Investors considering SGDM over the near-term don’t need to look far for an ally because they’ve got one in the Federal Reserve. The Fed’s bond buying is seen as a catalyst for bullion, which could turn into a spark for SGDM.
“In the process, the Fed’s Treasury bondholdings zoomed past those of foreign nations parked at the U.S. central bank, which have remained flat around $3 trillion. And overall foreign holdings of Treasuries fell by $591 billion in the latest 12 months,” reports Randall Forsyth for
. “The Fed’s massive securities purchases fueled a $4.2 trillion explosion in the broad M2 money supply in the year through February. That, in turn, helped send the U.S. Dollar Index tumbling 13% from its peak last March to the turn of the year. Since then, it’s recovered by about 3%.”
April 12, 2021
Precious metals, particularly silver futures and ETFs, are falling Monday, as the futures traders may be reigniting the downtrend to begin the trading week, amid a dearth of headline news to help move markets.
June gold futures dropped $16.50 to trade at $1,728.30 an ounce, while May Comex silver futures declined $0.570 to $24.75 an ounce. The moves have been tougher on silver which is down 2.25% as of almost 3 PM EST.
Technical analysts are suggesting that silver remains in its nearly 3-month downtrend, which could be reasserting itself based on the action from last Friday and today, where prices broke below recent highs near $25.67 an ounce.
SPPP provides “a secure, convenient and exchange-traded investment alternative for investors who want to hold physical platinum and palladium. The Trust offers a number of compelling advantages over traditional exchange-traded platinum and palladium funds,” according to the issuer.
With the global economy shaking off the ill effects of the coronavirus pandemic, palladium could be a winning precious metal in the back half of 2021. Some commodities market observers are already forecasting more upside for the metal.
“Palladium did a return to point of breakout, close to the November and January highs at 2516.51/2511.03, before heading back up again,” according to Commerzbank. “Since the decline from the current March high at 2758.00 looks corrective and can be subdivided into three smaller waves a, b and c, we expect the current advance to rise above the 2758.00 high towards the 2020 peak and all-time high at 2878.04.”
Gold Miners Recorded Record High Margins in 2020 April 3, 2021
Gold producers had their most profitable year ever in 2020, based on one metric. The average all-in sustaining cost (AISC) margin, which is the gold price minus the cost to produce the metal, hit a record $828 per ounce, according to Metals Focus. What this means is that for every ounce of gold a mining company produced in 2020, it got to pocket $828 on average. This is comfortably higher than the previous record of $666 set in 2011.
The price of gold hit a record high of $2,070 in 2020, which helped increase revenues. But companies have also been focused on cost discipline. We didn’t see gold miners’ exploration budgets increase significantly in 2020, due in part to the pandemic, which forced mine closures in China, South Africa, Peru, Mexico and elsewhere.
March 17, 2021
Gold and bitcoin are often compared in the same breath. Yet there’s considerable debate about stores of value, whether either will be acceptable for everyday financial transactions, roles in portfolios, inflation-fighting merit, and so on.
In fact, many market observers refer to bitcoin as ‘digital gold’. Yet some analysts believe those comparisons should come to a halt. That’s not a slight on either asset, but it could provide relief for funds such as the
SGDM tracks the Solactive Gold Miners Custom Factors Index and “emphasizes gold companies with the highest revenue growth and free cash flow yield, and the lowest long-term debt to equity ratio,” according to the issuer.