With Gold prices reversing course beginning last Friday, GLD (SPDR Gold, Expense Ratio 0.40%) traded as low as $114.68 on Friday only to trade with a $120 handle early this morning) we have seen some upside call buying which should not be entirely unexpected given the steep price fall that the metal has experienced (down 10.57% in trailing one month, -22.57% in trailing three months, -26.08% YTD).
Related precious metals have followed a similar path in terms of short term price, as one can look at SLV (iShares Silver, Expense Ratio 0.50%) which fell from north of $22 to as low as $17.75 inside of the month of June, but has rebounded in the past few sessions as has Gold.
Similarly, Platinum ETFs have been in motion recently as well, led by the largest product in the space in terms of assets under management ($806 million), PPLT (ETFS Physical Platinum Shares, Expense Ratio 0.60%). [Platinum Supply Deficit]
PPLT trades about 72,000 shares on an average daily basis, and while there are other products that follow Platinum prices, none of them are very large in terms of assets or from an average daily trading volume standpoint.
However, the general trend that we have seen early this summer in the Precious Metals space, is that since short term volatilities have been near unprecedented in the space, with huge spikes in trading volume at times as well, that the numerous “second” and “third tier” ETPs in terms of investor popularity, that sometimes fly off of the radar, are having their days in the sun in terms of an influx of near term activity.
Thus the Platinum space has seen an uptick in interest lately given the recent broad Precious Metals sell-off, and other ETPs that fall in the category include PTM (UBS E-TRACS CMCI Long Platinum Total Return ETN, Expense Ratio 0.65%), PGM (iPath DJ-AIG Platinum Total Return 0.75%), and the levered IPLT (VelocityShares 2X Inverse Platinum ETN, Expense Ratio 1.35%), and LPLT (VelocityShares 2X Long Platinum ETN, Expense Ratio 1.35%).