GDI Barr & BS Kantor
In a previous piece (What can help the Rand and the economy? – ZA Economist) we discussed how ever-changing probabilities make Financial Risk so hard to measure and that investment outcomes are dominated by the return received, with any notion of the past risk faced quickly fading from memory. Thus, if a successful share investment has yielded an excellent return, is the happy result either because the shareholder took on extra risk and got lucky , or because the savvy investor knew the share was undervalued and proved to be so, becomes irrelevant.
Knowing the downside, estimating how much of a loss any portfolio or balance sheet can take and survive a potential loss is an essential task for the risk taking investor. Deciding what is a good bet – improving the odds of success by improving expected returns for any presumed risk -or reducing risks of failure for any expected return -makes every good sense.
Holding gold or perhaps more realistically holding a claim on a stock of gold held in some very safe place, has long proved itself as a sensible way to protect wealth against disasters in the form of war or revolution or more prosaically against inflation and their impact on many other ways to conserve wealth. As the dangers of an economic calamity rise, so typically, as will be expected, the price of gold will move higher.
If so, as will a claim on gold bearing rocks in the ground, that will be gradually turned into gold on the surface by a gold mining company. A share in the expected profits of a gold mining company will then also provide very useful insurance against danger. The gold price and the share price will move in the same direction – but given all the potential gold in the ground, and the risks associate with bringing it to the surface – the share price will be far more variable, hence far riskier than the gold on the surface. The recent sharp upward movement in the gold price provides an appropriate example. The gold price has moved up 10% or so in dollars over the last year. If we take the example of the GoldFields (GFI) share price, this has moved up around 160% (a factor of 1.60times the Gold Price movement) over the same period.
But an investor seeking safety owning gold has still a further alternative. That is to buy an option to buy a share in a well traded gold mining company, at a pre-determined future date, at a price agreed to today. The options can be bought or sold at market determined prices until the expiry date of the option, after which that right or option becomes worthless.
Option prices therefore exhibit a still much greater level of variability (or risk) than the underlying metal or share prices . Because of this character they give investors an excellent opportunity to raise the expected return from an exposure to movements in the gold prices , with a much smaller risk of a loss should the gold price move lower. Give the option price volatility – the factor here
. The availability of gold shares and more so options on gold shares give investors, who want to speculate or to hedge a portfolio of gold bullion against a large contrary or unexpected movement in the gold price make for a very efficient vehicle to hedge the exposure while laying out significantly less capital or incurring expenses to improve the expected return- risk trade-off.
Graham- one needs protection against a fall in the gold price and/or the multiplied fall in the value of a share or an option. One hedges the gold bullion price position by selling (shorting) the shares or selling the option- the puts -to hedge the exposure to the share price. It is cheaper to sell the shares and cheaper still to put the shares. I have tried to spell this out but with difficulty as you will see. A portfolio of gold bullion. Gold price down 10% portfolio down 10%. Bullion price down 10% GFI down 100% – 10 times more. A short of how many GFI shares (1% of the portfolio) would give the bullion portfolio protection against a 10% fall in the gold price. A put option on GFI equivalent to 0.2% of the portfolio in gold would presumably protect against a 10% fall in the gold price.
In recent months a short duration Call Option on GFI, has moved up about 500% (a factor of 50 times greater than the move in the gold price) By agreeing to sell the share and more so an option on the share, one will have exposed (expensed) significantly less actual capital for the same hedging effect. Thatis protection against losses should the gold price move lower rather than higher – as was the expectation. If the gold price had fallen 10%, then one would have lost 10% of the portfolio capital if one had held gold coins (a ten percent fall for ten per cent of the portfolio), 1% of the portfolio for a short on the GFI shares but lost only 0.2% of the portfolio capital, if the outlay was in the form of a put on the GFI shares rather than a short. Therefore, one would have been be unambiguously better off to hold the gold share options (puts) (a 50th of the gold bullion loss). Thus for the portfolio manager who is a gold bull and is already committed to holding a large amount of bullion, he can turbo-boost his investment in gold, with little added risk, by making a relatively small purchase, risking relatively little capital on a highly geared Gold share options. The potential gain (retrun on capital invested in the option) will be very large should the gold price move higher- but the potential loss – compared to the losses incurred by investing the same amount of capital in gold or gold shares – should it all turn out badly – will be much smaller. The return- risk trade-off, calculated looking ahead rather than behind, will have been greatly improved.The fact that at any moment in time judged by observing the random daily nature of the gold price, the gold price has as much chance of rising or falling from its current market determined value, means that the gold bulls are always matched by the gold bears – at the market determined price, or share price, or option price on the shares. The profit seekers in a higher gold price– as in any other actively traded asset – will always be matched by the profit seekers – those who are cashing in on their positions, believing the price will go down. And they will be able to do so at a market clearing price that matches the amounts of bullion or share or options bought and sold. The market makers, including the option providers, will match buyers and sellers. They ideally from their perspective will be rewarded with a fee and not be exposed to the highly unpredictable move in the underlying metal or share prices.
Structuring such risk reducing strategies is complicated for the average private investor. But it may be straightforward for banks or others who provide structured products bought by retail investors. Constructs that trade off less upside gain for less downside risk of losses It should be possible to put together a blended product of say 90% gold bullion and 10% Gold share options of appropriate duration. Such a listed financial security registered for trade on the JSE would exhibit high gearing to the gold price upside but for lower risk of losing capital should the gold price move in the wrong direction, which it may well do. Over to the market place.