Gold ETF inflows during April mark highest in more than a year: World Gold Council
New York (May 10) Gold-backed exchange-traded funds saw their most significant level of inflows last month in more than a year as gold prices rose to a two-month high, according to the latest data compiled by the World Gold Council.
The monthly investment data show that global gold ETFs increased their holdings by 72.2 tons to 2,481 tons in April. This is the second straight month of inflows and follows the March increase of 22.5 tons.
The WGC data show that North American gold ETFs saw the biggest increase at 44 tons, representing 54% of total inflows last month. Renewed investor interest in gold helped to drive the price to a two-month high at $1,369.40 last month. However, since those recent highs, gold prices have fallen to the bottom end of their range; June gold futures last traded at $1,315.40 an ounce.
European markets, which led gold ETF demand for the last two years, saw gold demand increase by more than 27 tons in April.
“Despite seeing little movement in assets during Q1 2018, European holdings are now comfortably up since the end of December mostly as a result of 27t of inflows in April,” the WGC said in its report.
Asian-based products saw modest inflows of 2.4 tons last month; however, the WGC noted that Asian based gold-backed ETFs are down 1.4 tons so far this year.
Looking at individual ETFs, the world’s largest gold-backed fund, SDPR Gold Shares (NYSE: GLD), attracted the most investors last month, with its holdings increasing by 25.1 tons. Ishares Gold Trust (NYSE: IAU) had an inflow of 17.1 tons.
In Europe, gold investment demand was led by Xtrackers Physical Gold, which saw inflows of 7.9 tons, Invesco Physical Gold saw its holding increase 6.2 tons, Xetra-Gold reported gold inflows of 6.2 tons, and ETFS EUR Daily Hedged Physical Gold saw its reserves increase 5 tons.
While the data shows that investment demand in gold-backed ETFs started the second quarter on a strong note, this comes on the back of a dismal first-quarter performance.
Last week, the WGC said in its quarterly gold-demand trends report that overall global gold demand dropped to its lowest level in 10 years. The council said that lackluster investor interest in gold-backed ETFs drove weak demand.
“ETFs saw inflows of 32 tons in the January-March period, down 66% from last year’s first quarter,” the WGC said in its quarterly report.
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