Investment demands for precious metals remained strong last week although sovereign concerns in peripheral European economies eased modestly after the ECB meeting. The central bank's extension of full allotment of 3-month tenders signaled a delay in exiting non-standard measures. Market sentiment remained firm as disappointing US employment data fueled speculations over further QE from the Fed. The more money the Fed prints, the more downside US dollar has. Weakness in USD is usually gold-bullish.

Investment in gold ETFs soared +447.53K oz, or +0.68%, to 66.47M oz in the week ended December 3. During the week, spot gold prices climbed +3.70% while Comex gold futures gained +3.16%. SPDR Gold Trust, which represents 62.78% of global ETF holdings, gained +416.21K oz last week, taking the year-to-date investment to 5.29M oz and the combined holdings to 41.73M oz. ZKB Gold ETF added +24.13K oz last week, taking the year-to-date investments to 1.27M oz and total gold holdings in the fund to 5.95M oz. ZKB's fund represents 8.96% of global ETF holdings, a distant second after SPDR Gold Trust. Other funds showing gains were ETFS (London), iShares Comex Gold Trust and the 2 NYSE-listed ETFs issued by ETD Securities. Holdings in iShares Comex Gold Trust surged to a record of 3.47M oz on December 2.

Holdings in silver ETFs rose +1.89M oz, or +0.34%, to 553.98M oz last week. During the week, spot silver and silver futures prices jumped +10.2% and +9.54% respectively. iShares Silver Trust, the largest silver ETF taking up 62.56% of the market share, added +2.17M oz, or +0.63%, to 346.54M oz during the week. Year-to-date, investment increased 41.34M oz. ETFS (London) gained +316.62K oz, or +1.08% to 29.71M oz while NYSE-listed funds issued by ETFS totally added 504.85K oz, or +3.13% to16.64M oz. Note that the ETFS White Metals Basket Trust, which started trading last week, holds 99.12K oz of silver. Indeed all silver ETFs issued by ETF Securities reached all time highs last week. ZKB Gold ETF and Julius Baer Physical Silver Trust lost -471.39K oz and -630.00K oz during the week.

Investment in platinum ETFs fell another week, by -7.56K oz, or -0.68%, to 1.11M oz, underperforming +5% price rallies in both spot and futures markets. ETFS Platinum Trust , ETFS Precious Metals Basket Trust and ETFS White Metals Basket Trust were the only gainers during the week. These 3 funds added a total of +188.6K oz during the week. ZKB Platinum ETF dropped -4.74K o while ETFS (London) lost -2.22K oz.

In contrast with platinum, palladium ETFs recorded an increase of +48.12K oz, or +2.42%, taking total holdings to 2.04 oz last week. ETFS (NYSE-Listed)-ETFS Palladium Trust , ETFS Precious Metals Basket Trust and ETFS White Metals Basket Trust- together added 29.57K oz, or +3.18%, to 959.29K oz while ETFS (London) added +13.64K oz. Julius Baer Physical Palladium Fund was the only fund that recorded redemption during the week.