U.S. Global Investors offers exchange traded funds (ETFs) in addition to mutual funds.
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Explore the performance of our eight no-load mutual funds here, which invest in a range of industries from natural resources and emerging markets, to precious metals and bonds.
The Gold and Precious Metals Fund is the first no-load gold fund in the U.S. We have a history as pioneers in portfolio management in this specialized sector. Our team brings valuable background in geology and mining finance, important to understanding the technical side of the business.
The World Precious Minerals Fund complements our Gold and Precious Metals Fund by giving investors increased exposure to junior and intermediate mining companies for added growth potential. With a high level of expertise in this specialized sector, our portfolio management team includes professionals with experience in geology, mineral resources and mining finance.
The Global Resources Fund takes a multi-faceted approach to the natural resources sector by investing in energy and basic materials. The fund invests in companies involved in the exploration, production and processing of petroleum, natural gas, coal, alternative energies, chemicals, mining, iron and steel, and paper and forest products, and can invest in any part of the world.
The Global Luxury Goods Fund provides investors access to companies around the world that are involved in the design, manufacture and sale of products and services that are not considered to be essential but are highly desired within a culture or society.
The Near-Term Tax Free Fund invests in municipal bonds with relatively short maturity. The fund seeks to provide tax-free monthly income by investing in debt securities issued by state and local governments from across the country.
The U.S. Government Securities Ultra-Short Bond Fund is designed to be used as an investment that takes advantage of the security of U.S. Government bonds and obligations, while simultaneously pursuing a higher level of current income than money market funds offer.
U.S. Global Investors, Inc. is an innovative investment manager with vast experience in global markets and specialized sectors.
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Here at U.S. Global Investors, we strive to serve our clients to the best of our abilities by using explicit and tacit knowledge to detect and account for trends and patterns not only in the domestic markets, but also globally.
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Commercial air travel in the U.S. was incredibly robust this week, with passenger volumes close to 2.3 million per day. Thanksgiving was a major driver of demand, of course, but there may be another reason why travelers were able to board planes consistently throughout the week: remote and hybrid work.
Even though most offices and businesses have fully reopened following the pandemic, remote and hybrid work remains the norm for millions of American workers, allowing them to save both time and money they would have otherwise spent on commuting.
Working off-site has been a huge benefit to not just customers but also airlines, according to Helena Becker, an airlines analyst at Cowen. This type of work “enables [airlines] to be less ‘peaky’” and enables customers “to get better pricing,” Becker says.
Robert Isom shares the same idea. Speaking at last week’s Skift Aviation Forum in Dallas, the American Airlines CEO said that “demand is more spread out” due to the rise in remote work, adding that consumers, airlines and airports are no longer “beholden to the structure of the past.”
This helps explain why air travel demand was strong throughout the week instead of it being concentrated on the days immediately preceding and following Thanksgiving Day, as has historically been the case. On Sunday and Monday, more people boarded commercial jets than they did on the equivalent days in 2019, according to Transportation Security Administration (TSA) data.
Remote work isn’t the perfect fit for every company or employee, but the potential benefits are easy to see.
According to Global Workplace Analytics, people who work remotely, either full-time or part-time, can save between $2,000 and $7,000 annually in transportation and work-related costs. They can also gain back the equivalent of two to three weeks per year in commuting time. An estimated $20 billion could collectively be saved at the pump.
With offices now fully open, you might think that remote and hybrid work is disappearing, but the opposite appears to be true. Gallup, the analytics and advisory firm, found that work away from home actually increased in 2022, accounting for 49% of the U.S. labor force in June, up from 42% in February. “Fully on-site work is expected to remain a relic of the past,” the firm says, though you’re welcome to disagree.
This week I was in Dubai, attending and speaking at the Alternative Investment Management, or AIM, Summit, and I also had the opportunity to take in the World Cup in Qatar.
