Hedge funds and other money managers have been stepping up wagers on gold as the bullion reached a series of new highs on the back of reaccelerating inflation. Overweighting precious metals has become the consensus among the largest money managers, with 83% of them being long the asset class, a new Citi analysis of top investors overseeing more than $18 trillion showed. The study also found that gold is the only commodity that big allocators added to over the past month. Gold futures settled at a record high above $2,400 an ounce this week. The precious metal is coming off its third straight week of gains. Investors have been bidding up the precious metal as geopolitical risks rose and inflation reaccelerated. Gold is often used as an inflation hedge because of its limited supply. “The rally has been fueled by a powerful cocktail of safe-haven and hedge fund purchases, prompted by record-high equities and sticky inflation,” James Steel, chief precious metals analyst at HSBC Securities, said in a note. “This, in turn, is triggering heavy momentum buying.” @GC.1 YTD mountain Gold Professional speculators’ net-long positions in gold futures and options hovered near the highest level since 2020 as of April 9, according to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s latest data. David Neuhauser, founder of Northbrook, Illinois-based hedge fund Livermore Partners, told CNBC that he has increased his weighting in gold to over 20% recently, and that includes gold miner stocks and the yellow metal itself. “With inflation well above trend and being extremely sticky, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that gold could serve in a great capacity,” Neuhauser said in a phone interview. “We are in for a structural change in terms of inflation, and gold will be the metal to continue to find investors worried about monetary disorder, worried about monetary debasement.” Neuhauser said he sees the bullion reaching $3,000 over the next few years. Notably, Greenlight Capital’s David Einhorn has made gold “a very large position” as a defense play against a potential market downturn. “There’s a problem with the overall monetary and fiscal policies of the country, and if both policies are systemically too loose, I think the deficits are ultimately a real problem. And I think that this is a way to hedge the risk of something not-so-good happening,” Einhorn said in early April. The hedge fund star revealed that not only did he own the popular SPDR Gold Trust fund (GLD), but he also bought physical bars. Deutsche Bank on Tuesday hiked its gold price forecast to $2,400 an ounce by the year end and $2,600 by the end of 2025. The updated projection is based on the recent investment inflow that has a durable impact on prices, the bank said.
Italy’s bailed-out Monte dei Paschi di Siena on Friday launched a 13.3 billion euro ($13.95 billion) all-share takeover offer for larger domestic peer Mediobanca.
Offering 23 of its shares for 10 of its acquisition target, Monte dei Paschi values Mediobanca’s stock at roughly €15.992 each, a 5% premium to the close price of Jan. 23.
The equity of Monte dei Paschi was worth 8.7 billion euros as of the Jan. 23 close, while Mediobanca’s market capitalization stood at at 12.3 billion euros, according to FactSet data.
Monte dei Paschi, the world’s oldest bank, required a state rescue in 2017 after years of crippling losses, but has turned the tides of its fortunes under the leadership of UniCredit veteran Luigi Lovaglio.
The offer adds to a picture of heating M&A appetite in Italy’s banking and financial services sector, where the country’s second-largest bank UniCredit previously offered to buy out Banco BPM, which in turn seeks to acquire fund manager Anima Holding.
A major exchange-traded fund provider is trying to take the volatility out of bitcoin investing.
Calamos Investments launched the Calamos Bitcoin Structured Alt Protection ETF (CBOJ) on Wednesday. The firm brands it as “the world’s first downside protected bitcoin ETF.” It is built with risk-adverse investors in mind.
“You can get in all day long. Get that 100% protection. And then at the end of the day, we’re going to strike the cap,” the firm’s ETF head Matt Kaufman told CNBC’s “ETF Edge” this week.” Bitcoin is a volatile asset … we don’t want the price of bitcoin to move on you overnight.”
The firm launched the new bitcoin ETF on Wednesday. It coincides with a winning month for bitcoin. The cryptocurrency is up 10% as of late Thursday afternoon.
According to a Calamos press release, the fund provides access to bitcoin in a risk-controlled environment.
“Many investors have been hesitant to invest in bitcoin due to its epic volatility,” Kaufman said in the release. “Calamos seeks to meet advisor, institutional and investor demands for solutions that capture bitcoin’s growth potential while mitigating the historically high volatility and drawdowns of this fast-growing and high performing asset.”
Calamos has more crypto funds on deck. It is set to launch Calamos Bitcoin 90 Series Structured Alt Protection ETF (CBXJ) and Calamos Bitcoin 80 Series Structured Alt Protection ETF (CBTJ) on Feb. 4, according to the Calamos website.
‘You’re not going to see meme coin ETFs from Calamos’
Despite the firm’s appetite to offer cryptocurrency funds, Kaufman told “ETF Edge” there is one group Calamos will not consider.
“You’re not going to see meme coin ETFs from Calamos. But the ability to access bitcoin in a way that meets your risk tolerance, that’s what we’re about,” Kaufman said.
Entrepreneur Eric Malka had to completely shift his mindset when he sold his company and became an investor. Since then he’s learned many lessons he’s now passing to his kids.
When The Art of Shaving — which Malka and his wife Myriam Zaoui founded in 1996 — was bought by Procter & Gamble for a reported $60 million in 2009, Malka realized he needed to educate himself.
