Platinum touched a six-week high on speculation that demand will rise after General Motors Corp. won approval to form a new company, signaling a quick trip through bankruptcy court. Palladium rose to the highest since September. GM plans to sell assets including the Chevrolet and GMC brands next month to a company backed by the U.S. Treasury Department. The slimmed-down version of GM will be backed by $65 billion in government loans. About half of the world’s platinum and palladium output goes into auto parts, according to Johnson Matthey Plc, a London-based researcher and metal refiner. “After today, we consider the potential overhang of GM- related platinum selling to have passed and expect supply and demand fundamentals rather than technical issues to better determine the direction of platinum prices,” John Reade, UBS AG’s head metals strategist in London, said today in a report. Platinum futures for July delivery climbed $6.10, or 0.5 percent, to $1,226.70 an ounce at 10:21 a.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange, after earlier rising to $1,233.90, the highest for a most-active contract since April 16. Before today, the metal advanced 30 percent this year. Palladium futures for September delivery jumped $5.75, or 2.4 percent, to $249.50 an ounce, after reaching $251.90 earlier, the highest for a most-active contract since Sept. 25. The metal jumped the most in three weeks yesterday on speculation that GM and rival Chrysler LLC will emerge from bankruptcy better able to compete in world markets. On May 31, Chrysler won court approval to sell of most of its assets to a group led by Italian carmaker Fiat SpA. GM, the biggest U.S. car company, sought bankruptcy protection in New York yesterday. The filing was a “defining moment in the reinvention of GM,” Fritz Henderson, the company’s chief executive officer, said in a press release yesterday. “The economic crisis has caused enormous disruption in the auto industry.”

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