Feb 08, 2018 Guest(s): George Milling-Stanley State Street Global Advisors
Gold has stayed muted when stocks have been tumbling, leaving experts scratching their heads but one expert said that correlation is not always so iron-clad.
Investors have been their selling gold to cover margin calls on stocks, explained George Milling-Stanley, Head of Gold Strategy for State Street Global Advisors. "Interest for gold was strong before the dump in stocks. It's basically investors who bought a lot of stock on margins, rather than selling stocks at depressed prices, people have been selling gold. When everything goes down, gold doesn't' necessarily go up," he said in an interview on Thursday.
Gold and silver prices are holding modest gains in late Thursday. April gold was last up $2.80 at $1,317.40. March silver was up $0.102 at $16.34.
But even if gold prices are muted in this environment of stock market volatility, there is definite interest in the yellow metal coming from the U.S. and Canada.
But it's not physical.
While sales of physical bullion have been lackluster in North America, gold-backed exchange-traded funds added more tonnes than those of Asia and Europe combined during January, accounting for more than half of global net inflows -- this according to the World Gold Council on Thursday.