ETF Securities Weekly Flows Analysis – Investors buy gold as ‘fire and fury’ envelopes markets
- Geopolitical tensions see investors look to gold as a safehaven, with 3rd consecutive week of inflows.
- Long USD inflows reach the highest level in 18 months, totalling US$27.4mn.
- Oil ETP outflows continue for 4th consecutive week on OPEC global market rebalancing doubts.
- Platinum group metals outflows begin as palladium gains divorced from fundamentals.
Geopolitical tensions see investors look to gold as a safehaven, with 3rd consecutive week of inflows. President Trump’s recent ‘fire and fury’ comments about the simmering tension over the North Korean nuclear situation have sparked gold to life. The gold price has rallied over 2% as investors have flocked to the metal as a portfolio hedge against risk. Certainly, with the spike in the VIX and the decline in global equity markets since the escalation in geopolitical risk, such portfolio rotation towards more defensive investments have been justified.
Long USD inflows reach the highest level in 18 months, totalling US$27.4mn. Investors appear to be indicating that the case for tighter US policy is more justified than for other major developed economies: the UK is beset by Brexit related fears, while the Eurozone and Japanese inflation pressure is almost non-existent. Meanwhile USD futures market positioning has slumped to the lowest levels in over three years – since May 2014. The inflows for the USD ETPs have been broadly split between the British Pound, the Japanese Yen and the Chinese Renminbi.
Oil ETP outflows continue for 4th consecutive week on OPEC output cutback doubts. Investors have withdrawn US$64.6mn from long oil ETPs – the fourth consecutive week of outflows – as crude prices have rebounded nearly 7% over the past week. Oil has certainly lost its lustre for investors, despite a strong stock withdrawal from the US and continued rhetoric from the International Energy Agency about demand being set to recover in the second half of the year, in turn rebalancing the global oil market. With peak seasonal demand coming close to an end and OPEC’s meeting in Abu Dhabi – forecast by some to provide a dressing down to poorly complying members – being a non-event, investors feel that the prices are reaching a near-term peak. We continue to expect that oil is likely to remain rangebound between US$40-55/bbl.
Platinum group metals buck the precious metals trend, with outflows totalling US$12.4mn. The ‘other’ precious metals have largely industrial applications and therefore have little perception as safehaven assets. After strong gains, particularly in palladium, investors have begun to take profits. Palladium’s first outflows in five weeks comes after 33% run up over 2017, which appears somewhat divorced from fundamentals. Futures market positioning, nonetheless, remains near multi-year highs.
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