ETF Flows Rewrite the Gold Playbook in 2025

Gold exchange-traded funds pulled in a record US$89 billion during 2025,

lifting global holdings to an all-time peak of 4,025 tonnes and assets

under management to US$559 billion. After years of sitting quietly

alongside central banks, ETF investors turned into the second engine of

the bull market.¹²

A Year of Records

The headline numbers are the largest in the two-decade history of the

product. Net inflows to physically backed gold ETFs totalled 801.2

tonnes during 2025 — the second-strongest year on record and the largest

on a dollar basis.¹ Assets under management closed the year at US$559

billion, and holdings reached a new historical peak of 4,025 tonnes.²

The pace of accumulation was concentrated. September 2025 delivered the

biggest single month of inflows ever recorded for the category, and the

third quarter as a whole took in US$26 billion — the strongest quarter

in the history of the series.² The pattern was consistent with the

underlying price: as gold rallied through the LBMA PM reference to new

all-time highs 53 times during the year, ETF buyers pressed in rather

than taking profits.³

Measured across cycles, the 2025 numbers also stand out for their

magnitude relative to the installed base. The tonnage added during the

year equated to roughly 25 percent of the holdings that existed at the

end of 2024, a ratio only matched in the first flush of product adoption

two decades ago.

From Sleepy Sleeve to Core Position

Gold ETFs were launched in 2003 as a liquidity solution for a specific

problem — giving institutional investors a way to own gold without the

operational friction of physical bars. For most of their first decade

they were a small sleeve in diversified portfolios. The 2025 flows

suggest a different role now.

Allocators who had historically treated gold as a 1-3 percent hedge

moved toward 5-7 percent positioning as the combination of geopolitical

risk, currency weakness and central-bank accumulation reinforced the

structural case. The move was large enough to show up in sector rotation

data: equity inflows to precious-metals miners followed the ETF flows,

with Brazilian, Canadian, Australian and US gold majors all

participating in the bid.

The shift also changed the conversation around gold in wealth

management. Advisers who had spent a decade explaining why a

non-yielding asset belonged in a portfolio began to field the opposite

question from clients: whether the existing allocation was large enough

given the price path.

Where the Flows Came From

Regional breakdowns from the World Gold Council put North American ETFs

at the centre of the 2025 story, with sustained inflows almost every

month of the year and acceleration from July onwards.¹ European ETFs

turned decisively positive after a slow start, and Asian-listed products

recorded their best year since 2020. The common thread was macro:

rate-cut expectations across major central banks, a weakening US dollar

and persistent geopolitical risk created a single underlying thesis that

investors everywhere were trading.

The composition of the flows also shifted. Earlier in the cycle,

bar-and-coin buyers had dominated the investment demand story,

particularly in India and China where 2025 full-year bar-and-coin

investment reached US$154 billion.¹ During the second half of 2025 ETF

flows caught up and then overtook the bar-and-coin channel in dollar

terms for several consecutive months — a sign that Western institutional

money had fully engaged with the theme.

The timing of that shift is worth noting. ETFs typically lag physical

demand at the start of a cycle and lead it near the end. The 2025

pattern fits that description: bar-and-coin buyers established the price

floor in 2023 and 2024, and ETF inflows arrived once the trend was

established, amplifying it rather than initiating it. That sequencing is

a reassuring signal for the durability of the move — a rally that began

with value-conscious physical buyers and only later attracted

momentum-driven ETF flows is qualitatively different from one led by

speculative positioning alone.

The Feedback Loop With Price

ETFs are almost uniquely sensitive to price momentum. Because the

products hold physical gold against outstanding shares, incremental

demand flows directly into physical buying — and that physical buying

into the price. During 2025 this feedback loop amplified already-strong

flows from central banks and bar-and-coin buyers, pushing the LBMA PM

annual average to US$3,431 per ounce (up 44 percent year on year) and

the Q4 average to US$4,135 per ounce (up 55 percent).³

What makes the ETF feedback loop particularly important is that it works

symmetrically. Outflows can accelerate a correction as easily as inflows

can extend a rally. The fact that the 2025 flows were dominated by

positive net additions, and that the product base has grown to a

historical record, means the market is now watching ETF data as

carefully as central-bank reports. It has become the fastest-moving

signal in the gold demand stack.

Institutional and Retail Blend

The 2025 cohort of ETF buyers was less homogenous than prior cycles.

Wealth-management channels — registered investment advisers, private

banks, family offices — were the steadiest contributors through the

year. Retail activity rose sharply in the third and fourth quarters as

gold price milestones became mainstream news. Meanwhile systematic and

discretionary hedge-fund positioning reached multi-year highs, with

several large macro funds disclosing gold positions as core rather than

tactical.

The blend matters for volatility management. A market supported by three

distinct cohorts — buy-and-hold wealth channels, tactical hedge funds,

and retail — has a broader and more resilient bid than one dominated by

any single group. That structural feature is part of why pullbacks in

2025 tended to be brief; different buyer types were active at different

prices, and a flag from one group qui