Quarantine Your Mind

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen

I continuously receive many, many emails from our readers with questions on various asset classes and sometimes even on what seems specific investment opportunities. For regulatory reasons, I cannot possibly get into such potential suggestions or recommendations as I am not allowed to give specific advice in the format of my weekly emails. Thank you for your understanding.

However, when it comes to the greater picture, I am allowed to share my personal view, and this is what I am happy to do from time to time.

As it happens, I did I receive a question on the quality of banks in Europe. Now, banks are no homogeneous group. There are indeed large differences between different banks. Yet, many banks in Europe have significantly improved their balance sheet quality since the financial crisis, and the supervision of banks in Europe is much stricter than before the financial crisis. I, therefore, consider the banking landscape to be reasonably OK, although there may be large differences between single banks and between the various jurisdictions as well and no matter by how much the balance sheets have improved, I would not consider investing in banks for our customers.

One topic to keep an eye on in this regard is a possible impending wave of covid-19 induced bankruptcies that may harm bank balance sheets. Although I personally think governments and central banks would intervene, the risk of failure cannot be denied. It seems governments and central banks have abolished de facto, a large part of the free markets, and yet, the risk of failure of non-system relevant banks is existing.

From an investor’s point of view, government and central bank intervention is not necessarily a bad thing at all. There is much hypocrisy out there and to be very blunt it is probably mostly thanks to governments‘ and central banks‘ flooding the markets with big heaps of money that asset classes like gold, equtîties, and crypto-assets gained in value over the last years. If you hold one or more of these asset classes, do not complain too much.

You know, Ladies and Gentlemen, in 1986/87 I spent 12 months in Toronto as an intern in the securities department of UBS Toronto. Our office was located right in the center of Toronto’s banking district, directly above the stock exchange. I witnessed the legendary crash of 1987. At that time, there was a classy, somewhat nervous but bright-eyed stock exchange trader working for the bank who smoked out tons of cigarettes. While the most significant panic on the stock exchanges since the 1930s unfolded, he told me over and over again almost mantra-like: „do not worry, in 24 months, probably even before that, people will have forgotten“ (I do not know the exact wording anymore, but +/- this is it). What can I say, he was right, and since then there have been over 20 stock market crashes, and the result is and remains the same. Those who hold a good selection of equities in a balanced portfolio are usually doing well in the long run.

However, to be able to stick to your investment principles when everyone around you is panicking, you probably need to be able to quarantine your mind for as much as possible.

Please feel free to share your ideas and thoughts with me, but please do not forget (instead of hitting the reply button) to send your messages to smk@incrementum.li

Many thanks, indeed!

And now, Ladies and Gentlemen I wish you a great day and weekend.

Yours truly,

Stefan M. Kremeth
Wealth Management
Incrementum AG

Tel.: +423 237 26 60
Cell: +41 79 303 48 39
Im alten Riet 102
9494 Schaan/Liechtenstein
Mail: smk@incrementum.li

Hard talk with Václav Klaus

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen

On May 4, 2020, my old friend Claudio Grass published an interview he had conducted with former President of the Czech Republic, Prof. Ing. Václav Klaus. Amid a second Covid-19 wave, the interview has not lost any of its relevance. Claudio Grass acts as an independent advisor to high net worth individuals for well over a decade. Please enjoy the read:

„Claudio Grass (CG): The magnitude and the global scale of the lockdown and shutdown measures we have seen during this corona-crisis are unprecedented. How do you evaluate the response compared to the threat itself? Do you believe it is justified?

Václav Klaus (VK): I do not pretend to be an expert in epidemiology, but my background in economics and statistics tells me that the threat is smaller than the consequences „organised „by governments all over the world as a reaction to this pandemic. I would add unnecessary consequences. The authorities reacted in an exorbitant way, in a moment of fear. This is partly the result of the current „online democracy „.

CG: The „emergency measures“ and the restrictions that have been imposed on civilians‘ basic rights have served as a reminder of the true extent of the state’s powers. Do you find this worrying and do you see a risk that these new, extraordinary powers might not be as easy to roll back once the crisis is over? 

