Bullion ETFs top picks in broker funding books
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Gold and silver exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are now among the top five picks financed by brokers under the margin trade funding (MTF) facility on the National Stock Exchange (NSE). The trend reflects investors’ growing appetite for portfolio diversification amid rangebound markets and external headwinds.
While the popular SilverBees, or Nippon India Silver ETF, held the top spot on brokers’ MTF books as recently as 1 February, Nippon India’s gold ETF, GoldBees, which ranked seventh as of that date, surpassed silver to move to the third slot, with the latter at the fifth place as of 9 February, according to NSE data. GoldBees was third only to Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) and Jio Financial Services, which were the top two MTF picks. Broker funding for GoldBees was at ₹1,246 crore, while that of SilverBees was ₹1,201 crore as of 9 February.
HAL, at ₹1,620 crore, was the top MTF pick, followed by Jio Financial Services at ₹1,303 crore. ITC ranked fourth, with funding of ₹1,213 crore. MTF allows investors to pay only a portion of the value of a stock or an ETF, with the broker financing the remaining amount.
While margins keep changing based on the volatility of the underlying stock or precious metal, Ashish Nanda, chief business digital officer at Kotak Securities, said that the margins for gold and silver that a client must pay are currently in the range of 30-40%, depending on the broker. This means an investor typically needs to put in around 30-40% of the amount, depending on the product's volatility, implying leverage of around two-and-a-half to three times. Simply put, to buy ₹1 crore worth of a gold ETF, an investor would need to invest ₹30 lakh, while the broker would finance
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