“When an entrepreneur like me is lucky enough to have a liquidity event, then we’re faced … with managing assets without proper training,” he told CNBC by video call. Investors must focus on being patient and on long-term returns, whereas company founders often look at a short-term plan, “almost an opposite” mindset, Malka said.
He took courses on wealth management, read books on investing and now has a diversified portfolio of stocks, bonds, private equity and real estate, with about 10% allocated to riskier investments. In 2014 he founded private equity fund Strategic Brand Investments.
The lessons learned when you lose are more valuable than the ones when you succeed.
Eric Malka
Co-founder and CEO, Strategic Brand Investments
When it came to educating his children — sons aged 14 and 16 — about money, Malka’s attitude has been to help them learn from the ground up.
“One of the challenges I faced with my teenagers early on, is their belief that it’s very easy to make money by investing through social media and through what they hear from friends,” he said. His older son thought he could generate a 20% monthly return, which Malka described as “very concerning.” So, Malka let him invest a small portion of his savings, hoping it would provide an opportunity to learn — and his son lost 40% of that investment after trading currency futures.
“I hate to set up my child for failure, but sometimes, you know, the lessons learned when you lose are more valuable than the ones when you succeed,” Malka said.
It’s a point that resonates with Gregory Van, CEO of Singapore-based wealth platform Endowus. He and his wife have children aged eight, six and three. He said he’ll be teaching them that it’s important to make mistakes when the stakes seem large to them, though may be small in reality. “The emotional muscle, and humility required to be a good investor is something that people need to develop on their own,” he said.
Teaching kids how to invest
For Dayssi Olarte de Kanavos, president and co-founder of real estate company Flag Luxury Group, educating kids early about money is key.
She and her husband allocated a “low risk” sum of money to each of their three children in middle school for them to pick companies to invest in. “Our children chose Apple, Amazon, Google and Alibaba. All but one had terrific runs. As long as they kept their money in the market and continued to be thoughtful in their approach, we added every year to their nest egg,” she told CNBC by email.
Olarte de Kanavos said her experience in real estate investing taught her the value of patience. “It influenced my business approach by emphasizing long-term strategy over quick gains,” she said. The mother of three described her own investments in the stock market as “very conservative, in order to best manage the huge risks that we take in our real estate business.”
Give them an allowance no later than the first grade.
Dayssi Olarte de Kanavos
President and co-founder, Flag Luxury Group
She suggested having children explain why they want to buy certain stocks, because it “can demystify investing and make it an exciting and integral part of their education,” she said.
Van said he talks to his young kids about the tradeoffs of investing in their own terms. “I ask them: ‘If we invest this $100 and it goes down by $70 next year, how will you feel?’ ‘Do you want to spend $100 today on a toy, or have it turn into $200 in 10 years when you are 16?’,” Van told CNBC via email. “Surprisingly, they are very rational and always go for delayed gratification,” he said.
Van and his wife have investment portfolios for each of their kids, mostly made up of gifts they’ve received during holidays such as Chinese New Year. “Given their long investment horizon, they are in very diversified, multi-manager, low-cost equities portfolios,” Van said, and he shows his children their portfolios’ performance — positive or negative — whenever they ask.
Budgeting and saving for children
Age-appropriate advice is very important, Malka said. His focus right now is teaching his children about budgeting, providing them with a fixed allowance per month.
“In the beginning, you know, they would spend in 10 days what they were supposed to spend in 30 days … now I’ve been doing this for eight months or nine months, now they’re really managing it properly, and I think that’s a skill they don’t realize they’re being taught,” he said. He recommended the book “Raising Financially Fit Kids,” by Joline Godfrey, which provides advice by age-group.
“Give them an allowance no later than the first grade,” is Olarte de Kanavos’ suggestion. “The purpose of an allowance is to allow them to learn to make their own decisions about money and to manage the repercussions that come with their choices,” she told CNBC. “As they get older, teach them about saving, the concept of interest, and the difference between good and bad debt,” she said.
For Roshni Mahtani Cheung, CEO and founder of media company The Parentinc, long-term thinking is important. She and her husband opened a fixed-deposit account for their eight-year old daughter for the money she receives at Chinese New Year, and at Diwali she receives a gold coin. “My goal is for her to grow up financially savvy, confident, and ready to make her own decisions,” Mahtani Cheung told CNBC by email.
Talking to kids about their inheritance
A concern for the wealthy members of advisory network Tiger 21 is how and when to talk to their children about their inheritance. “They are most concerned about their kids leading independent productive lives and don’t want knowledge about the wealth they will inherit to distract them or take them off course,” said Tiger 21’s founder and chairman Michael Sonnenfeldt in an email to CNBC.
Around 70% of the network’s members want to wait until their kids are close to 30 years-old and have established careers to detail what they might inherit — and when, Sonnenfeldt said. “However, about 30% of members want to begin working with their kids in their late teens or early 20s to teach them to become responsible stewards for the wealth they will inherit,” he said. Both approaches are valid, he added.
“I suggest that parents encourage open, values-driven conversations about money and investing,” Sonnenfeldt said.