VK: The restrictions on basic civil rights that were introduced so swiftly and so easily demonstrate the power of the modern state, with all its new, „smart“ technologies and drastically expanded enforcement capabilities. Economists often talk about the so-called „ratchet effect“, or the limited ability of existing processes and dynamics to be reversed and to return to normal once a specific event has radically altered them. It is true of prices, of productivity, and it is also true of social and political systems. Therefore, I am afraid it will be very difficult, if not impossible, to return to the pre-corona days. 

CG: On an economic level, what is your assessment of the impact of the shutdown measures?

VK: Most, if not all, of the circulating quantitative estimates and forecasts, are wrong. The „experts“ should first say how long the quarantine restrictions will last and when the economic shutdown will be fully lifted. Their economic forecasts depend on the length of the quarantine period. They should announce explicitly when they plan to end it. Until this is established and known, the current forecasts are economically meaningless. 

CG: The monetary and fiscal interventions that we have seen so far are as extreme and as shocking as the shutdown policies themselves. Do you think they will be enough to keep the economy afloat though, or is a deep and long recession simply inevitable?

VK: The monetary and fiscal measures – unacceptable for the true democrats – may have positive short-term effects, but they will destabilise the economy and public finances for a very long period of time. They could lead to very high inflation. 

CG:  Trillions upon trillions are being injected into the system, while wild ideas like the Universal Basic Income have become mainstream. Apart from the obvious monetary and economic risks of these policies, do you also foresee political and social implications?

VK: Those of us in the ex-communist countries were used to living in a world of something like „Universal Basic Income“. We wanted to get rid of communism because of principles like this. These principles destroyed the motivation to work, which proved to be ruinous. 

CG: Within just a few weeks we have witnessed an abrupt and absolute turn towards centralisation. The free market has been brought to its knees, individual voluntary exchanges, productivity and the very right to work and to create were all suspended and replaced with central planning. Do you think this approach has any chance of being sustainable? 

VK: I would not call it „central planning“ yet. I prefer Walter Eucken’s term (used for the description of the German economy in Hitler’s time), „centrally administrated economy“. It is not planning in its original meaning. It is the very heavy and visible hand of the government at work, instead of the „invisible hand“ of the market. 

CG: The corona-crisis has also had some very serious geopolitical ramifications, especially vis-à-vis China. What are the main changes that you expect to see going forward in this arena? 

VK: We should not use this situation for the introduction of new dangerous foreign relations policies and to strengthen the demonisation of countries such as China and Russia. To my great regret, however, we see this is already happening.

CG: What about the future of the EU? Do you think this crisis has further weakened it and what is your outlook for the bloc?

VK: The EU will – unfortunately, in my view – survive the corona-crisis. Its exponents will use it to further weaken nation-states. They are on the defensive now, but they will reemerge again in full strength very soon. I wish I will be proven wrong, but I do believe they will use this crisis to their advantage and I fear they will do so successfully.

CG: Citizens, investors and savers everywhere are justifiably scared, if not of the virus itself then certainly of financial ruin. In your view, what can we do to take back at least some control of our own future? 

VK: It is quite simple. The people should say „NO“ to all of it. Otherwise, what lies ahead is a real-life approximation of the dystopian „Brave New World“ of Aldous Huxley.“

Thank you very much, Claudio for letting me use your interview with former President of the Czech Republic, Prof. Ing. Václav Klaus. Regular readers of my weekly emails know that I cannot entirely agree with all of it and yet, the interview carries an alternative perspective to what can generally be found in mainstream media and is therefore not only interesting but also meaningful.

Please feel free to share your ideas and thoughts with me, but please do not forget (instead of hitting the reply button) to send your messages to smk@incrementum.li
Many thanks, indeed!

And now, Ladies and Gentlemen I wish you a great day and weekend.

Yours truly

Stefan M. Kremeth
Wealth Management
Incrementum AG

Tel.: +423 237 26 60
Cell: +41 79 303 48 39
Im alten Riet 102
9494 Schaan/Liechtenstein
Mail: smk@incrementum.li

A Time of Aggressive Nervousness

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen

I somewhat do have the impression, we live in a time of aggressive nervousness, and I can not think much of it. I am fully aware that bad news sell and yet, we all deserve a break. This is why I decided to write only about positive things in today’s weekly.

