There is still significant room for development in China's gold ETF market. On March 28, 2003, the World Gold Council innovatively launched the world's first gold ETF - Gold Bullion Securities, which was listed and traded on the Australian Stock Exchange. On November 18, 2004, SPDR Gold Trust, the largest and most liquid gold ETF today, landed in the United States and was listed for trading on NASDAQ. The fund is initiated by World Gold Trust Services, a subsidiary of the World Gold Council, with the custodian being Bank of Mellon in New York, responsible for calculating daily net asset value and other daily management. The custodian of gold is HSBC US Branch, and gold will only be sold upon redemption and operating fees. Due to SPDR being the most popular gold ETF in the world, its product characteristics have become the standard for non leveraged gold ETFs.
Silver ETF fund refers to a financial derivative product that tracks fluctuations in spot silver prices based on silver as the underlying asset. Large silver producers consignment physical silver to fund companies, which then use this physical silver as a basis to publicly issue fund shares on the exchange and sell them to various investors. Commercial banks serve as fund custodians and physical custodians, and investors can freely redeem the funds during their existence. Silver ETFs are listed on stock exchanges, and investors can easily trade them like buying and selling stocks. Low transaction costs are a major advantage of silver ETFs. IShares Silver Trust (SLV) is currently the world's largest silver ETF, with silver as the underlying asset, aimed at tracking the price trend of spot silver. It belongs to commodity ETF and physical ETF.
From historical data statistics, there is a close relationship between precious metal prices and precious metal ETF holdings. The trend between global gold ETF holdings and gold prices is clearly consistent. In the gold bull market from 2004 to 2012, the size of gold ETF holdings continued to rise along with gold prices; After 2012, the holdings of gold ETFs gradually declined along with gold prices. Since 2015, as gold prices have once again entered an upward trend, the size of gold ETF holdings has steadily increased and is now approaching the peak of the 2012 bull market. In fact, the positive correlation between the two is as high as 0.79, and the trend is basically consistent. In addition, there is no significant lead or lag between gold prices and ETF holdings.