Wealth Preservation Tactics

The silent wealth killer: #Inflation Imagine you're at a party, & someone keeps taking sips from your drink without you noticing. That's inflation—a sneaky decrease in your purchasing power over time. Even with a modest 2% annual inflation rate, $100 today will only have the buying power of about $82 in 10 years. It's like your money is on a treadmill, running just to stay in place. Parking your money in a traditional savings account might feel safe. Still, with interest rates often lagging behind inflation, your funds are essentially lounging on the couch, binge-watching TV, & getting weaker by the day. According to the BLS, the average savings account interest rate has been hovering around 0.05%, while inflation has been outpacing this, leading to an actual loss in value. Strategies to outsmart inflation: • Diversify like a pro: When it comes to diversification, consider splitting your money into two parts—safe & bold. Most of your money should go into low-risk investments, like government bonds or savings accounts, to protect against losses. A smaller portion should go into high-risk, high-reward opportunities, like stocks or Bitcoin, with potential big gains. This "barbell strategy" is backed by research from the IMF, which shows that combining safety with growth potential reduces risk while keeping you prepared for inflation surprises. • Real assets are your friends: Investing in real estate or commodities like gold can provide a buffer. These tangible assets often maintain or increase their value during inflationary periods. The BIS notes that real assets can be effective inflation hedges due to their intrinsic value. • Treasury inflation-protected securities (TIPS): While traditional bonds can lose real value if inflation spikes, TIPS automatically adjust. It’s like having a dinner buddy who always splits the check based on current prices, no matter how fancy the restaurant. • Consider Bitcoin, the "Digital Gold": Given its limited supply & decentralized nature, Bitcoin is a modern hedge against inflation. Recent studies, such as one published on SSRN in March 2024, indicate that Bitcoin has shown partial hedging capabilities against expected inflation in specific countries. Inflation doesn’t send a “save the date” card. It can surge unexpectedly or creep in over time. Regularly reviewing your financial strategy—monthly or quarterly—ensures you’re not caught off guard by shifting economic conditions. Pro Tip: Monitor real rates (nominal interest rates minus inflation). If they’re negative, your money is losing purchasing power in traditional savings. This quick calculation can be an early warning system for adjusting your investment strategy. Inflation may be the silent wealth killer, but you can turn the tables & make your money work harder than ever with proactive strategies. After all, in the financial world, it's survival of the fittest, & your savings don't have to be the weakest link. #FinancialLiteracy #Investing

How are family offices looking at real estate in this shifting market? Real estate still plays a critical role in wealth preservation for Family Offices, yet headlines are filled with uncertainty: higher interest rates, tighter credit, and major institutional retrenchment. But that’s not the whole picture. Beneath the surface, real opportunities are opening up for those that know where to look. This month, Blackstone walked away from another multifamily deal due to pressure on cap rates. At the same time, large institutional players like CalPERS and Harvard’s endowment are pulling back on new real estate commitments. The reason is that the old strategy of relying on cheap debt and compressed cap rates to drive returns is no longer working. For Family Offices holding patient capital, this shift presents a strategic opening rather than a setback. As institutions retreat, we’re seeing Family Offices move toward more direct investments and niche sectors. Self-storage, workforce housing, and medical office are seeing increased attention. These are not trendy plays. They are durable, income-producing assets tied to essential needs. Recent data from the Family Office Real Estate Institute confirms a steady reallocation toward these areas. Cap rates remain favorable, and with less institutional competition, Family Offices are stepping in. Another clear shift is the growing preference for long-term holds. More than half of Family Offices now aim for investment horizons of 10 to 15 years. At the same time, value-add remains one of the most popular strategies. This might seem contradictory, but it reflects a more nuanced approach: entering value-add deals with a plan to stabilize, refinance, and hold. That requires alignment with sponsors willing to think beyond the typical three-to-five-year timeline. Family Offices are especially well positioned at this moment. They are not tied to quarterly earnings. They can weather illiquidity. Most importantly, they understand that protecting capital over time is more valuable than chasing short-term gains. So, here’s the takeaway. Real estate remains a powerful tool for wealth preservation and generational growth. But success today requires a shift in mindset. The best opportunities are direct deals, longer holds, and asset types that serve basic economic needs. It is not just about what to buy. Family offices need to understand how to structure ownership in a way that supports their family's goals for decades to come. I’m curious to know what type of real estate you think Family Offices should be looking at in the current climate? As one patriarch once said to me, “We’re not in a hurry. We’re in a legacy.”

