At the beginning of the current year, precious metals forecasters were predicting that due to what were seen as extremely positive fundamentals, palladium would outperform its precious metals peers. In the event, palladium has actually been the worst performing of the complex, down around 25% year to date – and it has even fallen over the past few days when gold has been showing slight signs of strength. So far this year it has fallen while even the most bearish of the analysts in the beginning-of-the-year LBMA price prediction competition panel was predicting an average price of well over $700 while at the moment it is languishing at around the $570 mark. While there are four months still to go this year, and a lot can happen in the markets in that kind of time horizon, the chances of reaching even this most pessimistic forecast among the LBMA panellists now look bleak indeed.