The World Gold Council has published data on gold-backed exchange-traded fund holdings for May 2018.Â
Gold-backed ETFs have accumulated 15 tons of gold with a total volume of 2,484 tons ending in May. The funds have reported monthly inflows of $771.3 million for a total value of gold assets under management of $104.3 billion. That was a 0.7% growth from the previous trading month.
The data from the World Gold Council's monthly report can be downloaded from the website of the organization.
In May, the North American gold-backed ETFs unloaded holdings with 30 tons of the yellow metal to a total of 1,295 tons of gold under management. The total volume of gold was $54.4 billion, or a 2.3% decrease from April. The decline was due to outflows of about $1.23 billion.
Because of approximately $1.23 billion worth of inflows, the total value of gold assets under the management of the European funds grew to $44.1 billion, which is a 2.8% increase from the prior month. The European funds have uploaded holdings with 25.6 tons of gold to a total volume of about 1.05 tons.
Total Asian fund holdings increased by 20.8 tons of gold for a total volume of 100.5 tons. Gold-backed ETFs in Asia ended in May with holdings under management valued at $4.2 billion, which was a 20.5% increase from April. The Asian funds reported inflows of $865.4 million.
Gold-backed ETF’s in other regions saw their holdings lose 2 tons of the precious metal in May or outflows of $98.1 million equaling a 6.2% decline from the prior month.
At the end of May, funds of the other regions had 37.5 tons of gold under management, which were worth $1.6 billion.
The pie chart below illustrates the distribution of total gold assets under management:
With inflows, European and Asian funds have more than offset losses in the North American gold-backed ETFs. The loss in the Canadian and U.S. funds was due to the volatility in the price of the commodity and weakness in the market. These two factors, which were influenced by a strong U.S. dollar, determined average declines in the price of gold of 2.4% in April and 4.7% on a year-over-year basis to $1,303.03 per troy ounce.
The top three inflows in gold-backed ETFs are highlighted as follows:
In May, the Xtrackers Physical Gold ETC EUR in Germany amassed 23.2 tons to a total volume of 54.5 tons of gold held. The German fund reported inflows of $972.7 million. The value of assets under management increased nearly 74% from April.
With inflows of $821.5 million, Bosera Gold Exchange Trade Open-End Fund ETC in China was the second-top fund that piled up 19.6 tons of gold for a total holding of 33.2 tons. The value of gold assets under management grew 82.7%.
The British Invesco Physical Gold ETC closed May with 124.1 tons of gold after having accumulated about 4.1 tons during the month. Inflows to the fund in Great Britain were $175.8 million and the total value of the entire gold asset under management went up 3.5% in May.
The top three outflows in the gold-backed ETF’s are highlighted as follows:
The U.S. SPDR Gold Shares reported the greatest loss with outflows of more than $1 billion, having unloaded its gold holding of 24.2 tons. At the end of May, the American fund held 846.7 tons of gold. Its value decreased by 2.7%.
NewGold Issuer Ltd. in South Africa reported inflows of $106.3 million or a 9.2% decline in the value of the holding under its management. The South African fund lightened its total holding with 2.5 tons for a total volume of 24.8 tons of gold.
iShares Physical Gold ETC in Great Britain saw the total value of gold assets under its management decrease by 3%. In May, the fund unloaded its holding with 2.4 tons of gold to a total volume of 74.9 tons of the precious metal held. The British fund reported an outflow of nearly $99 million.
In addition, the World Gold Council reported the following year-to-date trends:
With 51.8 tons of gold added, the holdings of the European funds have slightly surpassed the North American funds. The Canadian and U.S. gold-backed ETFs have together recorded inflows of 50.5 tons of gold.
Over the same span of time, a growth of 114% in the Bosera Gold ETF for a total volume of 33.2 tons has driven a growth of 20% in the Asian funds.
Data has shown that there is a negative correlation between North American flows and the volatility in the price of gold.
Because of a 4% rally in the U.S. dollar in the second quarter of 2018, gold has lost more than what it gained for the 16 weeks through April 20 when the bullion performed strongly. However, the World Gold Council says that the bullion remained “largely flat on the year.”
(Disclosure: I have no positions in any security mentioned in this article.)
