MC:Investors continue to move from gold to equities
Despite gold prices bouncing off their April lows, investors continue to pull money out of the precious metal and plow it into equities, as the stock market keeps climbing to new highs.
Since bottoming at USD 1,321.50 on April 16, gold prices have stabilized and rallied more than 11 percent, but the SPDR Gold Trust ETF (NYSE Arca: GLD) has had more than USD 4.4 billion in outflows, according to IndexUniverse.com.
The exodus from the biggest commodity ETF is nothing new. Last month, the GLD experienced USD 6.8 billion in outflows, putting the total figure so far this year at USD 14 billion.
As fund flows decrease, the GLD is no longer the sixth-largest holder of gold in the world. For the first time since the second quarter of 2008, the ETF`s bullion levels fell below China`s gold reserves.
Despite the outflows, the SPDR Gold Trust still holds more than 1,000 tonnes of the precious metal in its highly secured vaults, but at 1,052 tonnes, that`s down 22 percent since its holdings peaked at 1,351 tonnes in mid-December.
