GLD and IAU are the two largest of the gold bullion exchange-traded notes (ETNs). Not surprisingly, investors like to push money into them and pull money out as gold prices rise and fall. The real fun comes when investors don't follow that model.
Gold prices are back up to above $1800/oz, after bottoming below $1700. But the total combined assets invested into GLD and IAU has barely budged from the recent lows. That is actually a bullish development for gold prices, because it means that "the crowd" has not yet gotten in on the rebound in gold prices. They are not yet believing in it.
That is the important point of this week's chart. The investors who move into and out of these ETNs are still not waking up to the reality of gold's recent rise. They should be piling in to chase the gold rally, and they are still hanging back.
What that means is that the rise in gold prices has not reached the consciousness of the public, not yet anyway. And that implies there is more yet to come for the gold price rally. Once we reach the point that these two ETNs' assets are rising rapidly along with gold prices, we can say that "the crowd" is finally starting to join in. And if we were to see the situation of gold prices leveling off while the assets in GLD and IAU still continue to rise, that will be the sign that the uptrend has gone on too long and a reversal is coming.
That is not what we have now, which means that the uptrend is not mature yet. It still has more to go before we get to the point when everyone starts piling in even though gold prices have stopped going up. We are not there yet.
