Silver has been performing quite poorly over the past few weeks due to the broad commodity weakness and a shift to more risky asset class like equities. This is especially true with the backdrop of the strengthening dollar and continued bullishness in the equity space that are tempering the demand for lower risk assets across the board.
In fact, the white metal has plunged 30% in the year-to-date time frame and more than 50% since its peak at the end of April 2011, making it one of the worst performing metals this year. Currently, the metal is trading below $23 per ounce with some forecasting a bigger drop in the days ahead as well……………………………..Full Article: Source

ETF Securities short commodity ETPs continued to see inflows last week as tactical investors remained bearish gold, and a strong US dollar continued to weigh on sentiment towards commodities broadly.
Global cyclical growth indicators were mixed, with Euro area Q1 GDP and US industrial production numbers disappointing, but US confidence, US leading indicators and Japanese GDP data showing upside surprises. The one bright spot was continued inflows into palladium ETPs, which gained on news of Johnson Matthey’s forecast of a large supply deficit in 2013………………………………..Full Article: Source

Gold exchange traded funds (ETF), among the hottest financial products in recent times, may face a curious problem because of a recent RBI circular which bars the import of gold on a consignment basis for domestic use.
Authorised participants (APs) who create and redeem units backed by gold, and fund houses said this could crimp liquidity in the product and prevent growth of assets under management in quantity terms unless RBI clears the air on the issue………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Since the first exchange-traded fund was introduced 20 years ago, the ETF industry has grown into a trillion-dollar business. Today’s traders and investors have access to an increasing number of ETFs, offering exposure to a wide variety of popular and niche markets.
One of these is the precious metals ETF market, which provides exposure to gold, silver, platinum and palladium. Precious metals funds invest in both physical commodities and futures contracts for precious metals. Here we will take a look at some of the most affordable precious metals ETFs on the market today………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Nearly 180 metric tons of bullion flowed out of gold ETFs in the first quarter as notable investors including George Soros dumped their positions in SPDR Gold Shares and other precious metal funds amid a pullback in prices.
The first quarter saw a “strong resurgence” in demand for gold jewellery, bars and coins; however, overall demand was down 13%, according to a report released Thursday from the World Gold Council. “Outfows from ETFs accounted for the vast bulk of this decline; excluding these outflows overall demand grew year-on-year,” it said………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Investors who want to begin investing in exchange traded funds have so many choices, it could be difficult to begin. There are many risks involved with using ETFs, just as there are plenty of rewards.
“To put things in perspective, there are probably six or seven times as many mutual funds as exchange-traded funds. So think of ETFs like tools in a toolbox. Some ETFs are basic tools that you might use every day. A large-cap index might be equivalent to a flat-head screwdriver that you use on a regular basis,” Michael Sapir of ProShares said……………………………………Full Article: Source

Physically-backed gold exchange traded funds are used by investors as an easy alternative to buy the metal within the equities markets. However, the innovation in ETFs can also add to the selling pressure on gold.
“The ETF revolution set expectations very high and brought a lot of liquidity at first” to the commodity markets, said Kevin Kerr, president and chief executive officer of Kerr Trading International. “After all, the ETFs were much more palatable to the average equity investor who wanted to steer clear of futures or physical gold and silver.”……………………………………….Full Article: Source

Despite price gains across a range of commodities last week, commodity investors remain cautious. In fact last week saw the largest ever inflows into ETF Securities short gold ETP (SBUL), with $48mn of net new inflows.
Other of ETF Securities’ range of short commodity ETPs have also seen large inflows, with ETFS Daily Short Copper (SCOP) seeing $37mn of inflows last week alone. While investors remain bearish, there are increasing signs that a commodity price turnaround may lie ahead………………………………………..Full Article: Source

A reversal of the recent exodus from gold exchange-traded funds is unlikely for some time, according to market experts. Net outflows in commodity ETFs of $9.3bn in April marked the biggest monthly exit by investors from the asset class in its 10-year lifespan, according to a BlackRock report this month. The outflows almost doubled the previous record of $5.2bn, set in February.
A gold-selling frenzy has been blamed for the phenomenon and creating the mass departure from commodity ETFs, according to providers. On April 15, the market suffered its biggest one-day price drop since 1983…………………………………..Full Article: Source

