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Here’s Why Miners Beat Gold This Year
(Kitco News) - Gold’s price rally has certainly helped mining companies perform well so far this year, but more importantly, the miners themselves have become better managed companies, said Frank Holmes, CEO of U.S. Global Investors.
“What’s really important is that a lot of these companies have become more lean, they’re more efficient, so that’s a positive part to it,” Holmes told Kitco News from the floor of the NYSE.
Holmes’ comments come as VanEck Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX) climbed 34% year to date, while gold bullion climbed only 11%.
The U.S. Global GO GOLD and Precious Metal Miners ETF (GOAU), launched by U.S. Global ETFs, outperformed even the GDX, with year to date gains at 40% as of Wednesday.
Holmes attributed his fund’s outperformance to a series of important financial metrics that were taken into consideration when picking the stocks for the ETF.
“We’ve finally taken 100 factors down to five, and then you don’t equally weight them, you find out what works best in up markets and down markets, and the biggest worry we had is that in a run like this that we had up in gold, then it would lag, but actually it’s working,” he said.