What we’re reading (1/13)
“Biden Is Expected to Name Gary Gensler for SEC Chairman” (Wall Street Journal). “President-elect Joe Biden is expected to choose Gary Gensler, a former financial regulator and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. executive, to head the Securities and Exchange Commission…Mr. Gensler’s nomination would please liberal Democrats who cheered the former regulator’s tough approach to rule-making during the Obama administration, when he spearheaded the overhaul of derivatives markets mandated by the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act and oversaw enforcement actions against investment banks accused of manipulating benchmark interest rates.”
“With Rates On The Rise, Investors Fearing Any Signs Of Inflation” (CNBC). “With the sharp move higher in interest rates, markets have been on the lookout for inflation creeping up. So Wednesday’s December CPI report will be important even if it still shows a muted rise in the consumer price index. According to Dow Jones, economists expect an increase of 0.4% month over month, and 1.3% year over year. Core CPI, less food and energy, is expected to be up 0.1% or 1.6% year over year, versus 0.2% and 1.6% in November.”
“Silver And Platinum Will Outperform Gold In 2021 As The Economy Recovers And Industrial Demand Supports Higher Metals Prices, Says UBS” (Business Insider). “2020 was one of the best years on record for gold, as investors piled into the safe-haven asset amid geopolitical and economic uncertainty. The precious metal even hit a record high of $2,075 on August 7, 202[0]. But UBS Global Wealth Management strategists don't see gold repeating its stellar performance in 2021. Instead, the firm sees other metals- including silver and platinum - outperforming gold during the year ahead.”
“Lost Passwords Lock Millionaires Out Of Their Bitcoin Fortunes” (New York Times). “Stefan Thomas, a German-born programmer living in San Francisco, has two guesses left to figure out a password that is worth, as of this week, about $220 million. The password will let him unlock a small hard drive, known as an IronKey, which contains the private keys to a digital wallet that holds 7,002 Bitcoin…[t]he problem is that Mr. Thomas years ago lost the paper where he wrote down the password for his IronKey, which gives users 10 guesses before it seizes up and encrypts its contents forever.”
“An Inside Look Into Cryptocurrency Exchanges” (Chan, et al., SSRN). An interesting new paper that lays out a list of 10 novel empirical observations about crypto investing. Among them: “institutional investors do not outperform individual investors [in crypto]….Individual investors' make good trading decisions, in the sense that the cryptocurrencies they buy outperform the ones they sell…[t]he same is not true for institutional investors.”
