Description

The Leveraged Gold-Currency Strategy takes advantage of the historically negative correlation between gold and the U.S. dollar. It switches between the two assets based on their recent risk adjusted performance enabling the strategy to provide protection against severe gold corrections due to dollar strength. It is an excellent addition to existing equity or bond portfolios as it holds very little correlation to either.

This version of the strategy uses inverse leveraged ETFs to generate higher returns, but some retirement accounts are restricted from trading these ETFs. GLD-UUP provides an alternate form of the strategy without leveraged ETFs which also lowers the overall return and volatility.

Statistics (YTD)

What do these metrics mean? [Read More] [Hide]

TotalReturn:

'The total return on a portfolio of investments takes into account not only the capital appreciation on the portfolio, but also the income received on the portfolio. The income typically consists of interest, dividends, and securities lending fees. This contrasts with the price return, which takes into account only the capital gain on an investment.'

Applying this definition to our asset in some examples:
  • Compared with the benchmark GLD (95.8%) in the period of the last 5 years, the total return, or performance of 98.9% of Leveraged Gold-Currency Strategy is higher, thus better.
  • During the last 3 years, the total return, or increase in value is 48.3%, which is lower, thus worse than the value of 79.2% from the benchmark.

CAGR:

'Compound annual growth rate (CAGR) is a business and investing specific term for the geometric progression ratio that provides a constant rate of return over the time period. CAGR is not an accounting term, but it is often used to describe some element of the business, for example revenue, units delivered, registered users, etc. CAGR dampens the effect of volatility of periodic returns that can render arithmetic means irrelevant. It is particularly useful to compare growth rates from various data sets of common domain such as revenue growth of companies in the same industry.'

Applying this definition to our asset in some examples:
  • Compared with the benchmark GLD (14.4%) in the period of the last 5 years, the annual performance (CAGR) of 14.8% of Leveraged Gold-Currency Strategy is larger, thus better.
  • Compared with GLD (21.6%) in the period of the last 3 years, the annual performance (CAGR) of 14.1% is lower, thus worse.

Volatility:

'Volatility is a rate at which the price of a security increases or decreases for a given set of returns. Volatility is measured by calculating the standard deviation of the annualized returns over a given period of time. It shows the range to which the price of a security may increase or decrease. Volatility measures the risk of a security. It is used in option pricing formula to gauge the fluctuations in the returns of the underlying assets. Volatility indicates the pricing behavior of the security and helps estimate the fluctuations that may happen in a short period of time.'

Applying this definition to our asset in some examples:
  • Looking at the historical 30 days volatility of 11.2% in the last 5 years of Leveraged Gold-Currency Strategy, we see it is relatively smaller, thus better in comparison to the benchmark GLD (15.3%)
  • During the last 3 years, the 30 days standard deviation is 11.9%, which is lower, thus better than the value of 15.5% from the benchmark.

DownVol:

'Downside risk is the financial risk associated with losses. That is, it is the risk of the actual return being below the expected return, or the uncertainty about the magnitude of that difference. Risk measures typically quantify the downside risk, whereas the standard deviation (an example of a deviation risk measure) measures both the upside and downside risk. Specifically, downside risk in our definition is the semi-deviation, that is the standard deviation of all negative returns.'

Applying this definition to our asset in some examples:
  • Compared with the benchmark GLD (10.6%) in the period of the last 5 years, the downside risk of 7.8% of Leveraged Gold-Currency Strategy is smaller, thus better.
  • Compared with GLD (10.1%) in the period of the last 3 years, the downside risk of 8.2% is lower, thus better.

Sharpe:

'The Sharpe ratio (also known as the Sharpe index, the Sharpe measure, and the reward-to-variability ratio) is a way to examine the performance of an investment by adjusting for its risk. The ratio measures the excess return (or risk premium) per unit of deviation in an investment asset or a trading strategy, typically referred to as risk, named after William F. Sharpe.'

Applying this definition to our asset in some examples:
  • Looking at the Sharpe Ratio of 1.09 in the last 5 years of Leveraged Gold-Currency Strategy, we see it is relatively greater, thus better in comparison to the benchmark GLD (0.78)
  • Looking at risk / return profile (Sharpe) in of 0.98 in the period of the last 3 years, we see it is relatively lower, thus worse in comparison to GLD (1.23).

