by Jeff Weniger, CFA, Head of Equity Strategy & Kevin Flanagan, Head of Fixed Income Strategy, WisdomTree
The near-perfect timing of gold breaking through $5,000 while silver sliced through $100 has grabbed the market’s attention. In explaining how gold got so high, and how it could go higher, gold bulls point to general currency debasement, central bank accumulation and a geopolitical landscape that includes outright or potential regime change in Iran, Venezuela, Cuba and Greenland. In the very near-term, some strategists are worried about a government shutdown this week, the odds of which have jumped to 81% from as low as 9% a few days ago, according to Polymarket.
Gold’s rally, beyond the psychologically critical $5,000 level, has been all the more impressive because, at least since October, it has occurred amid a backdrop of gently rising interest rates. Just before Halloween, the 10-year Treasury Note yielded 3.95%. For whatever reason, be it fiscal profligacy, the “4-handle” recently reported on GDP growth, or the sheer amount of debt being issued by the federal government, that security’s rate has drifted up to 4.22%. From an opportunity cost perspective, whereby higher rates tend to hinder metals prices, gold’s surge amid the bond market’s action is impressive.
But we think any move to $6,000, or who-knows-where, will be predicated on investors changing their apathetic ways.
Consider this: nearly 100% of the exchange-traded product industry’s gold and gold mining-related products are held in the top 30 funds, which collectively have assets under management of $365 billion. While that may sound like a big number, that sum is only equal to the market capitalization of Procter & Gamble, the 26th-largest member of the S&P 500. Nvidia’s market capitalization is $4.56 trillion.
The metal and the miners make appearances here and there in some of their other funds, but to this day, there is no such thing as The Vanguard Gold Fund.
Another statistic that our Global CIO, Jeremy Schwartz, has been citing: across the $13 trillion ETP industry, just $17 billion resides in broad commodity funds. Of those, just six have asset bases above a billion dollars, which is a drop in the bucket when we consider that there are a couple equity index trackers that are above $700 billion each.
Granted, the oil complex has been weak for years, and that has been damaging to commodities as an asset allocation line item. The nearby highs on WTI crude oil were put in last summer, at $75, but the price has spent the last few quarters grinding down to its current price, $60. Energy tends to comprise large weights in many commodity funds, so the inability of oil to get out of bed has hurt the asset class. But you, or we, would think that metals funds would have some big flows by now. We count bull markets of the raging variety beyond just gold and silver. Palladium, platinum and copper, to name just three, are surging.
Should gold’s run continue, the next thing to look for is an indication that major money managers are increasing their exposure to it in model portfolios. We come across many competitor allocations in our day-to-day, and zero percent weights in gold are more common than not. The yellow metal’s move to new highs can come if major players start making that crossover.
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