Exchange-traded funds ushered in a new era of investing in commodities, allowing everyone from avid retail investors to leveraged hedge funds to make bets on gold, silver and other hard assets without the constraints of trading in traditional futures.
But the popularity of those stocklike vehicles, credited with helping to drive commodities to record highs in the past five years, may be working against prices — and commodity investors — right now…………………………………..Full Article: Source

Investors withdrew a record $9.3 billion from commodity exchange-traded products as gold sales pushed the metal into a bear market, BlackRock Inc (BLK) said. The outflow for commodities in April pushed the total for the first four months this year to $17.8 billion, compared with inflows of $6 billion for the same period last year, BlackRock said in a report dated April 30.
The previous record for commodity sales was $5.2 billion in February. Gold outflows were an all-time high of $8.7 billion last month as the metal slid to a two-year low in London on April 16, two sessions after falling into a bear market………………………………….Full Article: Source

Commodity-based exchange traded products (ETPs) suffered record outflows of $9.3 billion in April, data showed on Thursday, as institutional investors dumped gold holdings.
Leading wealth managers have been switching out of commodities since the start of the year in favour of equities and bonds as they look for yield, a trend which accelerated in April with a major sell-off across the commodities field, led by a collapse in the gold price. Global outflows from commodity ETPs tripled month-on-month, according to Blackrock Inc, the world’s largest asset manager, while redemptions from the precious metals segment quadrupled after gold’s largest spot-price decline in 30 years………………………………….Full Article: Source

Gold traders are divided on whether surging demand for jewelry and bullion coins will sustain the rally in prices as a slump in holdings through exchange-traded products extends to the longest in more than eight years.
Twelve analysts surveyed by Bloomberg expect prices to rise next week, with 10 bearish and five neutral. While rising coin sales and demand for physical gold in Asia drove prices up 11 percent since reaching a two-year low April 16, ETP investors sold about $9.9 billion of their metal in the 27 days through May 8, the longest retreat since September 2004………………………………….Full Article: Source

The commodity ETF space has seen only a few winners so far this year, thanks to a strong dollar and weak demand. Some products in the energy or soft commodities space (like natural gas, cotton or cocoa) have added double digits but others have seen significant weakness in the year-to-date period.
ETF investors have especially seen weakness in the industrial metals segment of the industry. These products have been crushed by sluggish conditions in some key emerging marketslike China, recent fears of a deepening euro zone crisis as well as worries over continued dollar strength………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Half of institutions using exchange-traded funds (ETFs) expect to increase their allocations to ETFs in the coming year according to the results of new study, Institutional Investors’ Relationship with ETFs Deepens, from Greenwich Associates. When looking to invest in ETFs, U.S. institutions turn most often to iShares, BlackRock’s ETF business.
Last year’s study on ETF usage, Institutions Find New, Increasingly Strategic Uses for ETFs, indicated that institutional investors with experience using ETFs for tactical portfolio adjustments were finding new, more strategic and longer-term uses for the funds………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Continued ETP outflows remain a key downside risk to gold prices in the near term; however, in Barclays’ view, the vulnerability of further ETP outflows subsides should prices recover to above $1500/oz or equity markets underperform given the stronger correlation between the two.
Gold ETP holdings continued their downward march, ending April at a record net outflow of 176 tonnes. This comes after having previously set a monthly net outflow record in February (111 tonnes) and brings year-to-date net outflows to 343 tonnes, Barclays noted in a report………………………………………..Full Article: Source