I suspect there were hundreds more World Cup spectators who were also combining work and vacation (workcation), business and leisure (bleisure).
For the past year and a half, analysts and the media have questioned whether corporate business travel will ever return to pre-pandemic levels, as leisure travel has. An October survey of corporate travel managers in the U.S. found that domestic business travel volume has returned to 63% of 2019 levels, while international business travel is still only at 50%. Based on current trends, it may take until 2024 or 2025 before corporate spending on travel has fully recovered to pre-pandemic levels.
Thanks to the widespread acceptance of remote work, however, bleisure travel appears to be replacing traditional corporate travel, if not on a revenue basis (business class can cost three to four times as much as economy class) then certainly by volume. Domestic and international load factors, which measure the seat utilization rate on a scheduled flight, have returned to pre-pandemic levels.
The same can somewhat be said about airlines’ profitability. As most of you know, EBITDA stands for earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. It tells you how much profit a company made before debt and taxes were paid and before non-cash items like depreciation and amortization were factored in.
Looking at EBITDA for the Big Four U.S. carriers, we see that profitability is nearing pre-pandemic levels, even as American, United and Delta reported record revenues in the third quarter of 2022.
As you may have noticed, airfares have risen due to inflation, but they haven’t risen enough to compensate for higher fuel expenses.
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), along with Russia, agreed to oil production cuts in early October, making it even more challenging for crude prices to fall and give consumers, including airlines, a break.
Here in the U.S., however, oil production continues to rise from pandemic lows and is nearing 2019 levels. Looking just at production from U.S. shale projects, which ordinarily require fracking to obtain oil, output has increased for seven straight months through November. This month, some 9.1 million barrels per day (MBPD) are expected to have been recovered from the ground. That’s only 200,000 BPD less than the all-time monthly high of 9.3 MBPD, set in November 2019, soon before the pandemic.
Jet fuel accounts for 25% to 35% of an airline’s total expenses, so lower fuel costs would be a nice windfall. According to Bloomberg, a new plane pays for itself in 12 years when jet fuel prices are lower than $4 per gallon, and as of last Friday, a gallon was $3.18.
On behalf of our team at U.S. Global Investors, Happy Thanksgiving! Have a safe and relaxing weekend surrounded by family, friends and loved ones!
This week gold futures closed the week at $1,768.50, down $0.50 per ounce, or -0.03%. Gold stocks, as measured by the NYSE Arca Gold Miners Index, ended the week higher by 3.97%. The S&P/TSX Venture Index came in flat at -0.02%. The U.S. Trade-Weighted Dollar fell 0.83%.
1) Long-term investors and the official sector are gradually building gold allocations. Central banks have been net buyers of gold for more than a decade now, amid a broader trend of diversifying dollar-denominated reserves. This year, the Russia-Ukraine war and corresponding sanctions reinforced this theme. Net official sector buying to 3Q22 is already higher than previous full-year highs.
2) The proportion of gold holdings relative to overall assets held by institutional investors remains light, in their view, and they think it is likely held more for diversification and portfolio protection rather than expectations of outright material price appreciation. This implies more resilient core positions and scope for allocations to grow.
3) Strong physical demand has also been a key factor affecting the relationship between gold and real rates, in their view. Key physical gold markets India and China have continued to buy large volumes of gold this year, helped by cheaper prices as gold came under pressure from macro forces.
U.S. Global Investors, Inc. is an investment adviser registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”). This does not mean that we are sponsored, recommended, or approved by the SEC, or that our abilities or qualifications in any respect have been passed upon by the SEC or any officer of the SEC.
This commentary should not be considered a solicitation or offering of any investment product. Certain materials in this commentary may contain dated information. The information provided was current at the time of publication. Some links above may be directed to third-party websites. U.S. Global Investors does not endorse all information supplied by these websites and is not responsible for their content. All opinions expressed and data provided are subject to change without notice. Some of these opinions may not be appropriate to every investor.
