Even as gold moves toward its largest monthly gain in 18 months, Goldman Sachs Group analyst and gold exchange traded fund traders remain pessimistic.
Gold futures are trading around $1,330 per ounce or up 8.6% so far this month, heading for their biggest monthly gain since January 2012, reports Joe Richter for Bloomberg.
Nevertheless, gold is moving toward its first annual loss in 13 years after investors turned away from the precious metal as a store of value and jewelry purchases slowed during the July rally.
“Gold has made a terrific recovery, but there’s going to be resistance from people who got caught before, so there’s not too much to the upside for now,” Donald Selkin, chief market strategist at National Securities Corp, said in the article. “People are going to wait and see what the Fed is going to do.” [Gold ETFs Rally as Investors Reassess U.S. Rate Outlook]
According to Bloomberg, traders are the least bullish on bullion in four weeks, with thirteen analysts surveyed expecting higher prices this week, 10 were bearish and seven neutral.
Jeffrey Currie, Goldman’s head of commodities research, expects gold prices to further decline as the U.S. economy expands, which would trigger a “less accommodative monetary policy stance.”
Money managers have been exiting gold funds. The SPDR Gold Shares ETF (NYSEArca: GLD) saw $218.2 million in net outflows in the week ended July 26, according to IndexUniverse, even as the ETF gained 2.9% over the last week and rose 8.9% over the past month. [Futures-Based ETF in Focus as Gold Goes Into Backwardation]
In an interesting turnaround, the Market Vectors GOld Miners ETF (NYSEArca: GDX), one of the worst performing areas so far this year, saw $277.8 million in asset inflows in the week ended July 26. [Gold Mining ETFs: Contrarian Buys?]
SPDR Gold Shares ETF
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Max Chen contributed to this article.