Matterhorn Asset Management

We have told investors that the rating of US and UK sovereign debt is a farce and that they both will be downgraded.

Today the UK is on its way to joining the PIGS countries as Standard and Poor’s lower the UK’s AAA outlook from “stable to negative”. The PIGS countries are the hopelessly weak European countries (Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain) which have all been downgraded this year. The UK government deficit is estimated to reach £175 billion in 2009 (it will probably be a lot higher). This represents 12.4% of GDP.  Total UK government debt is forecast to reach £800 billion or 57% of GDP.

In our February Newsletter, “The
[Click here to Read More …]

IT AINT OVER ‘TIL THE FAT LADY SINGS
by Egon von Greyerz

Spring is here and optimism is creeping back into the world economy. In this newsletter we will discuss why there will be a long time before the fat lady will sing (for explanation see Wikipedia). In our view we are still in the first act of three in a drama, the outcome of which will dwarf the most tragic of Wagner’s operas.
In our January 2009 Newsletter we forecast that there would be a correction up in the US stockmarket similar to 1930 when the market went up 50% from the low and then declined by a total
[Click here to Read More …]

Gold outperformed most assets in the first quarter of 2009.

On the Matterhorn Asset Management website the  Gold charts pages show that  gold gained between 4% and 7% against major currencies  in Q1 2009. In spite of being well off the highs for the quarter gold still showed an excellent return.

But even more importantly the Dow Jones declined 17% against gold in the first quarter with similar falls for most major stock markets against gold.

In the last four years, since the beginning of 2005, gold has gained over 75% against the dollar, 100% against the Euro and 170% against the pound whilst the Dow has lost 62% against Gold in the same period.

Not
[Click here to Read More …]

This week there will be a meeting between G20 leaders and central bankers in London to save the world economy.

Let us make it very clear – the meeting is bound to fail. There is no chance that the G20 leaders will reach an agreement that will save the world economy. Even two world leaders can’t agree on how solve the biggest global financial crisis that the world has ever encountered, never mind twenty.  Each one of twenty leaders has a different political agenda and they will all blame each other, so there is no possibility whatsoever that the meeting will result in more than the normal platitudes about cooperation  to
[Click here to Read More …]