How attractive is “free”? Some of the largest online brokers of exchange-traded funds are determined to find out. Two have recently expanded the lineups of ETFs they offer without trading commissions, bringing their menus closer to the size of their competitors’.
In February, Charles Schwab Corp. expanded its commission-free ETF menu to 105 funds, up from just its own 15 broad-based index offerings. A few weeks later, Fidelity Investments expanded its exclusive partnership with BlackRock Inc. to offer 65 of BlackRock’s iShares ETFs commission-free, up from 30, in addition to Fidelity’s one ETF………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Want to know which way the price of gold is headed? Some brokers and money managers say you should keep an eye on gold ETFs. They say the recent collapse in the price of gold has highlighted a new leading indicator for the metal: the flow of money into and out of exchange-traded funds in the sector, led by the giant SPDR Gold Shares.
And some suggest that investors who are thinking of buying into gold-related funds may want to heed the recent past and go with the flows—that is, stay away for now………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Exchange-traded funds like the SPDR Gold Trust (ETF) have many similarities with regular stocks. However, even though it trades like a stock on the market, an ETF is a security that follows an index, a commodity or a basket of assets, so it has some particularities as an index fund. Because it acts like a stock on the market, but also because of the low cost and tax efficiency, an ETF can represent an interesting investment opportunity.
Speaking of the SPDR Gold Trust ETF, its shares have recently started to fall together with the overall slump of the gold market. The Trust had already hit a new 52-week low near the $132 mark in April before rebounding slightly………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Gold holdings in exchange-traded products plunged 174 metric tons last month, the biggest drop ever, as prices entered a bear market and wiped $17.9 billion from the value of the funds.
Holdings in the ETPs slumped 7.1 percent in April to 2,275.84 tons, the lowest since October 2011, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The value of the assets dropped to $108.1 billion. Investors pulled $10.23 billion from gold funds in the first quarter, the most since at least 2000, when the data begins according to Cambridge, Massachusetts-based EPFR Global………………………………………..Full Article: Source

The commodity ETF space has seen only a few winners so far this year, thanks to a strong dollar and weak demand (read: 3 Commodity ETFs Still Going Higher). Some products in the energy or soft commodities space (like natural gas, cotton or cocoa) have added double digits but others have seen significant weakness in the year-to-date period.
ETF investors have especially seen weakness in the industrial metals segment of the industry. These products have been crushed by sluggish conditions in some key emerging markets like China, recent fears of a deepening euro zone crisis as well as worries over continued dollar strength………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Active ETFs are still a relatively recent innovation despite that the first index exchange-traded fund was launched in 1990 in Canada and the first index ETF was launched in the U.S. in 1993. For investors, it’s important to separate the excitement about active ETFs as a new investment product class from the reality.
The first active ETF products launched in 2008, and at the end of the first quarter of 2013, there were 108 active ETFs and exchange-traded products listed globally with $17.8 billion in assets from 18 providers, listed on nine exchanges………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Last week, WisdomTree (WETF) announced earnings, and the results were strong, sending the stock 5% higher in early trading. Net income rose 600% year-over-year on the back of an almost $6 billion increase in assets during the first quarter and expanding margins. In all, it was a powerful report by a firm that has quickly become one of the success stories in the ETF industry.
Although no one in their right mind would rank WisdomTree alongside BlackRock , Vanguard or State Street Global Advisors in terms of influence or power, the New York-based ETF firm has leveraged its unique strategies in a way that even the biggest money management firms in the world have had trouble replicating………………………………………..Full Article: Source

ETF Securities believes that the commodity super-cycle that started in the late 1990s is far from over, despite recent falls in commodity prices which have wiped billions off the firm’s assets under management.
The London-headquartered exchange-traded product (ETP) provider, which is best known for its leadership position in commodities, asserts that the main fundamental drivers of the super-cycle are still in force and that recent commodity price weaknesses are more related to business-cycle fluctuations and short-term commodity-specific supply increases than a change in structural fundamentals………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Thanks to the strong dollar, commodity prices have been pretty depressed over the past few months. It also doesn’t help that many are looking for a slowdown in China, a key market for commodity demand.
This is especially true in the base metal market, as China is easily the biggest consumer of copper (and other industrial metals) in the world. So, when this important country is experiencing sluggish growth—and when the dollar is strong—it can be a rough period for copper investors………………………………………..Full Article: Source

