Today in our options recap we point out near term call buying in the benchmark Silver ETF, SLV (iShares Silver, Expense Ratio 0.50%) which seems to be positioning for additional upside in the precious metal.
Silver and Gold rarely trend or trade too far away from each other in terms of general trend at least, and Gold has clearly demonstrated greater relative strength than Silver for at least the past one year trailing
period.
So what exactly is the story with Gold and related ETPs at current prices in terms of any trend in asset flows? For there was no shortage of coverage during the rather steep drop in Gold prices from late 2012 throughout the entire year of 2013 basically, before this “phoenix rising from the ashes” effect we are witnessing in early 2014.
The largest Gold tracking ETF is still of course GLD (SPDR Gold Trust, Expense Ratio 0.40%) with $34.5 billion in assets under management, including a YTD inflow of >$250 million thus far.
This is of course well of the peak level of assets the fund had accumulated as it pushed to its late 2011 highs for example.
Second in line in terms of fund size currently is IAU (iShares Gold Trust, Expense Ratio 0.25%) which has been, and is notably cheaper than GLD from a straight expense ratio standpoint, something that has been documented of course in the past but likely remains understated when the general trend is “outflows” in an asset class.
Year to date IAU has pulled in a modest $70 million in new assets. SGOL (ETFS Physical Swiss Gold Shares, Expense Ratio 0.39%) if you have not been paying attention is now comfortable above $1 billion in assets under management, having debuted back in 2009.