LONDON -- The price of gold has failed to react to the Federal Reserve's latest round of money printing, and gold on the February contract has slipped 0.4% to $1,695 since last Friday.
Of course, the only practical way for most private investors to invest in gold is through exchange-traded funds. The largest gold ETF, the $63 billion SPDR Gold Trust (GLD 0.18%), has edged up by 0.8% since last Friday and closed at $165.79 on Wednesday night in New York trading. The London-listed Gold Bullion Securities (LSE: GBS) rose by 0.2% to $165.35 over the same period. So far this year, shareholders of Gold Bullion Securities have seen their holdings rise by 7.2%, while SPDR Gold Trust holders have gained 9.1%.
Gold's big movers
Many investors prefer to invest in gold-mining stocks, rather than gold itself, as gold miners are able to benefit from operational gearing to outperform the price of gold. Let's take a look at some gold stocks that have outperformed recently.
Polymetal International (POLY +0.00%) has continued last week's ascent and is up 8.4% since last week's update at 1,150 pence, as investors welcome the news that it will acquire a 100% ownership of Olymp Ltd. This will give it ownership of the Olcha gold-silver deposit, which has an audited mineral resource of 653,000 ounces of gold and 3.6 million ounces of silver. Olcha is only just over 200km by road from Polymetal's existing processing facilities and the Russia-based FTSE 100 (UKX) company expects to use Olcha to replace its Dukat and Arylakh open pit mines, which are due to close in 2013.
Lake Shore Gold (NYSEMKT: LSG) has risen 21% so far this week to $0.81 after it announced that it has finished the first stage of its mill expansion, increasing its ore processing capacity to 2,500 tonnes per day. The company also confirmed that it expects this year's production total to exceed 85,000 ounces of gold.
Seabridge Gold (SA 4.04%) is up 14% to $17.60 so far this week, after the company announced a $15 million drilling program for 2013 to focus on developing resource estimates for its KSM gold-copper project in British Columbia. Seabridge said that this year's drilling program had confirmed the potential of its Deep Kerr discovery, which it said could have "a very large tonnage of high grade copper and gold mineralisation."
Shares vs. commodities
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