European ETP assets are set to exceed $900bn by 2017 as regulation, wider adoption of wraps and the increasing illiquidity of fixed income products makes them more attractive investment propositions, according to analysis by BlackRock iShares.Sector assets stood at around $387bn at the start of the year, and are set to more than double over the next five years as the market plays catch up with its US counterpart.
Mark Wiedman, global head of iShares, said: “The growth of the ETP industry has much further to go. Compared to the market size of other investment vehicles in segments such as securities, mutual funds and derivatives, ETPs have huge headroom for growth, even in the more mature markets of Europe and the US. It’s a very exciting time for investors and providers alike.”……………………………………….Full Article: Source

Barclays expect gold prices to recover to an average $1,500/oz in Q4 13 but given the weight of cash negative ETP holdings, they believe downside risk still exists in the near term, and expects prices to average $1350/oz.
The key question here will be whether physical demand can continue to offset ETP outflows, which have shown no sign of slowing down. Gold ETP outflows have continued, hitting 150 tonsso far in April, bringing year-to-date outflows to 310 tonnes. This compares to net inflows of 279 tons in 2012, and outflows represent 11% of the peak holdings at the start of the year of 2767 tons………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Sweeping changes to financial advice rules, including the banning of commissions, will fuel Australia’s ETF sector, which grew 30 per cent last year to $6.5 billion and is forecast to grow to $17 billion over the next three years.
ETFs - which are traded on the stock exchange and are designed to track a particular share index, commodity or other type of asset - have only been available in Australia for 12 years. From just one ETF in 2001 that tracked the ASX 200 index, there are now more than 90 of them investing across shares, property, cash, bonds and commodities such as gold………………………………………..Full Article: Source

The exchange traded funds market in Europe will grow by around 20 per cent a year over the next decade with assets surpassing the $2tn mark by 2022, according to BlackRock, the world’s largest fund manager.
Assets held in European listed ETFs (funds and products) stood at $367bn at the end of 2012 but growth in recent years has lagged behind the more mature US market because of Europe’s sovereign debt crisis………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Thanks to the strong dollar, commodity prices have been pretty depressed over the past few months. It also doesn’t help that many are looking for a slowdown in China, a key market for commodity demand.
This is especially true in the base metal market, as China is easily the biggest consumer of copper (and other industrial metals) in the world. So, when this important country is experiencing sluggish growth-and when the dollar is strong-it can be a rough period for copper investors………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Société Générale S A became the fourth money center bank to mark down its 2013 gold target price following record outflows from gold ETPs.
Holdings of gold exchange-traded products sank 154 metric tons worldwide over the first quarter, the largest drop-off on record, according to analysts at Barclays Capital. By contrast, gold assets rose 71 tons in the year-ago quarter………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Indian-dedicated funds and ETFs have sold shares worth $1.2 billion during the March quarter as concerns mount over implementation of reforms amid lingering political uncertainty. The funds and ETFs, which sold the shares, include the likes of HSBC, Fidelity, JPMorgan, Lyxor, WisdomTree and iShares, data from US-based global fund tracker Morningstar shows.
The benchmark index Sensex fell over 3.5% during this period, despite foreign institutional investors (FII), which can access Indian stock markets, having pumped close to $10 billion into Indian equities………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Alternative strategies have been growing in popularity after the financial crisis but investors have been slower to adopt the ETF wrapper.
“At least two firms are looking for help to boost assets in their languishing alternative strategy ETFs,” Ignites.com reports………………………………………..Full Article: Source

John Maynard Keynes, the curmudgeonly economist, once said “The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones…” One of the more intriguing “new ideas” to hit the mutual fund industry over last few years has been their adoption of hedge fund strategies. These “alternative” mutual funds hold out the promise of delivering hedge fund-like returns, without the high fees, to the retail investor.
Firms like UBS, Goldman Sachs and hedge fund giant AQR have opened numerous mutual funds offering small clients access to esoteric strategies like ‘tactical macro’ or ‘ statistical arbitrage’ and derivatives trading. ……………………………………….Full Article: Source

