Investors remained bearish on gold exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and pulled out Rs 66 crore in April.

Trading in gold ETF segment has been tepid during the last four financial years. It had witnessed an outflow of Rs 903 crore, Rs 1,475 crore and Rs 2,293 crore in 2015-16, 2014-15 and 2013-14, respectively.

However, the pace of outflow slowed further in 2016-17 compared to the preceding three years as investors are focusing on investments in equity as an asset class, an expert said.

According to the latest data available with the Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI), a net sum of Rs 66 crore was pulled out from 14 gold-linked ETFs in April compared with Rs 80 crore in the preceding month.

Gold ETFs has been continuously seeing a withdrawal. It has last seen an inflow of Rs 20 crore in October. Prior to that, an inflow of Rs 5 crore was witnessed in May 2013.

On the other hand, equity and equity-linked saving scheme (ELSS) saw an infusion of Rs 9,429 crore.

The asset base of gold funds dropped to Rs 5,377 crore at the end of April from Rs 5,480 crore at March-end.

“International gold prices have remained in the range of $1,050-1,350 per ounce after falling off the highs of $1,900 in 2012-13,” said Kaustubh Belapurkar Director of Fund Research at Morningstar.

Gold prices moved up from lows of $1,050 in 2015 to $1,350 in late 2016, but have recently corrected again.

Strengthening of rupee against the dollar has resulted in the domestic prices of gold falling even further.

“This coupled with the fact that the domestic equity markets have been doing well, Gold Funds/ETFs are not a very popular investment option currently with investors. Investors have not been allocating fresh funds to these funds and marginally pulling out assets over the last four years,” said Belapurkar.

Gold ETFs are passive investment instruments that are based on price movements and invest in the metal.