The table below ranks all ETFs and other non-listed custodial facilities who publish regular figures on their holdings (source: Sharelynx). Balances are by issuer, rather than stock exchange their individual products are listed on.
Rank | ETF/Custodial Facility | Gold Ounces as at July 2009 | Gold Ounces as at July 2010 | % Increase | % Market Share |
1st | Gold Bullion Securities | 40,465,445 | 47,238,687 | 16.7% | 5.3% |
2nd | Zurcher Kantonalbank | 4,738,397 | 5,612,194 | 18.4% | 0.6% |
3rd | ETF Securities | 2,716,282 | 4,938,090 | 81.8% | 0.6% |
4th | iShares | 2,323,677 | 2,921,785 | 25.7% | 0.3% |
5th | Julius Baer | 1,849,375 | 2,607,096 | 41.0% | 0.3% |
6th | Central Fund/Trust of Canada | 1,571,037 | 2,108,910 | 34.2% | 0.2% |
7th | Xetra Gold | 1,019,540 | 1,607,743 | 57.7% | 0.2% |
8th | Bullion Vault | 583,705 | 666,055 | 14.1% | 0.1% |
9th | Sprott | na | 582,417 | na | 0.1% |
10th | GoldMoney | 425,168 | 498,567 | 17.3% | 0.1% |
11th | Claymore | 366,000 | 356,664 | -2.6% | 0.0% |
12th | Benchmark (India) | 68,674 | 162,427 | 136.5% | 0.0% |
13th | Bullion Management Group | 92,544 | 86,448 | -6.6% | 0.0% |
14th | UTI (India) | 46,136 | 69,607 | 50.9% | 0.0% |
15th | e-Gold | 68,208 | 60,256 | -11.7% | 0.0% |
16th | Reliance Captial (India) | 38,935 | 52,760 | 35.5% | 0.0% |
17th | GoldIST (Turkey) | 46,780 | 46,780 | 0.0% | 0.0% |
18th | Mitsubishi UFJ (Japan) | na | 27,869 | na | 0.0% |
19th | Kotak (India) | 11,060 | 22,345 | 102.0% | 0.0% |
20th | SBI (India) | 23,920 | 19,837 | -17.1% | 0.0% |
21st | Religare (India) | na | 5,273 | na | 0.0% |
22nd | Quantum (India) | 1,961 | 3,472 | 77.0% | 0.0% |
Gold "Products" Sub-total | 56,456,844 | 69,695,282 | 23.4% | 7.8% | |
COMEX | 9,140,646 | 11,085,141 | 21.3% | 1.2% | |
TOCOM | 180,464 | 129,472 | -28.3% | 0.0% | |
Other Privately Held | 818,565,798 | 813,860,802 | -0.6% | 91.0% | |
Total Privately Held | 884,343,752 | 894,770,697 | 1.2% | 100.0% |
The World Gold Council sponsored Gold Bullion Securities dominates with 68% market share of known or visible products. However, when considered in light of estimated worldwide private/institutional gold holdings of 895 million ounces(1), its real market share of investor gold holdings is 5.3%. Not too shabby considering how secretive gold investors can be.
The market share percentages also indicate that caution should be taken prognosticating from ETF and futures movements as they only account in total for 10% of the market. I suppose analyst and commentator obsession with them stems from their visibility in what is an otherwise opaque market.
The standout performer over the past year has to be ETF Securities, with an increase of 82%. At this rate they have the number two spot in their sights. However they may encounter strong competition from iShares, who on June 24 split their shares down to 1/100th of an ounce (a $12 per share price compared to $120 for their competitors) and on July 1 reduced their management fee from 0.40% to 0.25%,(2) leaving Gold Bullion Securities at 0.4% and ETF Securities at 0.39%.
This has iShares’ ounces up 6.95% from June 24 to August 4, compared to Gold Bullion Securities down 2.61%, ETF Securities down 2.67% and all Issuers’ ounces down 0.97% over the same time period. At this time iShares appear to be getting a positive response from their “newly refined” product – could a price war be on the cards?
Sprott’s closed end fund made a big entry straight to 9th place, reflecting its strong support from the goldbug community, who do not trust the “bankster” ETFs. My reading of the commentators is that the trusted products seem to be Central Fund/Trust of Canada, Bullion Vault, Sprott, GoldMoney, Bullion Management Group and probably e-Gold. If we split the leader board on that basis we do get an interesting result.
Gold Ounces as at July 2009 | Gold Ounces as at July 2010 | % Increase | |
Untrustworthy | 53,716,182 | 65,692,629 | 22.3% |
Trustworthy | 2,740,662 | 4,002,653 | 46.0% |
Benchmark appears to be winning the Indian ETF war, with a 136% increase and a balance more than double their nearest competitor. The Indian gold ETF market is unique with seven products listed. Certainly it is a larger gold market than the US (with three products fighting it out) but with only 335,000 ounces across all of them, it seems to confirm that India remains in love with physical rather than paper.
Disclosure: Long ASX:ZAUWBA
