Soros Fund Management LLC kept its stake unchanged in Market Vectors Gold Miners exchange-traded fund in the first quarter of 2015, compared with the fourth quarter of 2014, a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission showed on Friday.

The fund kept its stake at 761,000 shares, which were valued at $13.88 million, the filing showed.

"It's a good diversifier so why should you change your location?" said Axel Merk, president and chief investment officer of Palo Alto, California-based Merk Investments, with currency mutual-fund assets and the Merk Gold ETF worth roughly $300 million.

Merk was referring to gold.

"They all but promise to be behind the curve, meaning that real interest rates will not increase. If at all, they might even decrease over time," Merk said, referring to the Fed.

"That's relevant for gold because gold pays no interest, so if we have negative to zero interest that may be a factor to gold."

Meanwhile, hedge fund Paulson & Co. kept its stakes unchanged in most of its gold investments in the first quarter, when the precious metal's price pared its gains, a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission showed on Friday.

The New York-based fund, led by longtime gold bull John Paulson, kept his shares in SPDR Gold Trust, the world's largest gold-backed ETF, steady for the sixth straight quarter as the market continued to speculate on whether or not the U.S. Federal Reserve would raise interest rates in mid-2015.

Paulson owned more than 10.2 million shares worth $1.16 billion in the ETF as of March 31, the filing showed.

Paulson also kept stakes unchanged in Africa's top bullion producer AngloGold Ashanti Ltd., IAMGOLD Corp. and Novagold Resources Inc. Paulson eliminated its stake in Gold Fields Ltd.

Meanwhile, global gold demand eased 1 percent in the first quarter, an industry report showed this week, as a drop in Chinese jewelry demand narrowly outweighed a recovery in Indian buying and Western appetite for bullion-backed funds.

In its Gold Demand Trends report for the period, the World Gold Council said Chinese jewelry buying fell 10 percent in the first three months of the year.

That was sparked by uncertainty over the direction of prices, as well as strength in Chinese equities and fears of a slowdown in Chinese growth, it said.

"The rampant strength of the equity market is clearly diverting attention away from gold," WGC head of market intelligence Alistair Hewitt said. Over the course of the year, Chinese gold demand is still expected to grow, he said, to between 900 and 1,000 tonnes, a similar level to that forecast in India.

Despite the drop, China was the world's biggest consumer of gold jewelry, coins and bars in the first quarter, the WGC figures showed, with offtake of 272.9 tonnes.

India, historically the world's number one gold buyer, saw a 22 percent rise in jewelry demand in that period, though demand for bars and coins fell 6 percent. Last year the market was curbed by official restrictions on imports, including a rule that 20 percent of imported gold had to be re-exported.

"We've seen a nice percentage element of growth, but we're probably just getting back to where India's gold market has been over the last five years," Hewitt said.

"More importantly, looking ahead, India's gold market is returning to a more normal environment, as opposed to the volatility that it experienced as the government implemented restrictive policies like the 80:20 rule."

Overall demand for jewelry, the biggest segment of gold demand, fell 3 percent in the first quarter, with consumption also declining in Hong Kong, the Middle East, Turkey and Russia.

Partly offsetting the impact of that, gold-backed exchange-traded funds -- investment vehicles which issue securities backed by physical metal -- saw their first quarterly inflow since late 2012 in the first quarter, of 25.7 tonnes.

That helped lead to a 4 percent rise in investment demand, despite a drop in buying of small investment products like coins and bars, consumption of which fell 10 percent.

The drop was particularly noticeable in Russia, Turkey, and the Middle East, although Chinese purchases of these products edged higher.

Central bank gold demand was almost unchanged at 119.4 tonnes. On the supply side of the market, gold recycling fell 3 percent while mined gold output edged up 2 percent year on year.