Since Xetra-Gold – a zero-coupon bond with perpetual maturity, representing a gram of gold, which is 100% backed by physical gold and represents the right to the delivery of gold – launched in 2007, investors have made use of this physical backing 500 times and taken delivery of a total 2.5 tonnes of the precious metal. For investors, owning a unit of Xetra-Gold is equivalent to owning one gram of physical gold. Fees for packaging, transport and insurance apply, which depend on the quantity delivered.



“Investors have a choice of small bars in several different sizes (1 gram to 1000 grams) and standard bars of 12.5 kilograms,” says Steffen Orben, managing director at Deutsche Börse Commodities GmbH. “Delivery normally takes around two weeks.”



The Deutsche Börse Commodities' gold reserve, which backs the Xetra-Gold bearer bond, amounted to 50.6 tonnes at the end of July. The gold is stored at Clearstream’s vaults in Frankfurt. At a price of EUR 36.38 per unit (Xetra price on 29 July), the current value of the gold in custody is around EUR 1.8 billion.



“Xetra-Gold provides investors with one of the most favourable opportunities of acquiring and trading physical gold,” said Martina Gruber, managing director at Deutsche Börse Commodities. “The bid/ask spread is generally only around 0.1 per cent. In contrast to fund trading and other ETCs, no ongoing management fees are charged for Xetra-Gold.”



Xetra-Gold is therefore by far the best-performing security among the 181 exchange traded commodities (ETCs) available on Xetra. Its share of total order book sales in the ETC segment is around 16 per cent.