ETF Securities Weekly Flows Analysis – Political and policy uncertainty generates safe haven demand for gold

• Strong inflows into gold ETPs for 4th consecutive week, amidst political and policy uncertainty.
• Profit-taking in oil continues for 4th consecutive week despite OPEC production cuts.
• Natural gas ETPs received largest inflows since June 2015.
• Copper bucks trend of industrial metal inflows, with largest outflows in 14 weeks.
• Investors exit US Dollar positions as lack of clarity over Trump policy will keep the Fed on hold.

Strong inflows into gold ETPs political and policy uncertainty. Gold remains a firm investor favourite, notching up the 4th consecutive week of inflows. Investors have been lured to gold’s defensive characteristics as the Eurozone remains mired in political uncertainty with Dutch and French elections just around the corner. Meanwhile the ECB has hinted at temporarily moving away from its capital key in order to subvert the problems associated with its limited pool of bonds for its quantitative easing programme. Expanding its QE activities is likely to heap pressure on the Euro and investors are looking to gold as a monetary devaluation hedge. Gold inflows were at a 30 week high, totalling US$192.1mn last week

Profit-taking in oil continues for 4th consecutive week despite OPEC production cuts. OPEC Secretary General Barkindo indicated his optimism that the cartel can sustain a higher level of compliance than the 90% reported in January. Investors, however, appear less than convinced: We believe that oil prices will remain under pressure in the near term as US oil production and inventories continue to grow. Outflows from oil ETPs last week totalled US12mn mostly from WTI oil ETPs.

Natural gas ETPs received largest inflows since June 2015 after prices drop another 6.6%. Natural gas prices reached the lowest level since early November following unseasonably warmer weather in the US, leading to lower demand across all sectors. The sharp price declines have prompted bargain hunting by investors, with inflows totalling US$12.8mn – the largest inflows in 20 months.

Copper bucks trend of industrial metal inflows, with largest outflows in 14 weeks. Profit-taking by investors totalled US$21.9mn last week. The copper price has benefited from outages in mines that account for close to 12% of global capacity. If these outages last for another few weeks, we are likely to see another year of a supply deficit in 2017. The deep capex cuts we have seen over the past few years will take longer to materially bite into supply and so copper inventory could remain elevated for several years.

US Dollar ETPs record third consecutive week of outflows, totalling US$7mn. A lack of clarity over potential policy from the Trump Administration is having a negative effect on investors. We expect further softness for the USD in coming weeks as the Fed holds of on rate hikes ahead of the release of President Trump’s budget release in mid-March.

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