The SPDR Gold Shares (NYSEArca: GLD), the world’s largest gold-backed exchange traded product, is up 1.5% over the past week and has been steadily climbing in recent weeks. There is some technical confirmation that gold’s recent bullishness could be a sign of more upside to come.
Gold ETFs have also been grappling with the surprising results of the U.S. presidential election. Investors widely expected gold to rally if Republican Donald Trump won the presidential election earlier this month, which he did, but that thesis proved incorrect. Democratic challenger Hillary Clinton may have actually been the preferred victor for gold ETFs because historical data suggest gold performs better when Democrats are in the White House.
Elections in Europe, increasing tensions with North Korea and other geopolitical events have not stoked gold volatility as some commodities market observers would have expected. Still, GLD is up more than 11% year-to-date.
“Gold’s recovery – up $80 an ounce in less than a month – was given fresh impetus by disappointing US jobs numbers released on Friday that hurt the US dollar and clouded the outlook for GDP growth in the world’s largest economy. The weaker than expected data also put equity markets on edge which have been trading at record levels,” reports Frik Els for Mining.com.
Gold has enjoyed greater demand in a low interest-rate environment as the hard asset becomes more attractive to investors compared to yield-bearing assets. However, traders lose interest in gold when rates rise since the bullion does not produce a yield. That scenario implies bullion will be helped if the Federal Reserve declines to raise rates later this month.
Charts show “gold finally breaking a downtrend in place since the metal hit a peak above $1,900 an ounce in August 2011. In 2016 gold attempted to break through this resistance level on several occasions, but failed,” according to Mining.com.
Year-to-date, investors have added $1.2 billion to GLD. In the current quarter, GLD has seen nearly $787 million in inflows.
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Tom Lydon’s clients own shares of GLD.