First of all, the sentiment of U.S. house building companies is skyrocketing. In October, the mood among home builders reached a new all-time high, rising from 83 to 85 points compared to September. The NAHB home construction index has never been higher at any time since the start of the survey in 1986. Housebuilding sentiment is good when interest rates are falling or when interest rates are staying on low levels for a long time. It can be seen as an indicator and usually runs ahead of a stock market trend. At least this was the case at the end of 1998 and in summer of 2005. The S&P 500 marked its high points one and a half and two and a half years later (September 2000 and October 2007).

Following the corona-related economic slump in the second quarter, the U.S. economy grew strongly again in the third quarter. The gross domestic product grew by 33.1 per cent between July and September on an annualised basis, thus exceeding market expectations.

Then we have seen last week’s Weekly Economic Index (WEI) rise to -3.8 per cent from -4% in the previous week. The recovery of the U.S. economy continues. As the WEI is scaled to the growth rate of the past four quarters, it is increasingly approaching the expected growth rate for the calendar year. Considering all Covid-19 implications, this is rather good.

Looking at the largest economy in Europe, we see the German truck toll performance index remaining at a high-level. The decrease compared to February is now only marginal at 1.7%. The toll performance index is published with a delay of about one week and acts as an indicator for the development of industrial production. Germany’s industrial production developed positively in October. The reason for this is substantial demand from Asia.

Last but not least, we have seen Bitcoin performing positively over the last few weeks, and this usually is a clear sign of risk-on mood among investors and speculators. Therefore, if Bitcoin continues to rise, it could well be a positive signal for stock markets.

Ladies and Gentlemen, by the end of next week one uncertainty is most probably going to be gone. I hope we will receive the results from the U.S. presidential election next week and this again would be good news, no matter who would be elected, as there would be one short-term uncertainty out of the way.

By the way and just for fun, I like looking at the quotes on:
https://www.predictit.org/
to see what people were betting on one or the other candidate.

Now, next week I have a real treat for all of you. My old friend Claudio was able to interview a former head of state on and during the Covid-19 pandemic ’s first wave and he allowed me to publish the interview in my next weekly.

Please feel free to share your ideas and thoughts with me, but please do not forget (instead of hitting the reply button) to send your messages to smk@incrementum.li
Many thanks, indeed!

And now, Ladies and Gentlemen I wish you a great day and weekend.

Yours truly,

Stefan M. Kremeth
Wealth Management
Incrementum AG

Tel.: +423 237 26 60
Cell: +41 79 303 48 39
Im alten Riet 102
9494 Schaan/Liechtenstein
Mail: smk@incrementum.li

Does Patience bring Roses?

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen

On October 3, one month before the elections in the USA, the editorial of the „Magazin“ (No 40) read the following: „What does it make to be an adult?“ (I did mention this quote some three weeks ago in my weekly mail).

„Faced with difficulties, they look for solutions. They do not despair at the first hurdle. They know that many problems that seem big and important at the moment are not in the long run and will eventually resolve themselves. However, above all, being an adult also means always being friendly and showing compassion for others“. Alain de Botton

Now, back to the question in the headline of this mail. Is the old wisdom that patience should bring roses justified and above all, does it also apply to my profession, the investment of assets for private clients.

Let me say straight away; I think this is the case. When I look back over the last decades, long-term investors have always been able to earn money with stable equity investments, even if they had to accept negative performances in the short term.

As you know, our private clients‘ mandates are geared to cash flows. That is why our portfolios always include shares from insurance- and telecom-, pharmaceutical- and energy-, real estate- and food industry sectors. Now, this year, it is precisely such stocks that are suffering. All of these companies usually produce positive cash flows for years and sometimes decades. From time to time, for a quarter or two, those cash flows may stop. However, and due to their strong balance sheets, these companies are still able to pay dividends. Even though Royal Dutch, for example, has cut its dividend payments for the first time in 45 years, they still pay out 3%, Swiss Re has always paid out 5% or more in recent years, and Zurich Insurance has shown a constant dividend yield of over 6% in recent years. For us, these shares belong in every portfolio that is geared towards cash flow.

