Is Gold The Best Hedge Against Tail Risk, When Uber-Wealthy Bank Clients Buy Up Tons Of Physical Gold?

A question that has become very prevalent recently is whether in a world denominated in fiat ponzi equivalents, in which central banker intervention is hell-bent on devaluing this very system, whether gold (with a recent Sharpe ratio most portfolio managers can only dream of) is not currently the best hedge against tail risks. Conveniently, the World Gold Council has just released a paper, and, for those with a shorter attention span, a video clip, which provides an affirmative answer to that question. From the WGC: “In the analysis the WGC shows that during the period between October 2007 and March 2009—the height of the global financial meltdown—an investor with a portfolio of US$10 million experienced an additional US$500,000 financial loss simply by not maintaining a position in gold. The study used a composition similar to a benchmark portfolio, which included an 8.5% allocation to gold, to show that total losses incurred during the period reduced by 5% relative to an equivalent portfolio without gold.” But before we get into the WGC paper’s findings, we would like to point out a special report by Reuters which confirms what all the “goldbugs” have known all along: “The world’s wealthiest people have responded to economic worries by buying bars of gold, sometimes by the ton, and moving assets out of the financial system, bankers catering to the very rich said on Monday… A banker said, “We had a clear example of a couple buying over a ton of gold … and carrying it to another place.”" Guess why JPMorgan is doing all it can to preserve as much physical gold within its system before it all runs out, and all those demands for physical delivery skyrocket (even more).