GLD

Investors Pile Back Into Gold

Gold is back in fashion. After taking a breather in March, the precious metal has been on a steady climb as the overall demand for commodities has seen a resurgence and investors have begun to flee the safety of the dollar in search of higher returns.

up

ETF Assets Grow $31 Billion in March

Assets in the U.S. ETF industry ended March at $482 billion, up $31 billion or 6.8%. In the March ETF Snapshot report, State Street Global Advisors found that the biggest driver of growth were International ETFs with assets up $10 billion or 12.5%.

down trend

ETF Assets Decline 9% in February

ETF Assets declined 9.1% or $45 billion for the month of Februrary according to the Snapshot report fromState Street Global Advisors. Equity assets declined the most as the S&P 500 fell 10.7% and the MSCI EAFE fell 10.2% for the month.

gold 3

Demand for Gold Exceeds $100 Billion

Dollar demand for gold reached $102 billion in 2008, up 29% from 2007 according to data recently published by the World Gold Council. In tonnage terms, gold demand rose 4% in 2008 to 3,659 tonnes.

GLD

Gold Climbs Higher as Equities Stumble in January

As the US equity markets stumbled out of the blocks, gold continued to climb back from its November lows. Despite new leadership in Washington, the continued disappointing economic news resulted in the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DIA) falling 8.8% in January, the worst start to the year in history for the bellweather index.

GDX

Gold Miners Bounce Back

Market turmoil and stronger gold prices caused the stocks of gold mining companies to climb sharply on Friday. The S&P 500 ETF (SPY) hit a new 52-week low on Friday before bouncing back late in the day to finish up 5% on the day.

take off

Flight to Safety

Continuing nervousness over banks drove stocks down and caused investors to flee to the relative safety of gold and US treasuries in trading on Wednesday, September 17.

gold

Investing in Gold with ETFs

ETF investors have several choices for gaining exposure to gold including funds that hold physical gold, invest in futures contracts or own gold mining stocks. Leveraged and inverse funds are also available.

risk

Case Study: Managing Risk

Jessica has been investing for awhile and took steps a couple of years ago to begin to diversify her portfolio. However, she is now concerned that the portfolio isn’t correctly balanced and wants to minimize any selling due to tax consequences.