If I now take the share of Zurich Insurance as an example, the dividend of 20 Swiss francs over 15 years can amortise the investment of 300 Swiss francs. In our opinion, this is very attractive. All the more so as we find ourselves in an environment of negative interest rates.

We are well aware that our approach requires patience, especially in this exceptional year, but we are convinced that after many good years, some of them even very good, we will just get through this year as well.

You know, Ladies and Gentlemen, Molière is credited with saying that „trees that grow slowly bear the best fruit“. So if patience brings roses and the slow-growing trees produce the best fruit, and if, as Alain de Botton suggested, many of the problems that currently seem to be significant and vital are not in a longer-term perspective and will eventually resolve themselves, then I am rather confident that our cash flow strategy will continue to generate gratifying returns over the coming decades despite Covid-19.

Please feel free to share your ideas and thoughts with me, but please do not forget (instead of hitting the reply button) to send your messages to smk@incrementum.li

Many thanks, indeed!

And now, Ladies and Gentlemen I wish you a great day and weekend.

Yours truly,

Stefan M. Kremeth
Wealth Management
Incrementum AG

Tel.: +423 237 26 60
Cell: +41 79 303 48 39
Im alten Riet 102
9494 Schaan/Liechtenstein
Mail: smk@incrementum.li

Year-End Competition Update II

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen

Time for another update on our year-end competition. The estimates are still wide-spread; this is great and as I had mentioned before, makes it more fun than if everybody is around the same numbers. We had some new readers joining in, but there were no new „highest“ or „lowest“ estimates. However, the prices for Gold, Silver, and the S&P moved up considerably since the last update. So, let us have a look where we are standing.

Gold:
The highest estimate still comes from Hannes. His estimate for the 2020 year-end price stands at USD 2’000. The lowest estimate comes from me, and I know this is rather provocative, but it is just for fun, after all. My estimate is a year-end price of USD 1’280.

Silver:
The highest estimate comes from Barbara. Her estimate for the 2020 year-end price stands at USD 45. The lowest estimate comes from Mark, and his estimate is a year-end price of USD 14.50.

S&P 500:
The highest estimate comes from Barbara again. She seems bullish; her estimate for the 2020 year-end price stands at 4’500. The lowest estimate comes from John, and he estimates a year-end price of 2’100.

Currently (at the time when I was finishing this message) gold stands at USD 1’908.59, Silver at USD 24.24, and the S&P at 3’483.34.

If there are still readers out there who would like to participate, please feel free to send me a quick email, and I will be happy to take you on the list of participants. Do not forget; you may win a one-ounce Silver coin. Its price just went up by roughly 35% since my last (June-) update.

Please feel free to share your ideas and thoughts with me, but please do not forget (instead of hitting the reply button) to send your messages to smk@incrementum.li

Many thanks, indeed!

Ladies and Gentlemen, I wish you a good start into the day, a wonderful weekend, and above all, good health!

Yours truly,

Stefan M. Kremeth
Wealth Management
Incrementum AG

Tel.: +423 237 26 60
Cell: +41 79 303 48 39
Im alten Riet 102
9494 Schaan/Liechtenstein
Mail: smk@incrementum.li

Efficient Market Hypothesis

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen

Much as expected, I received many messages concerning my last weekly mail called „a quantum of decency“. Also, much as expected, my personal perspective was not necessarily congruent with the perspectives of all of my readers. Nevertheless, thankfully, and again much as expected, most of the messages not agreeing with my point of view came along politely and thoughtfully, and I had many interesting conversations with readers explaining (agreeing or not) their perspectives, and this is what my weekly emails are all about, at least for me. Thank you very much to Barbara, Bob, AJ, Tom, Thomas, Mark, Steve, John, Mike, David and all the others for sharing your points of view!

Now, before writing about the market efficiency hypothesis and because it fits last week’s topic so well, I would like to share a quote by the Swiss/British writer and philosopher Alain de Botton. When asked what adulthood meant to him, he said: „When faced with difficulties, they (adults) look for solutions. They do not despair at the first hurdle. They know that many problems that seem big and important at the moment are not at all in a long-term perspective and will eventually resolve themselves. Above all, being an adult also means always being friendly and showing compassion for others.“

Today’s topic is about EMH, the efficient market hypothesis (EMH), which is a mathematical-statistical theory of finance.

