RE:GLD's CFO Leaves 1 day before financial year end....Why ??You bet there's problems. Show me the GOLD. The problem is that they have a goldless Gold fund. The CFO's jump ship quicker that in a Pirate movie.
https://www.sgtreport.com/2020/10/revolving-door-at-the-spdr-gold...
2020-10-08 · CFO revolving door syndrome at the GLD. Four years ago this trend was highlighted in a BullionStar article titled “Execs flee GLD – The revolving door at the SPDR Gold Trust Sponsor”, but since then, the CFO exodus has continued. There have now been a staggering six (6) Chief Financial Officers of World Gold Trust Services since early 2014.
Quoting Egon von Greyerz.
GLD’s value has gone from $42 billion at the beginning of 2020 to $82b today as both inflow and the gold price have increased. This ETF is the primary investment vehicle that investors use when they want exposure to gold. What most investors don’t understand is that to own a gold ETF like GLD is no better than to have a futures contract in gold.
An ETF is a tracking vehicle and doesn’t own the gold. The gold is not bought outright by GLD but is instead borrowed. The holder of an GLD share has no claim on the borrowed gold and therefore does not own anything tangible. Thus all he holds is a piece of paper with no underlying security in the form of gold in case of insolvency. The gold is borrowed or leased from a central bank and not bought with clear title. So a shareholder in GLD is just a holder of a piece of paper that doesn’t entitle him to physical gold. A paper claim on gold is very different from owning real physical gold. The gold price could surge but the ETF could still go bankrupt
As I have often pointed out, when an ETF like GLD buys gold, it doesn’t come from the Swiss refiners. Instead it comes from the bullion banks who borrows the gold from a central bank. The GLD ETF has an official audit with bar lists and numbers. But since central banks never publish a full physical audit, there is no way of knowing if the same gold has been rehypothecated several times by the central bank.
So firstly the GLD doesn’t own the gold and secondly the gold that it doesn’t own might have been lent multiple times by central banks.