These growing concerns have led to an increased demand for safe haven assets, the eft provider said in its weekly report.
“After such a long stretch of equity market outperformance, many investors appear to be protecting themselves against rising geopolitical risk by adding perceived defensive assets such as gold to their portfolios. Last week when the gold price fell 0.6%, investors used the opportunity to add to allocations, with US$106.4m flowing into physical gold ETPs, ETF Securities said .
According to Nitesh Shah, with the conflict in the Ukraine, Gaza and the ongoing debt crisis weighing on people’s minds.
In other markets, bargain hunting was the main driver of flows. Wheat and corn continued to attract investors as prices fell to their lowest levels since 2009 and 2010 respectively, while long natural gas ETPs received US$5.8mn last week, marking the strongest monthly flows since November 2013, the group said.