The EMH states that asset prices reflect all available information. Therefore, assuming this is true, no amount of analysis can give an investor an edge over other investors in a given market. EMH does not require that investors be rational; it says that individual investors will act randomly, but as a whole, the market is always right.

In simple terms, „efficient“ implies „normal“. For example, an unusual reaction to unusual information would therefore be expected. If for example, a crowd suddenly starts running in one direction, it would be normal for anyone to run in that direction as well, even if there is not a rational reason for doing so. A direct consequence to believers of that theory is that no market participant can beat the market in the long run.

Many market participants and even financial markets scientists object to it. Warren Buffet, Daniel Kahneman, Amos Twersky and Richard Thaler have been criticizing EMH on various occasions.

Please feel free to share your ideas and thoughts with me, but please do not forget (instead of hitting the reply button) to send your messages to smk@incrementum.li
Many thanks, indeed!

And now, Ladies and Gentlemen I wish you a great day and weekend.

Yours truly,

Stefan M. Kremeth
Wealth Management
Incrementum AG

Tel.: +423 237 26 60
Cell: +41 79 303 48 39
Im alten Riet 102
9494 Schaan/Liechtenstein
Mail: smk@incrementum.li

A Quantum of Decency

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen

Last week I wrote about mean reversion and proposed this week’s mail to be on the market efficiency theory. I am sorry, but the topic will have to wait, I feel we „have bigger fish to fry“. I do not want my weekly mail to become a political instrument of any sort, and I consider myself to be a reasonably free spirit, but I almost felt urged to share my thoughts with you.

So, there I was, getting up at 02:30 CET in the morning (yes, 2:30 am) on Wednesday to be ready for the first of three debates between the U.S. President, Donald Trump, and the former U.S. Vice President, Joe Biden.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I was shocked by the performance. Are these two candidates really the best the U.S. has to offer? After all, this is supposed to be one of the most important jobs in the world (comes right after CEO at Incrementum) and out of a population of 328.5 million people, one could expect to find at least a handful of intelligent and classy people, no?

But, let me start with first things first. To win a presidential election, a U.S. president needs a majority in the „electoral college“, i.e. the electoral men and women. This body consists of 538 people, so the majority is 270 votes. Each state sends a certain number of electoral men and women depending on the size of its population. The winner of a state receives all the votes, thus strengthening the Electoral College for his or her party. The absolute majority of the people’s votes (popular vote) is not decisive. Now that we have established this part, let us briefly concentrate on what happened from my perspective on Wednesday morning.

It should have been a debate to show the two candidates‘ position on the following six topics chosen by Chris Wallace, the debate’s T.V. host, from Fox News.

“The records of President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden.”
“The Supreme Court”
“COVID-19”
“The economy.”
„Race and violence in our cities.“
„The integrity of the election.“

Chris Wallace is a 72-year-old and very experienced journalist, and yet, he had severe troubles to keep the debate and discussion on a decent level. To me, the president of the United States of America behaved in a very indecent way, and watching him perform on Wednesday morning CET confirmed one fundamental view that had developed over the past four years inside myself. The view I have today is that no matter how potentially excellent his political performance was during his term in office, without a quantum of decency no one should serve as president of the United States of America (or any other country), the largest economic and military power in the world.

You know, Ladies and Gentlemen, in sociology, decency is defined as a standard for ethical and moral standards and expectations of good or correct behavior that is taken for granted. Decency determines manners and lifestyle. To me, this is a must-have for any politician, but even more so, for the president of the superpower called the USA.

I am not sure if Mister Joe Biden will be a good president and if his political program will help to get the job done, but because to me he seems to be the more decent person, than the current U.S. president, the political program becomes almost less critical. I want the without a doubt globally most influential politician to be a reasonably decent person, and currently, I do not have the impression President Donald Trump meets this expectation.

Please feel free to share your ideas and thoughts with me, but please do not forget (instead of hitting the reply button) to send your messages to smk@incrementum.li
Many thanks, indeed!

And now, Ladies and Gentlemen I wish you a great day and weekend.

