Gold-linked exchange-traded products are growing in popularity with investors. Assets held by gold ETFs have grown 38% globally in 2019.

In October, according to the World Gold Council, gold ETFs attracted $1.9 billion in net inflows to reach a new record high total gold holding of 2,900 tonnes – at least on paper.

There is good reason to be skeptical of whether all these “gold” vehicles actually hold physical metal sufficient to back their market capitalizations on a 1:1 basis. Some of them very well might; others almost certainly don’t.

In fact, many of these gold instruments hold futures contracts and other financial derivative products that merely “track” the gold price.

The biggest of them all – SPDR Gold Shares (NYSE:GLD) – purports to have 100% backing of its $42 billion market capitalization in physical bullion. But it’s practically impossible to achieve around the clock since the fund&rsqu ... Read more »

Gold-linked exchange-traded products are growing in popularity with investors. Assets held by gold ETFs have grown 38% globally in 2019.

In October, according to the World Gold Council, gold ETFs attracted $1.9 billion in net inflows to reach a new record high total gold holding of 2,900 tonnes – at least on paper.

There is good reason to be skeptical of whether all these “gold” vehicles actually hold physical metal sufficient to back their market capitalizations on a 1:1 basis. Some of them very well might; others almost certainly don’t.

In fact, many of these gold instruments hold futures contracts and other financial derivative products that merely “track” the gold price.

The biggest of them all – SPDR Gold Shares (NYSE:GLD) – purports to have 100% backing of its $42 billion market capitalization in physical bullion. But it’s practically impossible to achieve around the clock since the fund&rsqu ... Read more »