Indian investment demand in paper gold during the last financial year slowed to its lowest level since its launch in 2007, as falling prices and a decline in the precious metal’s safe-haven appeal damped investor appetite.
The assets under gold exchange-traded funds grew only 18% from a year earlier to 116.48 billion rupees ($2.14 billion) in the last financial year that ended March 31, despite a rise in the total number of schemes, data from the Association of Mutual Funds in India showed Thursday……………………………………..Full Article: Source

The assets of the Global ETF’s increased by 8.4 percent YTD and ended March with $1.82 trillion while the European ETF industry ended the month with €267.5 billion worth of assets, according to the report released by strategists at Deutsche Bank Market Research.
Deutsche Bank AG strategists Sascha Levitt together with Sebastian Mercado and Shan Lan, observed that cash inflows into equity last month were more than $15.7 billion and cash inflows into fixed income were more than $6 billion. They also noted a $-3.2 billion cash outflows from commodity ETP’s particularly gold products……………………………………….Full Article: Source

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Investors in commodity exchange traded products (ETPs) unwound their holdings to jump on the equity market rally in March, resulting in total redemptions of $3.2 billion globally, according to BlackRock data.
Gold suffered an investor exodus for a third consecutive month, bringing first-quarter ETP outflows to $9.2 billion, but white metals - silver, platinum and palladium - escaped the sell-off, BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, said. Riskier, growth-related commodities such as industrial metals and energy also did poorly in March, as the Cyprus crisis stoked new worries over eurozone debt and economic growth………………………………………..Full Article: Source

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Let me begin by stating that this article will, at no time, provides evidence or insight about how I believe the oil markets will behave in the future. Rather, my purpose is to provide current and potential energy investors a means to take advantage of glaring market inefficiencies given some prior understanding or opinion of the crude oil markets. As such, if you were looking for a hot oil tip, this article is not for you.
Still with me? Great, let’s get to it. I have previously written about why commodities ETFs are terrible. Let me assure you that this article by no means represents a reappraisal of that opinion………………………………………..Full Article: Source

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A stronger US economy is seeing interest rates increase and bullion demand plummet, an ETF analyst has said. “Higher interest rates will rise in North America, which means it is likely that precious metals – gold and silver especially – will lose favour among investors,” said Christopher Vecchio, currency analyst for DailyFX.com.
Overextended monetary policies in North America will be wound down as a result of economic growth and unemployment rates dipping in the US, he added, which will cause interest rates to rise and the demand for gold as a safe haven to decline………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Silver ETFs saw the strongest inflows of any single commodity in the first quarter of 2013, a recently released quarterly commodities report from ETF Securities reveals. Specifically, net new buying of silver products totaled $875 million as investors rotated into cyclical assets.
North Americans were the top investors in silver ETFs in Q1, spending $732 million compared to Europe’s $126 million. However, both regions clearly preferred the white metal over gold………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Investors in commodity exchange traded products (ETPs) unwound their holdings to jump on the equity market rally in March, resulting in total redemptions of US$3.2 billion globally, according to BlackRock data. Gold suffered an investor exodus for a third consecutive month, bringing first-quarter ETP outflows to US$9.2 billion, but white metals - silver, platinum and palladium - escaped the sell-off, BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, said.
Riskier, growth-related commodities such as industrial metals and energy also did poorly in March, as the Cyprus crisis stoked new worries over eurozone debt and economic growth………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Commodity ETPs: In 1Q 2013, as global growth and risk appetite picked up, commodity investors rotated out of gold ETPs and into more cyclical commodity ETPs such as silver, copper, palladium, platinum and broad commodity trackers. Gold ETPs saw $9.2bn of outflows during the quarter as improving US growth data drove up US interest rate expectations, increased speculation that quantitative easing might be ratcheted back and boosted the US dollar.
All of these factors were gold negative and caused tactical ETP investors to pare back their positioning. A similar trend occurred in the futures market where net speculative longs in gold futures fell back to end 2008 levels………………………………………..Full Article: Source