Yours truly,

Stefan M. Kremeth
Wealth Management
Incrementum AG

Tel.: +423 237 26 60
Cell: +41 79 303 48 39
Im alten Riet 102
9494 Schaan/Liechtenstein
Mail: smk@incrementum.li

Mean Reversion

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen

It seems my last weekly mail „Double Standards“ hit the nail on the head. I received many very positive feedbacks and exciting comments. One of them I would like to share with you: „people’s outrage is definitely selective, and the selectivity conveniently coincides with people’s preexisting political objectives. Stories attributed to anonymous (and, one often suspects, nonexistent) sources are also commonly used to justify political positions. The pressure to join one of two extreme sides and abandon individual thought is also very real“. Very well formulated, I am happy to say!

Today I would like to concentrate on what is called the theory of „mean reversion“.

In capital market theory, the term mean reversion is an extension of regression to the mean by negative autocorrelation to market price and volatility changes. This may sound a bit complicated, but it is not. In other words, the theory suggests that asset prices and historical returns eventually will revert to the long-run mean or average level of the entire dataset of an explicit asset and is thus focused on the reversion of only relatively extreme changes, as average growth or other fluctuations are an expected part of the paradigm.

The mean reversion theory is used as part of a statistical analysis of market conditions and can be part of an overall investment strategy. It applies well to the ideas of buying low and selling high, by hoping to identify abnormal activity that will, theoretically, revert to a regular pattern. The theory implies that markets tend to exaggerate and that they correct themselves over time not only randomly, but have a „memory“ and reverse previous trends. (As some of you may notice, this theory is in contrast to the „market efficiency“ hypothesis, a theory I will cover in my next weekly mail).

Therefore, an excessive increase in the price of an asset means that it must come down to more „normal“ levels in the future and vice versa. The extreme case is speculative bubbles. The same applies to volatilities and sales volumes and mean reversion for series running into the future means that in the long run, yield rates and interest rates do not just fluctuate around a mean value, but virtually actively return to it.

Ladies and Gentlemen, to be frank, this is a theory and not a 100% bulletproof investment truth. However, I think it is always interesting to look at the long price-trend-lines of an asset and ask yourself why the current price is above or below such a long price-trend-line and if there may be in one way or another an exaggeration in the market, offering an investment opportunity for long-term investors. You know, this theory has led to many investment strategies that involve the purchase or sale of stocks or other securities whose recent performances have significantly differed from their historical averages. However, a change in such returns could also be a sign that a company no longer has the same prospects it once did, in which case it is less likely that mean reversion would occur, and therefore the theory could not be applied in every case. Percentage returns and prices are not the only measures considered in mean reverting; interest rates or even the price earnings ratio (P/E) of a company can be subject to this phenomenon.

Please feel free to share your ideas and thoughts with me, but please do not forget (instead of hitting the reply button) to send your messages to smk@incrementum.li
Many thanks, indeed!

And now, Ladies and Gentlemen I wish you a great day and weekend.

Yours truly,

Stefan M. Kremeth
Wealth Management
Incrementum AG

Tel.: +423 237 26 60
Cell: +41 79 303 48 39
Im alten Riet 102
9494 Schaan/Liechtenstein
Mail: smk@incrementum.li

Double Standards

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen

Sahra Wagenknecht, former parliamentary party leader of the Left Party in the Bundestag in Germany, warns against double standards in the debate about consequences for Russia after the poisoning of Kremlin critic Alexei Nawalny.

Wagenknecht explained to the „Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung“ that anyone who demands an end to the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline concerning Nawalny must evaluate all other raw material suppliers to Germany according to the same criteria and demand consequences there too. „Everything else is hypocrisy.

To poison an opposition politician with the nerve poison Novichok is a heinous crime, she said. „But even if the Kremlin should be responsible for it (for which there is no evidence so far), it is no more heinous than beheading or flogging opposition members to death, as is common practice in Saudi Arabia, from which we (i.e. Germany) obtain oil,“ she said. „Nor is it any more heinous than tearing up innocent civilians with drones, as the United States, which supplies us (i.e. Germany) with its fracking gas, has done in well over a thousand cases.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am by no means a left-wing political supporter, as I by no means a right-wing political supporter but instead I am usually trying to seek common sense, and what Ms. Wagenknecht states is common sense to me and shows political double standards with the example of Russia. One serious problem we face today comes about different views and different opinions, i.e. individual thinking and the sometimes non-acceptance of it. It almost seems, that we live in a time where individualism is less and less accepted, and that collective outrage hits everything and everyone oscillating away from the mainstream opinion.

