May 02, 2008 at 11:00 am by Tom Lydon
The dollar’s renewed vigor is good news for most, but not for the gold miner’s exchange traded fund (ETF).
Yesterday, the Market Vectors Gold Miner (GDX) hit its lowest point since Sept. 18 of last year, reports Wanfeng Zhou for Thomson Financial. Year-to-date, the fund is down 7%.
Gold is weakening, too, closing yesterday at $848.50. As the metal loses ground, so do the ETFs that hold futures: both streetTRACKS Gold Shares (GLD) and the iShares COMEX Gold Trust (IAU) year-to-date are up 2% and 1.7%, respectively. They both currently sitting at their lowest points since Dec. 31.
Lately, it doesn’t seem like gold has done much of anything but go down. Even though commodities have been hit lately, and some more so than others, with ETFs it’s easier to carve out those areas that are performing. Be sure to check in regularly with your funds and have your stop-loss points firmly in place if you choose to invest in commodities.
Meanwhile, the dollar hit a five-week high against the euro today and a two-month high against the yen after the government announced that fewer jobs were eliminated than expected, report Ye Xie and Bo Nielsen for Bloomberg.
One-year chart of the dollar vs. both the yen and the euro:
