The SPDR Gold Shares (NYSEArca: GLD), the world’s largest exchange traded fund backed by physical holdings of gold, is down 1.6% over the past week and 9.2% over the past month, declines that many gold bugs are blaming on the specter of the Federal Reserve raising interest rates this week.
If the Fed does move forward with its first interest rate hike of 2016 at the conclusion of its two-day meeting on Wednesday, gold is seen as vulnerable because there are no interest and dividend payments attached to gold and bullion-based funds like GLD.
Over the past month, the big-name gold ETFs have incurred double-digit losses and gold’s weakness over that span is prompting some analysts to lower their 2017 forecasts on the yellow metal.
Now, the yellow metal and the aforementioned ETFs turn their attention to Federal Reserve’s December meeting, which is widely expected to deliver the central bank’s first interest rate increase of 2016. However, a couple of rate hikes might not doom GLD and rival gold ETFs.
“Yet ETF Securities’ Maxwell Gold has a different take: He believes that despite the bearish sentiment swirling around gold, rate hikes don’t spell disaster for precious metals: Historically, environments similar to today’s have benefited metals,” reports Teresa Rivas for Barron’s.
Related: Demand Supports Gold ETFs