ETF Securities is seeing explosive growth in its five physical precious metal Exchange Traded Commodities (ETCs), having seen total assets under management (AUM) grow to $800 million from $65 million only 6 months earlier.
ETF Securities has created a number of products including over 40 ETCs tracking DJ-AIG Commodity Indices, 10 ETCs tracking oil prices and five ETCs tracking physical precious metals.
Due to significant investor demand for simple access to commodities and more recently precious metals, all five physical precious metal ETCs have been listed on five European exchanges including the London Stock Exchange, Deutsche Boerse, Euronext Amsterdam, Euronext Paris and Borsa Italiana.
This demand has also been a result of investors wanting to diversify their investment portfolio into other asset classes which exhibit low correlation to equities and bonds.
Most recently, ETFS Physical Platinum (PHPT) and ETFS Physical Silver (PHAG) have shown the greatest interest. PHPT is now the largest platinum ETC in the world with over $150 million in assets, having grown by 650% in the past 6 months and by more than quadrupled in the past 6 weeks.
PHAG is the fastest growing silver ETC in the world having grown by 1400% in the past 6 months and more than quadrupled in the past 6 weeks. Now exceeding 10 million ounces PHAG is the largest silver ETC in Europe.
While platinum and silver have seen most of the growth in recent weeks, ETFS Physical Gold (PHAU) is now the fastest growing Exchange Traded Gold product in Europe, growing 4.5 times faster than any other Exchange Traded Gold product in Europe in the past 6 months.
Significant demand in this product has come from investors in the UK, Germany and Austria. PHAU now exceeds $470 million, an increase of over 575,000oz over this period.
ETF Securities has 2 other physical precious metal ETCs being ETFS Physical Palladium (PHPD) and ETFS Physical PM Basket (PHPM). PHPM assets have doubled in the past week to $60 million.
All of the physical precious metal ETCs are backed by allocated metal which is held in trust in London by the Custodian HSBC Bank USA N.A.
Securities are only issued once metal is confirmed as being deposited into the Company’s bullion account with the Custodian.