U.S. investors are betting heavily against gold
With price down 9 per cent, European, Asian buyers see opportunity
Gold is hitting new milestones of misery.
Exchange-traded funds tracking the metal have bled assets for 13 consecutive weeks, the longest run in five years, investors have placed the biggest gold short on record, and bullion’s chief foe — a strong U.S. dollar — is extending its market grip.
Gold’s 9 per cent tumble this year belies the turmoil in emerging markets and jitters over technology companies.
“The long suffering holders of ETFs have finally given up hope of the yellow metal returning to its former glories and have decided there is better protection in the dollar, the stock market and pretty much anything other than gold,” David Govett, head of precious metals at Marex Spectron, said by email. “I can only say that gold, as a safe haven, has been a massive disappointment this year.”
Hedge funds and other large speculators increased netshort bets on the precious metal in the week ending Aug. 14 to the most on record, according to data published Friday going back to 2006.
While investors in the world’s largest ETF market have pulled $1.4 billion (U.S.) from goldbacked funds this year, it’s a different story for non-dollarbased buyers in the rest of the world.
In Europe, gold ETFs have added $1.3 billion since January, led by the X-Trackers Physical Gold product, which has more than tripled in size. Money managers across Asia have been almost as keen, adding $1.1 billion to the products this year.
“We’ve seen strong inflows over the last two weeks,” Nitesh Shah, a London-based commodity strategist at WisdomTree, which runs a Europe-listed ETF, said on Friday. “A lot of investors are seeing a bargainhunting opportunity.”
Pain in the gold market could intensify. When prices last plumbed current lows, ETF vaults contained about 61 million ounces of bullion. Now, there’s about $8.6 billion of loss-making metal weighing down portfolios in funds tracked by Bloomberg.
“That’s one of the main concerns for gold price action in the near term,” Suki Cooper, a precious metals analyst at Standard Chartered, said on Bloomberg TV on Friday. “Over the past couple of years, we’ve seen the key driver for gold changing from tracking real yields most closely to the start of this year being the dollar.”