Spot palladium spiked to its firmest in just over one-year at $227 an ounce, while platinum climbed to $947, the highest since early 1980.
Palladium was quoted at $223/228 by 1540 GMT, unchanged from its late quote on Wednesday in New York.
Traders and analysts said the rise had been mainly driven by speculative buying.
"The funds have been looking to play the palladium market on the long side," said HSBC metals analyst Alan Williamson.
He highlighted a big rise in the net speculative position held by funds on the New York futures market NYMEX, which had risen by some 400,000 ounces in the last month.
Investors chased the palladium price higher as it managed to hold above the psychological level of $200 during much of October, when gold suffered from profit-taking since rising to its highest level in nearly 18 years at $480.25 two weeks ago.
Dealers said jewellers in China, the world's largest consumer of platinum jewellery, have been hit by poor margins, forcing them to turn to palladium and white gold - an alloy of gold and other light-coloured metals.
Precious metals refiner Johnson Matthey has said purchases of palladium by Chinese jewellery makers reached 700,000 ounces in 2004, exceeding expectations.
Industrial buyers of platinum were largely on the sidelines, waiting for prices to cool down, dealers said.
"When you have investor interest, then sometimes supply-demand fundamentals don't come into play for some period of time," said Alastair McIntyre, head of marketing at ScotiaMoccata in Hong Kong.
He said any rise in gold prices to $500 an ounce could further lift speculative interest in platinum and the metal could try to break the big psychological level of $1,000.
Platinum subsequently retreated and was quoted at $939/942, compared with $940/944 in New York.
Gold was last at $473.00/473.80 an ounce, up from New York's level of $470.30/471.00 but off the day's high of $475.60.
Traders said the tone in the market remained bullish, although there was still a high potential for a retreat before gold took aim for $500.
"There was some decent selling around the $475/76 area," one said. "I think it is watching the dollar again at the moment and if we see the dollar weakening again, you'll see another break on gold."
Spot silver hit $7.88 an ounce, but retreated to $7.81/7.84. It was last quoted in New York at $7.77/7.80.