UPDATE 7-Platinum ends sharply higher on ETN launch, gold up

(Recasts, adds analyst comments, closing prices, adds NEW YORK to dateline)

By Frank Tang and Atul Prakash

NEW YORK/LONDON, May 9 (Reuters) - Platinum ended sharply higher on Friday as the launch of U.S. platinum exchange-traded notes boosted sentiment, while gold also finished up on record crude oil prices.

Investment bank UBS (UBSN.VX: Quote, Profile, Research) launched two ETNs offering long and short trading strategies in platinum. ETNs, unlike exchange-traded funds, do not purchase physical platinum to back the number of shares sold. [ID:nN09540232]

The two ETNs -- UBS E-Tracs Long Platinum ETN (PTM.P: Quote, Profile, Research) and UBS E-Tracs Short Platinum ETN (PTD.P: Quote, Profile, Research) -- started trading on Friday on the NYSE Arca platform.

"It won't have an impact on the availability of physical metal nor on lease rates. Fundamentally you cannot justify the kind of price move we have seen," said Tom Kendall, metals strategist at Mitsubishi Corporation.

But it offers another route by which U.S. mutual and pension funds, which cannot directly invest in commodity derivatives, can gain exposure to platinum, he added.

Spot platinum <XPT=> rose to a high of $2,095 an ounce and was last at $2,074/2,094 by New York's last quote at 2:15 p.m. EDT (1815 GMT), compared with $2,008.50/2,028.50 in New York late on Thursday.

U.S. July platinum contract PLN8 on the New York Mercantile Exchange ended up $59.50, or 2.9 percent, at $2,101.80 an ounce.