Asset Protection In Difficult Times6 Jan 2022 15:19
For sure, in a bull market, Ruffer Investment looks pedestrian at best. But we may no longer be in a bull market. Around that, inflation may not be a temporary blip. If that is the case and I believe it to be, then the Ruffer fund, in my opinion, is an attractive investment. For starters, it has relatively high exposure to both inflation-linked bonds and Gold (Through bullion and equities). At the same time, it holds stocks that it regards as having substantial resilience, including BP and Shell. The upside may be fairly limited but it goes out of its way to protect the downside through various shorting tools. It’s also largely unlimited in terms of what it can do - it’s not benchmarked against any particular index and has a multi-asset approach. That flexibility was demonstrated last year with a very successful trade in Bitcoin.
Do I think it offers stellar returns? No. But I believe that we may be entering a period of low returns for most investments. And this reminds me of a comment by Warren Buffett - rule number one in investing is not to lose money. In the current investing climate, simply protecting what you have, at least in real terms, may prove challenging.