Wednesday 20 July 2011

Tuesday 5 April 2011

Incoming! Interest Rate Risk...

"Pimco to Raise $600 Million for REIT to Buy Mortgage Debt..."

Although most central bankers in the developed world still maintain a low interest rate environment to support the economy recovery, they might soon reverse the process more abruptly than the market predict. When they do that, short term interest rate tend to spike up quickly. Pimco certainly anticipate such a scenario, and preparing for it by reducing the duration of their fixed income investments, in other words, they start to move from the short end of the yield curve (short terms bond investments) to the long end of the yield curve (long terms bond investment such as mortgage debt). It is a key signal for other bond investors to follow in the market place.

Maybe our sovereign wealth fund should do the same thing to hedge against the perceived interest rate risks?

Sunday 27 March 2011

Gold at $3000?

This chart tracks the the performance of gold since July of 2002 against the three largest bubbles of the last 40 years. Past bubbles have shown strong but steady growth for the first 7-8 years before moving into a hyper-growth phase for the last 18-24 months. Each series is adjusted for inflation and is smoothed with a 3-month moving average.