-- Published: Monday, 17 August 2015 | Print | Disqus
By Peter Cooper
Billionaire investor Stanley Druckenmiller has just raised his gold holdings to 20 per cent of the asset allocation reported by his Duquesne Family Office, according to Zerohedge.com.
He’d not been a big investor in gold in the recent past despite public warnings about the danger of zero interest rates and money printing. But this latest filing showed that at the end of June his largest portfolio allocation was 2.9 million shares in the GLD exchange traded fund, or 20 per cent of total holdings.
Trend setter?
You have to wonder if this will not set a trend among hedge fund managers whose raison d’être is to hedge risk? Gold is the classic hedge against both deflation and inflation as a store of value, although ironically its recent four-year bear market makes it an even better buy at the moment.
Many potential investors are waiting for the gold price to collapse by 50 per cent from its peak of $1,923 almost four years ago. Jim Rogers is among them.
However, trying to call the bottom could be an expensive mistake if gold now continues higher from its recent summer lows. To be fair it has already completed a 50 per cent retracement of its bull-market advance and that could be enough before resuming its upward trajectory (click here).
Chinese devaluation
More fundamentally the Chinese devaluation that started last week could be an important catalyst for higher gold prices. First, it was the stock market boom in China that cut demand for gold in the first half and that has now gone bust; and secondly the devaluation policy response will cause a rush to buy hard assets before the yuan drops in value again.
Given that China was the biggest buyer of gold last year this is very important for the gold market. Could it be that New York speculators will now jump on this bandwagon and Mr. Druckenmiller has just gotten in ahead of the crowd?
The price action for gold over the past week since the Chinese devaluation announcement suggests he was prescient in his purchase of bullion, and probably got in at the market low. Buyers today can still buy at very reasonable prices but they likely won’t stay down for very long.
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-- Published: Monday, 17 August 2015 | E-Mail | Print | Source: GoldSeek.com
