Germany still seems to be a country of gold fans despite the good stock exchanges.

The gold holdings in the exchange-traded bearer bond Xetra-Gold rose to a new record high of 233 tons in the first half of the year, after 217 tons at the turn of the year.

The stock always increases when investors buy Xetra Gold units on the stock exchange.

Each share corresponds to exactly one gram of gold.

The assets under management of Xetra-Gold also reached a new high of 11.2 billion euros.

Gold is still a classic among stock market topics, and investors keep starting to discuss the necessity of having a custody account.

Nevertheless, everyone seems to be interested in it in the end.

“We see increased demand from institutional and private investors alike,” says Michael König from Deutsche Börse Commodities, the issuer of Xetra-Gold.

"In 2020, the volatility in the gold price was slightly increased, but in the first half of the year it corresponded to the five-year level." With its stabilizing and diversifying function in the investor portfolio, gold is proving to be extremely stable, says König.

Anyone who has found gold for themselves as part of their own depository will share König's assessment. Skeptics, on the other hand, might rather look at the chart, doubt and perhaps read commodity market assessments like this on a regular basis: “With precious metals, we have left the upward trend and have fallen back into a consolidation phase. The surprisingly strong global economy has reduced investors' interest in gold in favor of risk investments such as stocks or Bitcoin, ”says Martin Siegel, precious metals expert at Stabilitas, in the company's latest report.

Jeremy Gatto from Unigestion in turn analyzes that the corona pandemic was a "game changer" as it drove uncertainty to an extreme high, which led to strong investor demand for gold and a temporary shortage of supply. “The Covid-19 crisis, which was accompanied by extraordinary fiscal and monetary stimuli, gave gold an unprecedented boost, pushing the price up over 40 percent from its lows in March 2020 to record highs above $ 2,000 an ounce sent. "

The driving forces behind this were strong inflows, a weaker dollar and falling real yields.

“After the gold price has already fallen from its high in August 2020, it has struggled this year and is currently in negative territory.

The precious metal now seems to be at a crossroads, "Gatto continues, adding:" Uncertainty, one of the factors that drove the gold price up during the pandemic, has declined significantly as fears of a recession have disappeared, increasing demand for it should continue to burden gold as a safe haven. "

ETF outflows are swelling

These data are also interesting in this context: The outflows from gold index funds of six million ounces this year account for 25 percent of the inflows in 2020, according to Gatto.

In his opinion, these outflows should therefore continue and so the ETF inflows, which were a great tailwind for the gold rally last year, could now become a strong headwind, "which could intensify in the future." His conclusion is clear: " Overall, the risk-return ratio for gold remains on the downside in the current environment. "

This is to be understood as follows: The outflows underline that the gold price is still under pressure.

What the ETF “pushed” last year is more of a price push this year.

A long-time gold investor is unlikely to get nervous at the last sentence. He has the shiny precious metal in his depot as a classic protection against inflation, and that's a good thing. Warren Buffett once said, "If you can't imagine holding a stock for ten years, don't even buy it for ten minutes." That should be true for gold too.