A major exchange-traded fund and mutual fund manager found that winning gold trades aren’t talked about nearly as much as artificial intelligence trades — but maybe they should be.
VanEck CEO Jan van Eck believes that the best investment this year is to “hedge against the political cycle.” For him, it means investing gold.
“It's definitely the best-performing asset this year,” Van Eck told CNBC's “ETF Edge” at the Future Proof conference in Huntington Beach on Monday.
Gold prices hit another record high on Friday, the 37th new high this year. As of Friday's close, the stock had gained 28% since the beginning of the year.
Van Eck's company operates VanEck Gold Miners ETFForeign investment in gold bullion is expected to continue to boost the commodity. It should also help lift gold mining stocks higher, which have lagged the commodity at the start of the year. But as of Friday, VanEck Gold Miners ETF It has begun to outperform the market, rising 31% this year.
“I think you have both because miners are going to collapse if they catch up,” he said.
As for the artificial intelligence industry, Van Eyck said it's “surprising” that investors refuse to give up on it.
“It's like part of people's model portfolios or core portfolios, which is tactical overweighting of semis,” the VanEck CEO said. “Some of our largest clients have actually been buying on the dips in the last week or two.”
Last month, his firm launched the VanEck Fabless Semiconductor ETF. it is its companion VanEck Semiconductor ETF This does not include companies that operate their own foundries, e.g. Intel.
FactSet reports that the maximum holdings in the new ETF are NVIDIA, Broadcom and AMD As of Friday.
“Why spend billions of dollars making wafers if you don't have to?” Van Eyck said. “NVIDIA Doesn't build its own chips. So this is another investment strategy.
The VanEck Fabless Semiconductor ETF has gained 0.5% since its launch on August 28.
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