Sortino:

'The Sortino ratio measures the risk-adjusted return of an investment asset, portfolio, or strategy. It is a modification of the Sharpe ratio but penalizes only those returns falling below a user-specified target or required rate of return, while the Sharpe ratio penalizes both upside and downside volatility equally. Though both ratios measure an investment's risk-adjusted return, they do so in significantly different ways that will frequently lead to differing conclusions as to the true nature of the investment's return-generating efficiency. The Sortino ratio is used as a way to compare the risk-adjusted performance of programs with differing risk and return profiles. In general, risk-adjusted returns seek to normalize the risk across programs and then see which has the higher return unit per risk.'

Which means for our asset as example:
  • Compared with the benchmark GLD (1.12) in the period of the last 5 years, the ratio of annual return and downside deviation of 1.59 of Leveraged Gold-Currency Strategy is larger, thus better.
  • Looking at downside risk / excess return profile in of 1.41 in the period of the last 3 years, we see it is relatively smaller, thus worse in comparison to GLD (1.89).

Ulcer:

'The Ulcer Index is a technical indicator that measures downside risk, in terms of both the depth and duration of price declines. The index increases in value as the price moves farther away from a recent high and falls as the price rises to new highs. The indicator is usually calculated over a 14-day period, with the Ulcer Index showing the percentage drawdown a trader can expect from the high over that period. The greater the value of the Ulcer Index, the longer it takes for a stock to get back to the former high.'

Which means for our asset as example:
  • Compared with the benchmark GLD (9.77 ) in the period of the last 5 years, the Downside risk index of 5.96 of Leveraged Gold-Currency Strategy is lower, thus better.
  • Looking at Downside risk index in of 6.56 in the period of the last 3 years, we see it is relatively greater, thus worse in comparison to GLD (4.85 ).

MaxDD:

'Maximum drawdown is defined as the peak-to-trough decline of an investment during a specific period. It is usually quoted as a percentage of the peak value. The maximum drawdown can be calculated based on absolute returns, in order to identify strategies that suffer less during market downturns, such as low-volatility strategies. However, the maximum drawdown can also be calculated based on returns relative to a benchmark index, for identifying strategies that show steady outperformance over time.'

Using this definition on our asset we see for example:
  • The maximum reduction from previous high over 5 years of Leveraged Gold-Currency Strategy is -15.2 days, which is larger, thus better compared to the benchmark GLD (-22 days) in the same period.
  • Looking at maximum reduction from previous high in of -15.2 days in the period of the last 3 years, we see it is relatively smaller, thus worse in comparison to GLD (-13.4 days).

MaxDuration:

'The Maximum Drawdown Duration is an extension of the Maximum Drawdown. However, this metric does not explain the drawdown in dollars or percentages, rather in days, weeks, or months. It is the length of time the account was in the Max Drawdown. A Max Drawdown measures a retrenchment from when an equity curve reaches a new high. It’s the maximum an account lost during that retrenchment. This method is applied because a valley can’t be measured until a new high occurs. Once the new high is reached, the percentage change from the old high to the bottom of the largest trough is recorded.'

Which means for our asset as example:
  • Looking at the maximum days below previous high of 456 days in the last 5 years of Leveraged Gold-Currency Strategy, we see it is relatively smaller, thus better in comparison to the benchmark GLD (897 days)
  • Looking at maximum days under water in of 456 days in the period of the last 3 years, we see it is relatively higher, thus worse in comparison to GLD (145 days).

AveDuration:

'The Average Drawdown Duration is an extension of the Maximum Drawdown. However, this metric does not explain the drawdown in dollars or percentages, rather in days, weeks, or months. The Avg Drawdown Duration is the average amount of time an investment has seen between peaks (equity highs), or in other terms the average of time under water of all drawdowns. So in contrast to the Maximum duration it does not measure only one drawdown event but calculates the average of all.'

Applying this definition to our asset in some examples:
  • Looking at the average time in days below previous high water mark of 136 days in the last 5 years of Leveraged Gold-Currency Strategy, we see it is relatively smaller, thus better in comparison to the benchmark GLD (349 days)
  • During the last 3 years, the average time in days below previous high water mark is 157 days, which is larger, thus worse than the value of 40 days from the benchmark.

Performance (YTD)

Historical returns have been extended using synthetic data.

Allocations ()

Allocations

Returns (%)

  • Note that yearly returns do not equal the sum of monthly returns due to compounding.
  • Performance results of Leveraged Gold-Currency Strategy are hypothetical and do not account for slippage, fees or taxes.
  • Results may be based on backtesting, which has many inherent limitations, some of which are described in our Terms of Use.