Big gold bets made earlier this year by investors including Eric Mindich’s Eton Park Capital Management are paying off.

Holdings in exchange-traded funds backed by the metal soared $4.3 billion on Friday, the most in four years, after the U.K.’s Brexit vote drove futures to a two-year high. The value of SPDR Gold Shares, the largest bullion ETF, surged the most since 2008. That meant a $21.2 million one-day gain for Eton Park, assuming the fund kept its SPDR holdings at the level reported for March 31. 

In a world of market turbulence, plunging asset values and mounting investor angst, the good news for gold bulls keeps coming. Investors are seeking a haven in gold as the Brexit vote sends shock waves across the globe, wiping $2.6 trillion from global equities and sending the pound to its weakest in more than three decades. Hedge funds and other investors are reaping the benefits as gold prices are on track for their best first half of a year since 1979.

“It is going to be a very volatile ride,” Justin Smirk, senior economist at Westpac Banking Corp., said by e-mail. “There is much uncertainty about Brexit, not only just how will they do it but even will they. We are going to see risk on, risk off and, as thus, rallies and fades in the gold market.” Interest in gold ETFs will trend up but it won’t be a smooth, even process, he said.

Gold prices have rallied about 25 percent this year as the Federal Reserve kept interest rates low, while monetary policies, including those in Europe and Japan, pushed yields for about $8.73 trillion of securities below zero. The Brexit referendum added to uncertainty in global markets, with hedge funds boosting their bets on price gains to an all-time high just two days before the vote.

Gold Forecast

Gold futures for August gained 0.2 percent to $1,324.90 an ounce at 12:16 p.m. on the Comex in New York. Prices could be as high as $1,424 an ounce by year end, according to the median of 12 forecasts in a Bloomberg survey of analysts and traders from New York to London conducted on Friday.

Investors added 18.41 metric tons Friday to SPDR Gold, lifting total volume to the highest since July 2013. The ETF has 934.31 tons and a value of $39.8 billion, according to its website. BlackRock Inc. was the biggest investor in SPDR, holding 11 percent of assets, according to data compiled by Bloomberg based on February filings. Bank of America Corp. was the second-largest, with 1.6 percent, and Eton Park held 1.1 percent, based on March filings.

Eton Park reported 3.59 million SPDR shares as of March 31. A filing last month showed the fund bought call options on SPDR Gold Trust shares with a face value of more than $700 million and put option contracts with a notional value of about $617 million. The calculation for the $21.2 million gain doesn’t include options.

Jonathan Gasthalter, a spokesman representing Eton Park at Gasthalter & Co., declined to comment.

Money managers also boosted their net-long position in gold futures and options by 6.7 percent to 256,898 contracts in the week ended June 21, according to U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission data released three days later. That’s the highest since the data begins in 2006.