Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Is GLD Overdue To Buy Two Hundred Tons Of Actual Gold?

One of the completely unmentioned side effects of the recent surge in gold prices, has been the fact that one of the biggest holders of gold, the GLD ETF (presumably physical, even though it is kept in the cellars of HSBC in London, one of the two banks recently charged with a RICO suit for precious metal price manipulation) which as of close today held 1,294 tonnes, has not really bought any gold in over 5 months. The issue is that GLD's gold actual holdings, which feed right into its NAV, have been flat since June, peaking at 1,320.44 tonnes on June 29, and flat-lining and even declining through today. Since then, however, gold spot has risen by 14%. As the chart below shows, GLD tends to reindex its NAV in spurts, buying up gold during specific periods when gold goes up, notably in March of 2009, and between May and June of 2010. As of today, the trust's NAV per GLD in gold is at an all time low of 97.67. The bottom line is that GLD is now long overdue to replenish its actual gold holdings, net of redemptions. Assuming that GLD will increase its holdings in line with prior accumulations, when gold price surged, the ETF may soon be due to buy about 200 tonnes of gold. Should that happen, GLD will further increase its distance to 6th sovereign holder of gold, China, which as of September 2010 held "just" 1,040 tonnes. As to what would happen to the price gold if it is made known that there is a buyer for 200 tonnes of gold, we leave to our readers' imagination.

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