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Gold is Gold is Gold is Gold! Or is it?

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I have friends that are self-declared gold bugs! They think gold is good as a short-term investment as well as a hedge against disaster! They might have a point. I am not able to tell! However, in any case, I think my friends, as well as many others, seem to miss a couple of things: • Not all gold is created equal! If you buy coins or bars, then it is fairly easy. South African Krugerrands contain 1 oz of gold and even if it is not pure like in a Canadian Maple Leaf (the Krugerrand is only 22 karat) it is a well-known asset that is likely to be bought and sold by gold dealers all over the world. With jewellery it is worse! Most gold in Europe is 18 or 24 karat, I guess. However, in other places in the world, like in Asia, other levels of fineness is used. The gold in the picture, for instance, contains 96.5% gold, i.e. it is 23.16 karat (you can see that if you have good eyes…)! Have you ever heard of that fineness before?? OK, the point is this: we live in a global world and who kno...
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A terror attack through the mirror of the stock market

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The graph shows the broad Swedish stock market index OMXS PI on April 7th, the day of a hideous and cowardly terror attack in the centre of Stockholm that killed and wounded dozens of random innocent friday shoppers/commuters. The police was informed about the attack at 14.53 and after that the Swedish stock market was open for roughly two hours (see Picture). All public transpot in Stockholm (including the metro and buses) was closed down during these two hours and at 16.30 there were at least three confirmed deaths due to the “alleged” terror attack. Meanwhile the stock market reacted in the way shown in the attached picture! Except for one little blip the market steadily climbed throughout the turmoil. And it seems the market started climbing at 14.50, exactly when the attack seems to have taken place! From the graph it seems that the market went up some 0.8% during the two hours the market remained open. Of course, this could just be random noise, and maybe the market had gone up e...
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Venezuela: povertá e miseria straordinario!

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Dagens Industri skrev igår att den reala löneutvecklingen i Venezuela 2016-2017 väntas bli deppiga -373.9%! ”I Venezuela är läget betydligt värre. Löneökningarna i reda pengar väntas bli hela 111 procent, men inflationen är samtidigt ofattbara 485 procent. Den reala löneutvecklingen blir således ytterst deppiga -373,9 procent.” D.v.s. Venezuelanernas kommer nästa år få betala för att jobba! Och de får betala nästan tre ggr så mkt 2017 som de tjänade under 2016! Che poveracci! Hur är det möjligt?? Finns det inga gränser för den Bolivariska revolutionen? Venezuelanerna kan dock andas ut. Detta är lyckligtvis siffror från fantasins värld! Idag har Dagens Industri ändrat siffrorna och helt korrekt angivit -63.9%. Det är den siffra man får om man antingen (i) använder sitt sunda förnuft och höftar lite eller (ii) använder formeln ovan. Man kan inte bara subtrahera bort inflationen från nominella ändringen om siffrorna är så stora som i Venezuela! Basta! PS. DI är inte ensamma. Tidningen Af...
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The investor that predicts stock returns without even knowing it!

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What are investors’ current stock return expectations? That is a question commonly found in the financial press. Typically, the type of investor one has in mind is the stock market investor . Not commodity investors, property investors or other investors. That makes sense since zinc investors or apartment block investors have other things to think about than whether the typical publically listed stock will go up or down in the future. There is one other group of investors that actually care about the future valuation of public companies, however, and that is the credit market investor . Investors who buy corporate bonds (or credit default swaps) also care about the future wellbeing of the company. What’s more, these investors often take a long-term view of the company and its valuation. In the paper Stock Return Expectations in the Credit Market (which you can find here ) I suggest a way of extracting these investors’ expectations of future stock returns. To do this I compute long-te...
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I have an Erdös# = 5 and an Einstein# = 7!

I only write about very important stuff on this blog! :) And here comes a particularly important entry. What’s your number? If you ever got that question it probably was about how many millions you need to retire or something. I doubt it was about your degrees of separation from Albert Einstein or from the famous Hungarian mathematician Paul Erdös in the context of research collaborators! Mathematicians love numbers, however, and they have come up with the so-called Erdös number. If someone called X co-authored work with Paul Erdös, then X has an Erdös number equal to one. If you co-authored with X you have an Erdös number equal to two etc. etc. Now, using the web site of the American Mathematical Society I found out that even though I am not a mathematician I actually have an Erdös number myself! And even better, I have an Einstein number as well!! Erdös wrote a lot of papers but Einstein did not. And Einstein died many decades before the more productive Erdös, so I would expect, ce...
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Brexit!

Well, we had a night with record thunder storms here in southern Sweden but the biggest thunders were evidently saved for this morning when we were served BREXIT with our breakfast! A big disappointment for an anglophile like me personally, and for 48% of the British population! And for the financial markets (USD/SEK +39öre, Gold +56 $/Oz, Nikkei -8% and counting....). Let’s hope both the good things and the bad things that come out of this will turn out to be better than expected... It is not impossible! Scheisse!
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Brexit?

Today it is June 23, 2016. And tonight we will know whether Britain stays in the EU or not.... Today, The Independent reports two different poll results where the first says 44% for Remain and 45% for Leave and the other one says 43% for Leave and 41% for Remain. Today, The Telegraph reports 51% for Remain and 49% for Leave. In other words, a close call! A most interesting day for all investors out there! My guess, however, is that many undecided voters will vote for the safer option and vote Remain! I also think media etc. are biased and thrive on polls being close to 50/50. Therefore, my bet is that Britain will stay in the EU! AND, PER DIO, I CERTAINLY HOPE SO!!!!!!!!!!
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