As global growth and risk appetite picked up in the first quarter of 2013, commodity investors rotated out of exchange-traded products (ETPs) linked to gold and into more cyclical commodity ETPs such as silver, copper, palladium, platinum and broad commodity trackers.
As an aside, the term ‘ETP’ encompasses exchange-traded funds (ETFs), exchange-traded notes (ETNs) and exchange-traded commodities (ETCs). The latter, ETCs, are typically the preferred vehicle for commodities investment. Gold ETPs saw $9.2 billion of outflows during the quarter as improving US growth data drove up US interest rate expectations, increased speculation that quantitative easing might be ratcheted back and boosted the US dollar………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Global commodity exchange-traded funds recorded multi-billion dollar outflows for the first quarter of 2013, but the near-default of Cyprus last month is expected to increase appetite for gold funds in the second quarter, according to fund provider ETF Securities.
Global commodity ETFs experienced outflows of $8.64bn in the first quarter, fuelled by $9.16bn of outflows in gold, as increased investor risk appetite saw movement into equities, according to ETF Securities. Precious metals and energy accounted for the largest outflows among commodity asset classes, with outflows of $8.09bn and $1.35bn respectively………………………………………..Full Article: Source

The gold price dropped another $25 on Wednesday, a second day of steep losses, bringing the yellow metal within shouting distance of a year low. In afternoon trade gold was down 1.6%, changing hands for $1,550 an ounce, levels not seen since June last year.
Gold has now given up 7.4% of its value from its opening levels for the year and is homing in on a 52-week low of $1,535 set in May. Sentiment towards gold has soured this year as investors in gold-backed ETFs continued to abandon the hard asset in favour of riskier bets like stocks, which have recently hit record highs………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Rounding out the Q1 of 2013 we saw a record quarter in terms of net inflows into ETFs. Equity linked ETFs were very strong as were flows into dividend income funds and minimum volatility funds. Despite the continued news pouring out of the Eurozone and more recently Cypress the markets remained resilient as we wrapped up the first quarter. The DJIA finished the quarters with an 11.6% gain while the Nasdaq Composite rose 9.1% and S&P gained 10.8%.
Flows: For the month of March Knight ETF Trading had accounted for 14.25% of advertised ETF block shares traded trading in 1,449 unique ETFs………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Signs just keep on creeping up that the materials sector is in trouble and in today’s episode of “As Materials ETFs Tumble,” the Market Vectors Steel ETF is in the spotlight. On light volume, SLX is down 0.7 percent and while that may not sound like much, Wednesday’s decline extends a woeful start to 2013 for SLX and the ETF is now flirting with a year-to-date loss of 18 percent.
To put that performance into context, the Materials Select Sector SPDR, the worst-performing of the nine sector SPDRs in the first quarter , is still clinging to a year-to-date gain………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Gold prices finished Tuesday lower once again, as futures for June delivery dropped more than 1.5% on the session. This pushed the precious metal below the $1,600/oz. mark once more , and led to renewed worries over a further slump in the commodity’s price going forward.
This is especially true given the robust level of dollar strength in the market, and the continued bullishness in the equity world, factors that are dulling safe haven appeal across the board. In fact, this somewhat unusual combination has devastated gold prices so far in 2013, pushing the commodity down by nearly $100/oz since the start of the year………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Silver ETFs have fallen to their lowest levels in over seven months as a recent smackdown in commodities suggests natural resource investors are concerned about global growth despite the S&P 500 rising to new all-time highs.
The $9.9 billion iShares Silver Trust (SLV) was off 1.7% in early trading Tuesday after falling the previous four sessions. The silver ETF was down about 8% year to date heading into Tuesday’s sell-off………………………………………..Full Article: Source

It has been a rather forgetful year for the British pound so far as the currency lost close to 6.5% versus the U.S dollar since the start of January. This makes it one of the worst performing currencies on a year to date basis after the Japanese yen (read DXJ–Best ETF to Play the Japan Rally).
The economy suffered a credit rating downgrade of one notch by rating agency Moody’s in mid February this year. Also, recessionary concerns have been plaguing the economy for a long time………………………………………..Full Article: Source