Global gold-backed exchange-traded funds saw outflows of $3 billion last year, which is down 3% on the year and translates to around 110 metric tons worth of bullion, according to the World Gold Council .
The biggest drag on ETF demand came from North American and Asian markets. The former witnessed outflows of $2.7 billion and was led by the two largest ETFs — SPDR Gold Shares and iShares Gold Trust. Looking at the last month of the year, the WGC noted that ETFs saw their eighth month of consecutive negative demand in December, with global holdings falling by $534 million.
The outlook for next year has a positive bias to it, according to the WGC."Gold's performance will likely continue to be driven by the interplay between inflation and central-bank intervention. A mixture of headwinds and tailwinds implies gold's performance in the next twelve months could be similar to that of 2022: stable with a positive bias," the report said.
"A sharp retrenchment in growth is sufficient for gold to do well, particularly if inflation is also high or rising," the report said."Historically, tightening cycles have ended in a recession."