Gold miners exchange traded funds, such as the VanEck Vectors Gold Miners ETF (NYSEArca: GDX) and the VanEck Vectors Gold Miners ETF (NYSEArca: GDXJ), tumbled in August and to close last week as financial markets are left wondering if a Federal Reserve rate hike is imminent.
Gold ETFs, including miners funds, tumbled last Friday after the usually dovish Federal Reserve Bank of Boston President Eric Rosengren said that a “reasonable case can be made” for tightening interest rates to avoid an overheating economy, the Wall street Journal reports.
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Fed funds futures imply limited probability the central bank will raise rates later this month, leading some market observers to say that, at most, there will be just one rate hike this year. Even that happens, some bond traders believe the Fed will not raise rates again until late 2017.
Gold has enjoyed greater demand in a low interest-rate environment as the hard asset becomes more attractive to investors compared to yield-bearing assets. However, traders lose interest in gold when rates rise since the bullion does not produce a yield.
[related_stories]“Plus, there are many other bits of bullish technical evidence to be found. For example, the VanEck Vectors Junior Gold Miners ETF (GDXJ), which tracks smaller capitalization stocks in the sector, sports on-balance, or cumulative volume levels on par with its July and August price peaks,” reports Michael Kahn for Barron’s. “That suggests that all the money that flowed out during the August decline already flowed back in, even though prices remain depressed. Put another way, volume traded during the recovery was greater than volume during the decline telling us that bulls were more aggressive than bears. That’s demand.”