Browsing: gold

By Doris Bao, FRM and Alex Botte, CFA, CAIA, Client Solutions Research team at Two Sigma In our previous post on inflation, we covered how the Local Inflation risk factor in Venn, Two Sigma’s risk analytics platform, is constructed and we reviewed its historical performance. The primary conclusion was thatRead More

Diane Merritt, of the Closed-End Fund Association (CEF) spoke recently with Axel Merk, of Merk Investments, about precious metals as part of a portfolio, and specifically the role these metals can play late in the business cycle: which, according to a rather broad consensus, is where we now are. TheRead More

On Sept. 24, the 9th Annual Inside Alternatives and Asset Allocation event convenes at Wynn Las Vegas, with CAIA sponsorship. The purpose of the event: to look beyond traditional alternative investments and strategies, to take the measure of a new breed of alternatives, including impact/SRIs, cryptocurrencies, and the application ofRead More

A new Index Flash Update from Eurekahedge says that hedge funds are off to a positive start to 2018. The industry globally gained 2.26% in January. Among developed world mandates, North American hedge funds were up 1.89%, followed by those of Japan and Europe, which gained 1.28% each. Higher numbersRead More

The World Gold Council has recently posted its analysis of the continued relevance of gold. As one might expect from the source, the WGC finds that gold is a strategic asset that can play several valuable roles in a portfolio. Toward this end, the paper offers a chart of gold’sRead More

The latest report from Eurekahedge tells us that hedge funds worldwide are down year-to-date through February, -1.27 percent. Dividing the industry by geographic mandates, Latin America is the only region to post YTD gains, +1.9% due to a rally in oil and commodities. Table 1, adapted from the report below,Read More

According to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s Commitment of Trader’s Report, released Friday, February 26, speculators in gold recently increased their long position by 30,350 contracts.Read More

Gold seems, to a larger extent than silver, and even more so to an extent larger than is true for palladium or platinum, to work as a true financial asset: decoupled from price developments in the commodity markets. It succeeds as a hedge against currency and stock-market trouble.Read More

The price of gold took a swan dive as November ended, just as Swiss voters formally nixed an initiative that would have required the central bank to buy a lot of the stuff. Faille argues that this is not a matter of cause and effect. It is, on the other hand, a fascinating case study in the discounting machinery that is a market. Read More

The Swiss National Bank and the government oppose a pending referendum that would drastically change the country's policy on gold. But of course the anti-establishment nature of the petition is the whole point. Read More

Rickards' new book expands on some of the themes of his 2011 publication, Currency Wars. The new book is, specifically, about the end of a particular phase in the history of money, the reserve significance of the U.S. dollar. Read More

Either Portugal or Italy could kick off a move toward the use of gold as collateral for sovereign debts. Each country has significant supplies of the stuff. Portugal, for example, has 383 metric tons, equaling 90 percent of its foreign reserves. Read More

Nothing quite so recommends a gold standard, or some alternative system of currency hardening, as the increasingly absurd arguments of those who would defend the current system of competing national fiats. The Atlantic this week presented us with Matthew O'Brien's ruminations on point. Read More