The Case for Gold

In response to the improvement in coverage ratios over the past year, an increasing number of Swiss pension funds are contemplating their investment approach given the breadth of macroeconomic challenges ahead.

The Bank of Japan (BoJ) waved goodbye to its negative interest rate policy on 18 March 2024, lifting its interest rate to a range of zero to 0.1%, the first rate hike since 2007.

While gold investments have been gaining popularity among Japanese households, both life, and property and casualty (P&C) insurers have made limited gold investments, despite the sheer size of the Japanese insurance market in terms of premiums and assets.

Upbeat growth prospects for the global economy, led by the US are cause for optimism in the financial markets. However, challenges and risks prevail. As such, we believe that investors should look closely at the benefits gold can bring to their portfolios.

With the soft-landing narrative on the ascendancy, optimism is high within capital markets today. But challenges are on the horizon. As such, we believe that investors should look closely at the portfolio benefits gold can bring.

With the rapid growth in funding ratios over the past two years, an increasing number of UK defined benefit (DB) pension schemes have been contemplating their investment approach for the endgame – the point at which a plan moves from being underfunded to being fully funded or even having a surplus. This transition has a number of investment implications. In this paper, we examine how pension schemes can seek to maintain the ground they’ve gained over the recent past, as one of the driving forces behind the rise in interest rates and improved funding status – inflation – has become a source of asset price volatility.

The traditional Defined Contribution (DC) investment portfolio made up of equities and bonds has come under increasing pressure in the last 18 months. Faced with rising inflation volatility risks and a highly uncertain economic backdrop, could now be the time to reconsider traditional thinking? We believe investors would benefit from expanding their “safe havens” options by considering gold.

Gold, in Australian dollars (AUD), delivered positive returns in 2022 and this has continued so far in 2023. It has attracted attention: not only have global central banks continued to buy gold, but Australia’s sovereign wealth fund has also added gold to its portfolio.