It is stating the obvious, but when investors redeem shares of physically-backed gold exchange traded funds, the amount of gold held by those ETFs dwindles. And that is exactly what has been happening over the past several weeks.
“Last week, assets in global ETPs fell 0.8 percent to 1,654.2 metric tons, the lowest since September 2009,” report Debarati Roy and Nicholas Larkin for Bloomberg.
Even with the start of Diwali, the Indian festival of lights, which often leads to increased bullion demand in the world’s second-largest gold-consuming country, investors have not been warming to gold ETFs. Since the start of this month, the SPDR Gold Shares (NYSEArca: GLD), the largest gold ETF, has bled $959.1 million in assets while the iShares Gold Trust (NYSEArca: IAU) and the ETFS Physical Swiss Gold Shares (NYSEArca: SGOL) have lost over $18 million combined. [Gold ETFs Deal With Increased Volatilty]
On Oct. 222, GLD saw bullion holdings diminish 1.2% to 751.96 metric tons Monday, the least amount since November 2008, Bloomberg reports.
Gold’s slide has continued even amid increased Chinese demand. China’s September gold imports from Hong Kong hit a five-month high as buyers were lured by low prices.