Global gold ETFs saw fourth month of inflows in August, says WGC

LONDON (Reuters) - Global physically backed gold exchange traded funds (ETFs) saw the fourth consecutive month of inflows in August due to additions to holdings by North America- and Europe-listed funds, the World Gold Council (WGC) said on Thursday.

Gold ETFs, storing bullion for investors, are a major category of investment demand for the precious metal, which touched a record high of $2,531.60 per ounce on Aug. 20 amid bets on upcoming U.S. interest rate cuts.

However, gold ETFs had three consecutive years of outflows amid high global interest rates, and the latest four months of inflows only managed to trim the year-to-date losses to a net outflow of 44 metric tons.

Gold ETFs saw the inflow of 28.5 tons, or $2.1 billion, in August, bringing their collective holdings to 3,182 tons, the WGC, an industry body grouping global gold miners, said in a research note.

A stronger gold price and recent inflows pushed the total assets under management to a month-end peak of $257.3 billion in August.

The WGC estimates that global gold trading volumes fell in August by 3.2% month-on-month to $241 billion a day due to lower exchange-traded activity on COMEX, however average trading volumes in the opaque over-the-counter (OTC) market rose by 5.9% to $158 billion.

With the gold price up 21% so far this year and rising expectations of the U.S. rate cuts, speculators increased their total net long position on COMEX by 17% from July to 917 tons by the end of August, the highest level since February 2020.

(Reporting by Polina Devitt; editing by Tomasz Janowski)