More than 60% of net capital flows appear in August
Global gold funds recorded a strong capital attraction month amid a significant increase in gold prices.
According to State Street Investment Management's Monthly Gold Monitor September 2026, spot gold prices increased by 9.7% in August, the strongest monthly increase since January. At the same time, global gold ETFs net attracted 17.1 billion USD, bringing total net capital from the beginning of the year to 27.7 billion USD.
Considering this accumulated figure, August alone is equivalent to more than 60% of the net capital that gold ETFs have attracted since the beginning of the year. State Street assesses this as a clear acceleration point of demand for gold ETFs.
Data compiled by State Street from the World Gold Council shows that cash flow is also changing geographically. If previously demand was mainly driven by Asia, August recorded a stronger return of investors in Western markets.
Gold ETFs in Europe attracted 7.7 billion USD in August alone, bringing net capital from the beginning of the year to 12.7 billion USD. This figure has significantly narrowed the gap with Asia - the region still leading with 14.7 billion USD from the beginning of the year.
In North America, funds attracted an additional $7.5 billion in August. Separately, gold ETFs listed in the US attracted $7.9 billion, the highest level in a month since September 2025. Thanks to this new capital outflow, the accumulated net withdrawal of the North American region since the beginning of the year is only about $121 million.
Not only increasing strongly monthly, global gold ETFs also experienced 8 consecutive weeks of capital attraction, with a total capital of about 20.2 billion USD. During this period, the third largest capital attraction week in history appeared according to State Street data.
Western investors return to gold
Capital attraction appeared at the same time as gold prices recovered strongly. State Street said spot gold prices increased by 9.7% in August, the strongest monthly increase since January.
Gold prices went from below 4,100 USD/ounce at the end of July to the 4,650-4,700 USD/ounce range in August, before ending the month around 4,400 USD/ounce. According to State Street, this recovery helped attract back a part of ETF investors in the US and Europe.
State Street believes that the accumulation cycle of gold ETFs currently starts from May 2024. After about 28 months, the funds have accumulated about 1,102 tons of gold. The previous two long-term increases lasted 51 months and 58 months respectively, with accumulated gold volumes of about 1,680 tons and 2,327 tons. From this comparison, the asset management organization believes that the current cycle is still likely to extend further.
The scale of SPDR Gold Shares - GLD alone, one of the world's largest gold ETFs managed by State Street, is also very large. As of September 4, the fund has about 149.3 billion USD of managed assets, with 368.7 million fund certificates in circulation.
In the domestic market on September 8, gold prices recovered after the previous decline. By noon, SJC gold bars were commonly at 144.1-147.1 million VND/tael, while DOJI gold rings were listed at about 145.2-149.2 million VND/tael.
Although ETF capital flow increased sharply at the same time as gold prices went up, these figures do not mean that cash flow into the fund is the only reason for gold price increases.
State Street also noted that gold price movements are still affected by many factors such as monetary policy, USD, bond yields and safe-haven demand, instead of just depending on ETF capital flows.
The information and opinions in the article are for reference only, not constituting recommendations or investment advice.