Holdings may change daily. Holdings are reported as of the most recent quarter-end. The following securities mentioned in the article were held by one or more accounts managed by U.S. Global Investors as of (09/30/22):
Zim Integrated Shipping Services Ltd.
LVMH Must Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA
Harmony Gold Mining Co. Ltd.
*The above-mentioned indices are not total returns. These returns reflect simple appreciation only and do not reflect dividend reinvestment.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average is a price-weighted average of 30 blue chip stocks that are generally leaders in their industry. The S&P 500 Stock Index is a widely recognized capitalization-weighted index of 500 common stock prices in U.S. companies. The Nasdaq Composite Index is a capitalization-weighted index of all Nasdaq National Market and SmallCap stocks. The Russell 2000 Index® is a U.S. equity index measuring the performance of the 2,000 smallest companies in the Russell 3000®, a widely recognized small-cap index.
The Hang Seng Composite Index is a market capitalization-weighted index that comprises the top 200 companies listed on Stock Exchange of Hong Kong, based on average market cap for the 12 months. The Taiwan Stock Exchange Index is a capitalization-weighted index of all listed common shares traded on the Taiwan Stock Exchange. The Korea Stock Price Index is a capitalization-weighted index of all common shares and preferred shares on the Korean Stock Exchanges.
The Philadelphia Stock Exchange Gold and Silver Index (XAU) is a capitalization-weighted index that includes the leading companies involved in the mining of gold and silver. The U.S. Trade Weighted Dollar Index provides a general indication of the international value of the U.S. dollar. The S&P/TSX Canadian Gold Capped Sector Index is a modified capitalization-weighted index, whose equity weights are capped 25 percent and index constituents are derived from a subset stock pool of S&P/TSX Composite Index stocks. The NYSE Arca Gold Miners Index is a modified market capitalization weighted index comprised of publicly traded companies involved primarily in the mining for gold and silver. The S&P/TSX Venture Composite Index is a broad market indicator for the Canadian venture capital market. The index is market capitalization weighted and, at its inception, included 531 companies. A quarterly revision process is used to remove companies that comprise less than 0.05% of the weight of the index, and add companies whose weight, when included, will be greater than 0.05% of the index.
The S&P 500 Energy Index is a capitalization-weighted index that tracks the companies in the energy sector as a subset of the S&P 500. The S&P 500 Materials Index is a capitalization-weighted index that tracks the companies in the material sector as a subset of the S&P 500. The S&P 500 Financials Index is a capitalization-weighted index. The index was developed with a base level of 10 for the 1941-43 base period. The S&P 500 Industrials Index is a Materials Index is a capitalization-weighted index that tracks the companies in the industrial sector as a subset of the S&P 500. The S&P 500 Consumer Discretionary Index is a capitalization-weighted index that tracks the companies in the consumer discretionary sector as a subset of the S&P 500. The S&P 500 Information Technology Index is a capitalization-weighted index that tracks the companies in the information technology sector as a subset of the S&P 500. The S&P 500 Consumer Staples Index is a Materials Index is a capitalization-weighted index that tracks the companies in the consumer staples sector as a subset of the S&P 500. The S&P 500 Utilities Index is a capitalization-weighted index that tracks the companies in the utilities sector as a subset of the S&P 500. The S&P 500 Healthcare Index is a capitalization-weighted index that tracks the companies in the healthcare sector as a subset of the S&P 500. The S&P 500 Telecom Index is a Materials Index is a capitalization-weighted index that tracks the companies in the telecom sector as a subset of the S&P 500. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is one of the most widely recognized price measures for tracking the price of a market basket of goods and services purchased by individuals. The weights of components are based on consumer spending patterns. The Purchasing Manager’s Index is an indicator of the economic health of the manufacturing sector. The PMI index is based on five major indicators: new orders, inventory levels, production, supplier deliveries and the employment environment. Gross domestic product (GDP) is the monetary value of all the finished goods and services produced within a country’s borders in a specific time period, though GDP is usually calculated on an annual basis. It includes all private and public consumption, government outlays, investments and exports less imports that occur within a defined territory.
