Deutsche Börse holds gold in custody in its vaults with a total value of over one billion euros. The gold, which backs the bearer bond Xetra-Gold, currently amounts to 38.5 tons. Each unit of the security is backed by exactly one gram of physical gold. With the price of gold at €26.75 per gram (Xetra closing price), the total value of the physically deposited gold is thus over one billion euro.
Xetra-Gold has the highest turnover of the approximately 150 ETCs tradable on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. The average monthly order book turnover on Xetra in 2009 was €127.8 million, totaling over €1.5 billion at the end of the year.
This order book turnover is more than three times that of the second most successful product in the ETC segment. Launched in December 2007 Xetra-Gold’s market share of commodities trading on Xetra was over 32 percent in 2009.
With just one product, Deutsche Börse Commodities GmbH is the second largest issuer of ETCs/commodity certificates traded on stock exchanges in Germany.
While Xetra-Gold was initially purchased by predominantly private investors, there is now increasing interest among institutional investors too. The product meets the provisions of the European UCITS directive.
Xetra-Gold provides investors with one of the most favorable opportunities of acquiring and trading physical gold. The bid/ask spread is only 0.1 percent.
The end investor only has to pay a custodian fee, just as for any other security. No other ongoing management fees are charged for Xetra-Gold.