The Cost To Borrow GLD ETF Shares Has Increased Almost 3x In 5 Hours Today

The Fee To Acquire Physical Gold Bullion Is Shooting Skyward

The cost to borrow Spider Gold ‘GLD’ Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) shares has almost tripled in 5 hours today to 6.29%. In mid-January 2025, the borrow fee for GLD shares was 0.5%.

‘Authorized Participants’, as defined by the GLD prospectus and consisting primarily of bullion banks, can redeem ‘Baskets’ of GLD shares to receive delivery of 10,000 oz. of gold at a time.

When you see this type of acceleration in the fee to acquire physical gold and given the background of the shortage of gold available for delivery in London and the high gold lease fees there, it can be inferred that something is cooking-off in the gold market.

Figure 1 - GLD Borrow Fee; source: https://chartexchange.com/symbol/nyse-gld/borrow-fee/ and Interactive Brokers

HT SluceBrother : https://x.com/Sluicebrother/status/1887612982999322744

In addition, we see nuggets like this from Korea: “The Korea Gold Exchange found its website overwhelmed by the influx of investors. As of 11:30 AM on Feb. 6, the waiting time to access the site was a staggering 5 hours and 20 minutes, with over 19,000 individuals queued online.

The rush for physical gold and silver is international in scope.

Best regards,

David Jensen