August 3, 2012
Attain Capital
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With the Olympics in full swing (and the U.S. pulling ahead of China in the medal count yesterday- U-S-A!!), the folks over at Bond Vigilantes are keeping the conversation focused on the global economy- and it’s a bitter pill to swallow. They write (emphasis ours):
Rough cost of the Olympics – £9bn, US national debt – $15.8tn, Quantitative easing – £375bn. These numbers blow my mind. I know they’re big but I don’t really have a concept of how big. So I thought I’d try and put them into some context. I took a look at the national debt of the Euro’s peripheral countries and calculated how many gold medals each country would need to win to pay off their debts.
Of the 412 grams that a London 2012 gold medal weighs roughly 6 grams are gold, 381 are silver and the remaining 25 copper. Giving a market price today of about $700.
Below is a table of how many gold medals each country would have to win to get themselves out of the red:
Gold medals needed:
Portugal – 273,728,118
Ireland – 220,449,211
Italy – 3,445,899,490
Greece – 627,153,707
Spain – 1,295,304,783
That works out to each member of the population needing to win the following:
Gold medals needed per person:
Portugal – 26
Ireland – 48
Italy – 57
Greece – 56
Spain – 28
That there are only 302 possible medal events in the entire competition makes this pretty depressing reading for our European friends, especially given where they are sitting the medals table (as I type). If it makes you feel any better every US citizen would have to win 73 gold medals to get them out of their hole.
That’s the funny (or, really, not-so-funny) part of all of this. We’re perpetually concerned about Europe and when they’re going to get their act together, but we aren’t doing too hot stateside, either. And our markets grow ever more dysfunctional by the day. An uptick in unemployment this morning is sending the markets neon green today, which seems counter-intuitive, but is really just reflective of people getting excited about another potential round of QE3. We’re toeing ever closer to that fiscal cliff, and we all know just how congenial politicians get the closer we move to a deadline. Barring the mass transformation of the nation into a bunch of clones of Michael Phelps and Gabby Douglas, looks like that medal count is one of the few things we have to be happy about these days.
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Disclaimer
The performance data displayed herein is compiled from various sources, including BarclayHedge, and reports directly from the advisors. These performance figures should not be relied on independent of the individual advisor's disclosure document, which has important information regarding the method of calculation used, whether or not the performance includes proprietary results, and other important footnotes on the advisor's track record.
The programs listed here are a sub-set of the full list of programs able to be accessed by subscribing to the database and reflect programs we currently work with and/or are more familiar with.
Benchmark index performance is for the constituents of that index only, and does not represent the entire universe of possible investments within that asset class. And further, that there can be limitations and biases to indices such as survivorship, self reporting, and instant history. Individuals cannot invest in the index itself, and actual rates of return may be significantly different and more volatile than those of the index.
Managed futures accounts can subject to substantial charges for management and advisory fees. The numbers within this website include all such fees, but it may be necessary for those accounts that are subject to these charges to make substantial trading profits in the future to avoid depletion or exhaustion of their assets.
Investors interested in investing with a managed futures program (excepting those programs which are offered exclusively to qualified eligible persons as that term is defined by CFTC regulation 4.7) will be required to receive and sign off on a disclosure document in compliance with certain CFT rules The disclosure documents contains a complete description of the principal risk factors and each fee to be charged to your account by the CTA, as well as the composite performance of accounts under the CTA's management over at least the most recent five years. Investor interested in investing in any of the programs on this website are urged to carefully read these disclosure documents, including, but not limited to the performance information, before investing in any such programs.
Those investors who are qualified eligible persons as that term is defined by CFTC regulation 4.7 and interested in investing in a program exempt from having to provide a disclosure document and considered by the regulations to be sophisticated enough to understand the risks and be able to interpret the accuracy and completeness of any performance information on their own.
RCM receives a portion of the commodity brokerage commissions you pay in connection with your futures trading and/or a portion of the interest income (if any) earned on an account's assets. The listed manager may also pay RCM a portion of the fees they receive from accounts introduced to them by RCM.
Limitations on RCM Quintile + Star Rankings
The Quintile Rankings and RCM Star Rankings shown here are provided for informational purposes only. RCM does not guarantee the accuracy, timeliness or completeness of this information. The ranking methodology is proprietary and the results have not been audited or verified by an independent third party. Some CTAs may employ trading programs or strategies that are riskier than others. CTAs may manage customer accounts differently than their model results shown or make different trades in actual customer accounts versus their own accounts. Different CTAs are subject to different market conditions and risks that can significantly impact actual results. RCM and its affiliates receive compensation from some of the rated CTAs. Investors should perform their own due diligence before investing with any CTA. This ranking information should not be the sole basis for any investment decision.
See the full terms of use and risk disclaimer here.