on a single business day, at the Hong Kong, London and New York settings described above, so no single number holds for the whole day. Readers who want that number itself, rather than how it forms, find it on the site's own live rhodium price page, updated on its own schedule.