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Laurence Fletcher and Henry Sanderson report in the Financial Times about hedge fund efforts to use gold to fight fiat currency inflation. They write:
Some of the world’s largest hedge funds are raising their bets on gold, forecasting that central banks’ unprecedented responses to the coronavirus crisis will lead to devaluations of major currencies.
Paul Singer’s Elliott Management, Andrew Law’s Caxton Associates and Danny Yong’s Dymon Asia Capital are all bullish on the yellow metal, which has risen about 12 per cent this year. They are wagering that moves to loosen monetary policy and even directly finance government spending, intended to limit the economic damage from the virus, will debase fiat currencies and provide a further boost to gold.
“Gold is a hedge against unfettered fiat currency printing,” said Mr Yong, founding partner at Dymon Asia, which is up 36 per cent this year, helped by its bet on the gold price.
New York-based Elliott, which manages about $40bn in assets, told its investors last month that gold was “one of the most undervalued” assets available and that its fair value was “multiples of its current price”.
In a letter, Elliott cited the “fanatical debasement of money by all of the world’s central banks” as well as low interest rates and disruption to mining caused by coronavirus. Profits from gold positions helped the hedge fund to a gain of about 2 per cent in the first quarter.
Read more here.
