Gold was attempting a comeback of sorts in Asian trading on Monday despite relentless selling by physically-backed gold ETF investors since Donald Trump’s victory in US presidential elections.
Gold for delivery in February reached a session high of $1,200.00 an ounce, up nearly $20 or 1.6% an ounce from Friday’s closing price on the Comex market in New York. Gold is still down 10% or $140 an ounce after an initial surge following Trump’s win. On Friday gold fell to its lowest level since February.
Gold bears are making big bets that Trump’s plans for fiscal stimulus, including a $500 billion infrastructure spending program, will lead to strong US economic expansion, higher interest rates and a stronger dollar.
These are all negatives for the gold price and hedge funds, institutions and retail investors have been dumping gold as a result.
Since the election investors in top physical gold-backed exchange traded fund – SPDR Gold Shares (NYSEARCA: GLD) – have redeemed a net 64.7 tonnes (buying on the Wednesday after the election, but offloading 70 tonnes since then).
GLD, which dwarfs other physically-backed gold ETFs with a more than 45% global share, now holds 885.6 tonnes or just over 28.5 million ounces; worth $33.7 billion on Friday. That’s down $5.4 billion since the surprise victory of the billionaire property tycoon.
On August 22, 2011 when gold was hitting record highs above $1,900 an ounce GLD became the largest ETF in the world briefly surpassing the venerable SPDR S&P 500 trust at a net asset value of $77.5 billion. Gold holdings in the trust would peak more than a year later in December 2012 at 1,353 tonnes or 43.5 million ounces.
3 Comments
Filmie
Any rally at this time is corrective as everyone is just selling it into strength and is an opportunity to buy more Dec 16 Puts. A small B wave rally to the 1200 will be met with a C wave down to the 1050 range in the near term.
Stanley
“SPDR Gold Shares (NYSEARCA: GLD) – have redeemed a net 64.7 tonnes (buying on the Wednesday after the election, but offloading 70 tonnes since then).”
Frik Els, I keep seeing you make these ridiculous claims but I’ve yet to see you provide any actual evidence to support these claims. How reliable are GLD’s holding reports? GLD does not give retail investors the right to redeem for any of its mystery physical gold holdings. This fact alone ensures the GLD shares to be nothing more than paper at the end of the day. GLD also has a glaring audit loophole in their prospectus that states they have no right to audit subcustodial gold holdings. To this day, I have not heard of a single good reason for the existence of this backdoor to the fund. Some other red flags I’ve stumbled upon, verified and welcome everyone else to verify for themselves:
“Did anyone try calling the GLD hotline at 866▪320▪4053 in search of numerical details on GLD’s insurance? The prospectus vaguely states “The Custodian maintains insurance with regard to its business on such terms and conditions as it considers appropriate which does not cover the full amount of gold held in custody.” When I asked about how much of the gold was insured, the representative proceeded to act as if he didn’t know and said they were just the “marketing agent” for GLD. What kind of marketing agent would not know such basic information about a product they are marketing? It seems like they are deliberately hiding information from investors.”
“I remember there was a highly publicized visit by CNBC’s Bob Pisani to GLD’s gold vault. This visit was organized by GLD’s management to prove the existence of GLD’s gold but the gold bar held up by Mr. Pisani had the serial number ZJ6752 which did not appear on the most recent bar list at that time. It was later discovered that this “GLD” bar was actually owned by ETF Securities.”
2ndOrion
Gold may be down, but as a money base -it will always remain. When it goes down, it is a good time for those with the investment money to buy. They should count their blessings, as it will not forever remain down.