The ETFS Russell Global Gold Fund, which tracks the performance of the world’s largest gold miners, rose again last week making it the strongest performing equity ETF on ETF Securities’
The ETFS Russell Global Gold Fund, which tracks the performance of the world’s largest gold miners, rose again last week making it the strongest performing equity ETF on ETF Securities’ platform.
It has made a total gain of 121 per cent since 27 October.
ETF Securities says the fund continues to benefit from investors’ positive view on the gold price and the leverage to the gold price gold equities provide. Despite recent price increases, gold equities are still trading at a substantial discount to their historical levels by comparison with the gold price.
Investor demand was strong in defensive stocks last week, with safe-haven and low-beta ETFs – ETFS Russell Global Gold, ETFS S-Net Global Agri Business and ETFS Dow Jones Stoxx 600 Utilities – the top performers as equity markets weakened on soft US macro data.
ETFS Stoxx Utilities was also the third strongest performing sector in the Stoxx 600 last week. The top five ETF Securities ETFs outperformed the MSCI World and Stoxx 50 by an average three per cent over the past week.
After ETFS Russell Global Gold, ETFS S-Net Global Agri Business is the top performing ETF since the start of 2009 and over the past month. It also has the third highest returns of ETF Securities’ equity ETF platform over the past three months, with returns rising by 29 per cent. Agriculture’s low correlation to the business cycle and strong long term supply-demand fundamentals appear to be underpinning its strong return performance.
The ETFS Russell Global Coal fund is the strongest performer amongst the higher-beta ETFs, with the second strongest return growth of the firm’s ETF platform, up 37 per cent over the past three months and the third strongest growth over the past month. Reports of higher coal imports by China have provided support to prices, as has a rebound in Chinese PMI manufacturing in January.