The S&P Global Luxury Index is comprised of 80 of the largest publicly traded companies engaged in the production or distribution of luxury goods or the provision of luxury services that meet specific investibility requirements.
There is no guarantee that the issuers of any securities will declare dividends in the future or that, if declared, will remain at current levels or increase over time.
Please consider carefully a fund’s investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses. For this and other important information, obtain a fund prospectus by clicking here or by calling 1-800-US-FUNDS (1-800-873-8637). Read it carefully before investing. Foreside Fund Services, LLC, Distributor. U.S. Global Investors is the investment adviser.
Bond funds are subject to interest-rate risk; their value declines as interest rates rise. Tax-exempt income is federal income tax free. A portion of this income may be subject to state and local income taxes, and if applicable, may subject certain investors to the Alternative Minimum Tax as well. The Near-Term Tax Free Fund may invest up to 20% of its assets in securities that pay taxable interest. Income or fund distributions attributable to capital gains are usually subject to both state and federal income taxes. The tax free funds may be exposed to risks related to a concentration of investments in a particular state or geographic area. These investments present risks resulting from changes in economic conditions of the region or issuer. Gold, precious metals, and precious minerals funds may be susceptible to adverse economic, political or regulatory developments due to concentrating in a single theme. The prices of gold, precious metals, and precious minerals are subject to substantial price fluctuations over short periods of time and may be affected by unpredicted international monetary and political policies. We suggest investing no more than 5% to 10% of your portfolio in these sectors. Foreign and emerging market investing involves special risks such as currency fluctuation and less public disclosure, as well as economic and political risk. By investing in a specific geographic region, a regional fund’s returns and share price may be more volatile than those of a less concentrated portfolio. The Emerging Europe Fund invests more than 25% of its investments in companies principally engaged in the oil & gas or banking industries. The risk of concentrating investments in this group of industries will make the fund more susceptible to risk in these industries than funds which do not concentrate their investments in an industry and may make the fund’s performance more volatile. Because the Global Resources Fund concentrates its investments in a specific industry, the fund may be subject to greater risks and fluctuations than a portfolio representing a broader range of industries. Stock markets can be volatile and share prices can fluctuate in response to sector-related and other risks as described in the fund prospectus.
Morningstar Ratings are based on risk-adjusted return. The Overall Morningstar Rating for a fund is derived from a weighted-average of the performance figures associated with its three-, five- and ten-year (if applicable) Morningstar Rating metrics. Past performance does not guarantee future results. For each fund with at least a three-year history, Morningstar calculates a Morningstar Rating? based on a Morningstar Risk-Adjusted Return measure that accounts for variation in a fund’s monthly performance (including the effects of sales charges, loads, and redemption fees), placing more emphasis on downward variations and rewarding consistent performance. The top 10% of funds in each category receive 5 stars, the next 22.5% receive 4 stars, the next 35% receive 3 stars, the next 22.5% receive 2 stars and the bottom 10% receive 1 star. (Each share class is counted as a fraction of one fund within this scale and rated separately, which may cause slight variations in the distribution percentages.)
Each of the mutual funds or services referred to in the U.S. Global Investors, Inc. website may be offered only to persons in the United States. This website should not be considered a solicitation or offering of any investment product or service to investors residing outside the United States. Certain materials on the site may contain dated information. The information provided was current at the time of publication. For current information regarding any of the funds mentioned in such materials, please visit the fund performance page. Some link(s) above may be directed to a third-party website(s). U.S. Global Investors does not endorse all information supplied by this/these website(s) and is not responsible for its/their content. All opinions expressed and data provided are subject to change without notice. Some of these opinions may not be appropriate to every investor.
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