Please let me know your thoughts.

Now, I receive many messages or questions to equities investments. You know, Ladies and Gentlemen, I am not allowed for regulatory reasons to give any advice in this formate, and as unbelievable as it may seem (and as inconvenient as it really is – especially to me and my clients), I simply am unable to foresee the future. However, I, of course, have my very own humble opinion and I think if as a long-term investor you hold a well-diversified portfolio based on equities and other investments that yield some cash flow stemming from dividends, interest payments, and the like, you may well have to accept volatility as the price for the cash flow you receive with your portfolio and in a 0% yield environment, the price for a positive cashflow yielding portfolio may even be slightly higher volatility.

However, a volatile portfolio is not, by definition, a bad portfolio. It depends on your very personal strategic target and your return expectations if you have to accept volatility as the price to pay for reaching your return targets long-term. Nevertheless, I do think only a small part of investors have the courage and knowledge to invest that way, and the general public would get too afraid to keep money in a portfolio going up and down and – unfortunately – most investors seek immediate gratification, and sadly enough this is not the way „investing“ works.

Please feel free to share your ideas and thoughts with me, but please do not forget (instead of hitting the reply button) to send your messages to smk@incrementum.li

Many thanks, indeed!

And now, Ladies and Gentlemen I wish you a great day and weekend.

Yours truly,

Stefan M. Kremeth
Wealth Management
Incrementum AG

Tel.: +423 237 26 60
Cell: +41 79 303 48 39
Im alten Riet 102
9494 Schaan/Liechtenstein
Mail: smk@incrementum.li

The Outperformance of Gold – A Possible Explanation

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen

I was asked to write an article on gold for the “Global Executive” magazine. The introductory part of the article reads like this:

“By August 21, the year to date price of gold had gone up a hefty 27%. While many other asset classes experienced difficult times, the gold price not only showed significant resistance against global concerns on political issues, trade disputes, an oil price crash, Brexit, Covid-19 pandemic, social unrest in the U.S. and other countries, and more but was able to show a substantial positive outperformance over many other asset classes. Gold usually moves upwards if investors fear any form of disruption. To mention only fear regarding the recent performance increase, however, would not do the price development justice, as various reasons lead to this price increase. In August 2018 one ounce of gold would cost slightly over USD 1’200. Today one ounce of gold costs almost USD 2’000. Over the same period, interest rates for U.S. government bonds have come down to almost 0%, which means the opportunity cost of holding gold versus U.S. government bonds practically disappeared. Furthermore, the interest differential between the USD currency region and the EUR currency region virtually disappeared as well and resulted in a weakening of the U.S. Dollar in relation to the Euro. A weaker U.S. Dollar, lower interest rates, speculation, a pandemic, political unrest in the U.S. and other countries, trade wars, massive global financial stimulus, fear of inflation, if not hyperinflation, and more, all of these are the main drivers for the current outperformance of gold.”

If you feel like reading more, please do not hesitate to click on the link below and enjoy the read:

https://www.incrementum.li/en/journal/the-outperformance-of-gold-a-possible-explanation-summer-2020/

And please, Ladies and Gentlemen, never forget what I have been mentioning on numerous occasions:

“We keep gold, we see some very particular and robust long-term positive features of holding gold, but just because we hold gold, we are not hoping for war, hyperinflation and the like.”

Please feel free to share your ideas and thoughts with me, but please do not forget (instead of hitting the reply button) to send your messages to smk@incrementum.li

Many thanks, indeed!

And now, Ladies and Gentlemen I wish you a great day and weekend.

Yours truly,

Stefan M. Kremeth
Wealth Management
Incrementum AG

Tel.: +423 237 26 60
Cell: +41 79 303 48 39
Im alten Riet 102
9494 Schaan/Liechtenstein
Mail: smk@incrementum.li