Thanks to rising Eurozone volatility and a shocking move by the Swiss National Bank (SNB) to scrap the franc’s peg to the euro, gold exchange traded funds are back in style.
After falling 2.2% while bleeding $3.2 billion in assets last year, the SPDR Gold Shares (NYSEArca: GLD) is up nearly 8% to start 2015 as gold ETFs lure back once leery investors.
GLD’s holdings of physical gold “jumped 1.9 percent to 730.89 metric tons on Jan. 16. That’s the biggest gain since May 25, 2010. (Last) week the holdings climbed 3.3 percent,” reports Debarati Roy for Bloomberg.
GLD and rival gold ETFs, such as the iShares Gold Trust (NYSEArca: IAU) and ETFS Physical Swiss Gold Shares (NYSEArca: SGOL), rallied late last week after SNB’s decision to scrap the franc’s euro peg sent the Swiss currency surging. Last Thursday, GLD surged 3% on heavy volume to reclaim its 200-day moving average for the first time since September. [Swissie Could Stoke Commodities Surge]
The ETF rose 1.3% last Friday on volume that was nearly double the three-month daily trailing average.
“Gold climbed to a four-month high on Friday, while call options for the right to own February futures at $1,300 an ounce soared sevenfold in two days,” according to Bloomberg.
Some technical analysts see more upside for bullion and GLD.
“Gold is attempting to break from a 3-year falling channel and the SPY/Gold ratio is attempting to do the same thing. Gold and the SPY/Gold ratio need to move higher to prove that a trend change is actually in play,” notes Chris Kimble of Kimble Charting Solutions.
SNB’s decision is stoking speculation that the franc’s rally could spark a commodities countertrend that would ignite a raft of short covering across the commodities complex.
Gold’s recent bullishness, impressively, comes against the backdrop of a strong dollar. The PowerShares DB U.S. Dollar Index Bullish Fund (NYSEArca: UUP) rose two-thirds of a percent last week to its highest levels since July 2010.
SPDR Gold Shares
ETF Trends editorial team contributed to this post. Tom Lydon’s clients own shares of GLD.