It looks like we have had some notable changes in the closed end trusts and funds since February. I include both the current and the previous charts of these instruments below.
The first thing that I looked at is the drawdown in gold bullion at the Sprott Physical Gold Trust that has occurred since February of about 57,702 troy ounces. I think it is probably due to redemptions rather than fund sales because the cash level of the Trust is a workable but relatively modest $1,870,00, down from about $3,345,000. As you may recall Sprott completed the acquisition of the Central Gold Trust (GTU) in January of this year.
As I have noted several times before, most of the funds and trusts that allow for bullion redemptions have been seeing outflows of gold bullion for some time now, as gold has been moving from West to East. We have seen some 'inflows' into the big ETF for gold of GLD and a few others like that. I do not quite view the gold in GLD on the same level as some of these closed end funds because of its relative volatility and the nature of its sub-custodial relationships.
Perhaps it is just some perspective bias on my part. I trust few except God, but then some less than others, and GLD falls into that category of unease. I believe there may be undisclosed counterparty risk, which is not as much of a consideration for short term trading, but of more concern, like the CME was for Kyle Bass as a fiduciary for example, in the kinds of scenarios when gold is a long term asset held for 'insurance' against financial dislocations.
The Central Fund of Canada has still not addressed its cash situation, with the current cash assets shown as a negative $1,539,263 (1,539,264), down from a modest positive cash position of $173,805 in February. The bullion levels remain the same. Typically the Fund does a shelf offering of additional shares to raise cash and add to bullion levels. Or it is acquired as was its sister the Central Gold Trust.
And Sprott Silver appears to have gained quite some silver bullion from its recent acquisition and raised a substantial amount of cash. I estimate their cash assets position at around $15,167,600, which is a notable increase over their cash of $1,779,270 which it had in February. And the silver bullion in the fund has increased from 48,788,515 to 52,483,526 troy ounces. The number of shares outstanding has also increased from 127,331,218 to 139,631,218 or roughly by 12,300,000.
Interestingly enough the Sprott Silver Trust is showing a slightly negative premium to its NAV, as compared to a +2% premium in February. I suspect this reflects some discouragement with regard to silver than to the trust itself.
Here is the previous spreadsheet from February of this year.
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