Digital Gold and Actual Gold

Good listeners welcome to 2025 and at the risk of offending Larry David and violating his strict 3 day statute of limitations, I gotta wish you a Happy New Year. The subject at hand is diversification. What composition of assets yields a favorable return with bearable drawdowns? After two straight years of 25+ percent returns on the SPX with just 13 vol, portfolio construction might be considered an open and shut case. But in this short podcast, I propose 3 assets to overlay on top of your base risk exposure: put spreads, gold and bitcoin. Together, this combination can play a role in managing drawdowns and also provide convex returns against a rising tide of doubt that the US fiscal problem can be addressed. I hope you enjoy the discussion and find it useful. I wish you the best this year.

Om Podcasten

The Alpha Exchange is a podcast series launched by Dean Curnutt to explore topics in financial markets, risk management and capital allocation in the alternatives industry. Our in depth discussions with highly established industry professionals seek to uncover the nuanced and complex interactions between economic, monetary, financial, regulatory and geopolitical sources of risk. We aim to learn from the perspective our guests can bring with respect to the history of financial and business cycles, promoting a better understanding among listeners as to how prior periods provide important context to present day dynamics. The “price of risk” is an important topic. Here we engage experts in their assessment of risk premium levels in the context of uncertainty. Is the level of compensation attractive? Because Central Banks have played so important a role in markets post crisis, our discussions sometimes aim to better understand the evolution of monetary policy and the degree to which the real and financial economy will be impacted. An especially important area of focus is on derivative products and how they interact with risk taking and carry dynamics. Our conversations seek to enlighten listeners, for example, as to the factors that promoted the February melt-down of the VIX complex. We do NOT ask our guests for their political opinions. We seek a better understanding of the market impact of regulatory change, election outcomes and events of geopolitical consequence. Our discussions cover markets from a macro perspective with an assessment of risk and opportunity across asset classes. Within equity markets, we may explore the relative attractiveness of sectors but will NOT discuss single stocks.