With the price of gold stabilizing at around the $2,630 – $2,650 per ounce mark, cooling -4.56% from the all time high prices reached at the end of October. This could very well be the opportunity investors have long been waiting for to make their entry into gold markets. The next few months will be critical for gold. Analysts expect gold to surge next year, providing an opportunity for handsome gains in 2025.
Strategy Shares Gold ETF (NYSE:GLD) (Ticker: $GOLY) has already provided its investors with an impressive 22.85% YTD return (as of 12/06/24), placing it firmly in the top 1% of funds in its category according to Morning Star. What helped GOLY secure those returns was combining the returns from the price appreciation of gold over the last year with a distribution paid to its investors monthly, amounting to 5.1% annually. This makes Strategy Shares' GOLY a great product for investors hoping for exposure to gold in 2025 – while still receiving a regular income from their investments.
Investors interested in purchasing treasuries should especially be interested in GOLY, as it can serve as both an income-generating investment and an inflation hedge. Multiple indicators are suggesting that 2025 could be a huge year for gold. Few people know this, but central banks all across the world have been ramping up their purchases of the precious metal, as they continue to add to ever-growing reserves.
According to publicly available data, purchases of gold by central banks reached an all-time record high during the first half of 2024, purchasing a net total of 483.33 tons of gold in 2024H1.
This means central banks all over the world have spent in excess of $40 billion on gold reserves in the first six months of 2024, according to gold’s market value today.
Even more exciting is that this strong demand from central banks in 2024 was supported by healthy retail demand, as investors poured an additional $2.4 billion into gold ETFs YTD. It’s probably a good thing that we’re mentioning other gold ETFs, as GOLY outperforms other gold ETFs, including GLD, IAU, and GLDM.
A growing number of US states have made gold and silver legal tender and some states have even gone as far as to exempt transactions in gold bars and bullion from income taxes. This is all happening against a background where there are growing calls for de-dollarization. Without an appropriate reserve currency to replace the US dollar, it's safe to say that gold becomes the obvious choice.
Interest rate cuts in 2025, in addition to tariffs and geopolitical instability, should only improve gold’s prospects in the new year, especially when traditional assets like the stock market have become so overvalued. The Shiller P/E ratio that measures the price-to-earnings ratio of companies in the S&P 500 and currently stands at 38.81. Investors should be alarmed, as it was similarly high in November 2021 right before the stock market lost 20% of its value. The Shiller P/E ratio was also exceptionally high in 2000 just before the dot com bubble burst and in 1929 – right before the Great Depression. While it does not perfectly predict recessions and market downturns, judicious investors should diversify their investments.
Investors should put Strategy Shares' $GOLY ETF on their radar due to the exposure it provides investors to gold – in addition to the monthly distribution (5% annualized) from its portfolio of investment grade corporate bonds.