By SIMON CONSTABLE
Investors have gone bonkers for gold lately, and some see the bull run continuing.
Those who invested in bullion, such as the metal held by the SPDR Gold Shares GLD exchange-traded fund, have done well. But those who picked mining companies, especially the smaller ones, did even better. Read more here.
By SIMON CONSTABLE
If anyone is looking for bad economic news these days, it’s not too hard to find. In the United States and Europe, gross domestic product numbers this past quarter were stunningly bad, perhaps none more than the 20% or so fall the United Kingdom is expected to report this week.
But that was last quarter. According to some little-noticed results, the all-too-critical manufacturing sector appears to have turned the corner. During July the factory sector grew in the US and in all three of Europe’s largest economies. Indeed, under one well-followed metric, the US, the UK, Germany, and France show that all four countries are now in “expansion” territory—after months of being in contraction from the pandemic earlier this year. “I am quite optimistic that this is for real,” says Yannick Binvel, Korn Ferry’s president of global industrial markets. Read more here.
By SIMON CONSTABLE
Gold investors should brace themselves for weeks more of market whiplash. In other words, if the recent volatility in the price of bullion has your stomach churning and your eyes twitching with anxiety, you’re gonna need to get used to it fast. Read more here.
By SIMON CONSTABLE
After more than half a decade of record-busting price moves, the palladium market hit a bump in the road. The slowdown in the global economy, including the drop in car sales, is the problem.
“I would expect us to see sideways rangebound trade,” says Steve Dunn, head of exchange-traded funds at Aberdeen Standard, which runs the Aberdeen Standard Physical Palladium Shares ETF (PALL). Read more here.
By SIMON CONSTABLE
Many investors are familiar with the VIX, or volatility index, that measures how much investors expect to see the S&P 500 index fluctuate.
But far fewer know even a little about a measure of volatility in economic growth called the Economic VIX Index, created by Jim Paulsen, chief investment strategist at investment-management and research firm Leuthold Group. The Economic VIX is important now because its history over the decades since World War II shows that stocks do best when economic volatility in the U.S. is at its lowest or its highest—and the pandemic is stoking economic volatility that Mr. Paulsen believes will be historic. Read more here.
By SIMON CONSTABLE
So far this year, investors in gold and silver have made out like bandits, especially when you compare the returns of the world’s two best-known precious metals with those of stocks.
SPDR Gold Shares (GLD), an exchange-traded fund that tracks the price of bullion, and iShares Silver Trust (SLV), an ETF that tracks silver prices, are up 34% and 57%, respectively, so far this year. That compares to just a 4% gain for SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY), which tracks the S&P 500 stock index. Read more here.
