Once a quarter, US asset managers are required to disclose their securities positions to the SEC. SPDR Gold Shares (GLD) are used by many institutional investors to profit from positive gold prices.
For example, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley have reduced their stakes in GLD. However, at the end of the second quarter, BoA retained a minimally large stake in the fund. Value of this position at the time of reporting: $2.17 billion, compared to $2.14 for Morgan Stanley.
On the contrary, two large US banks have significantly increased their shares. Goldman Sachs increased its share by 21%, rising from 13th to 8th place. JP Morgan even increased its GLD position by 80% to 1.4 million shares worth $237 million.
But this is not the whole truth. At the end of June, JP Morgan also held put options on GLD. However, in the second quarter of this year, the bank reduced them by 17%. The value of these investments at the end of the quarter was an astounding $2.77 billion! But the Swiss bank UBS (with $783 million put options), Citigroup (with $524 million) and Goldman Sachs ($137 million; albeit reduced by 50%) placed large sums to reduce the share price of this ETF -fund.
But there were other sellers of real GLD shares among the big banks. Bank of Nova Scotia, for example, cut its stake by more than a third to 1.38 million shares worth $233 million. In addition, Bank of Canada (-4.9%) and Wells Fargo (-2.4%) also reduced their GLD positions.
Moreover, a number of major hedge funds and financial service providers continue to be involved in this process. Among them, Optiver Holdings is the largest investor in GLD, ranking 3rd. In contrast, managers at Bridgewater Associates no longer believe so strongly in the good development of gold prices. They said goodbye to a 38% stake in their gold funds, but still held $220 million worth of shares.
And one more interesting information. Paulson & Co, the hedge fund of billionaire John Paulson, has been GLD's largest investor for many years with US$1 billion in stock. In the second quarter, Paulson completely divested himself of his investment and sold all of his shares in the GLD fund.