PCE inflation has exceeded the Fed’s 2% target for 55 straight months—the longest streak ever. 😲 That’s over 4.5 years of elevated price levels hammering Main Street. Today, the latest CPI surprised lower: headline 2.7% vs. expected 3%, core 2.6% vs. consensus 3%, fueled by a 6% airfare plunge in recent months. I anticipate bounces in upcoming prints, but inflation seems irrelevant to the Fed now—they’re prioritizing employment to protect our over-levered economy from recession. Surprisingly, 5Y-5Y forward expectations remain anchored at 2.2%. Traders buy the Fed’s narrative; I’m not convinced. The real pain? Price levels matter far more than inflation’s growth rate. Since COVID, the average American’s purchasing power has eroded significantly—down about 20% net of wage gains. I’m sharing informational insights on how I’m adjusting my portfolio in this environment. First, trimming excess cash. Elevated prices erode its value quickly. Second, long TIPS ETFs offset by shorts in matching-duration nominal Treasury ETFs. This neutral position gains from inflation volatility. Third, commodity allocations via momentum-based rotation into inflation-sensitive sectors. Provides diversification with ~0.3 equity correlation. Fourth, gold exposure for tail-risk coverage. Enhances Sharpe by 0.1-0.2 in volatile periods, low ties to stocks or bonds. Proof: Backtests (2021-2025) indicate 15-20% volatility reduction during CPI shocks, maintaining performance. Which approach sparks ideas for you? Comment 1, 2, 3, or 4—I’ll expand with high-level details. #InflationTrends #AssetAllocation #MacroEconomics #RiskManagement #PortfolioDiversification

Great philanthropy is built through structure, not just good intentions. I recently sat down with Caren Yanis for a livestream, and she shared a perspective that many Family Offices wrestle with but do not always articulate this clearly. In her experience, most families operate with multiple sources of philanthropic capital. A donor advised fund for individual giving. A private foundation where the family comes together. Sometimes both, running in parallel with very different purposes. What I found interesting is how intentional that structure really is. Individual vehicles create space for each family member to support causes they care deeply about. That builds engagement and ownership. At the same time, the family foundation becomes the place for collective decision making, where consensus shapes how the family shows up together. For those working with Family Offices, this changes the playbook. You are not speaking to a single decision maker. You are navigating a system. One conversation may be driven by personal passion. Another may need to hold up across multiple stakeholders with different priorities, timelines, and definitions of impact. Your approach has to adjust accordingly. Building a relationship with one family member may open a door. But real traction often comes when your work can stand up in a room where consensus matters. Clarity, patience, and an understanding of governance become just as important as the idea itself. Caren’s perspective is grounded in real experience. Her work with Oprah Winfrey and the Crown Family in Chicago helped shape how she thinks about governance, participation, and long-term impact. That foundation led her to start Croland Consulting, where she advises high-net-worth families, individuals, and wealth managers on building philanthropic strategies that reflect their values and hold up over time. My takeaway is simple. If you want to work effectively with Family Offices, you need to understand how their philanthropic capital is structured, who influences decisions at each level, and how your work aligns with both individual interests and collective values. That is usually where things either move forward or stall.

One sentence from Shloka Mehta Ambani. “You’re either winning or you’re learning. I don’t think there’s any losing.” This isn’t just a feel-good line. This is an evolved mindset. And it demands serious attention, especially from entrepreneurs who are building in today’s unforgiving economy. Recently, Shloka Mehta Ambani spoke about her journey of building ConnectFor, a non-profit she co-founded in 2015. But what stayed with me more than the scale of the work was the clarity with which she explained the emotional backbone behind it. She didn't talk about market share or vanity numbers. She spoke about survival. Support. Showing up. And most importantly, learning from what doesn’t work. In a country where entrepreneurial ambition is growing every day, here are some truths I wish more founders understood early: 🔹 Failure isn’t a stop sign. It’s information. If you didn’t get the funding, if a product didn’t work, if a campaign flopped, it’s not the end. It’s simply a signal that something needs to shift. 🔹 You do not need to build something loud to create impact. Shloka chose to co-create a space in philanthropy that connects volunteers to causes. It’s not flashy. It’s not trending on every startup list. But it is changing lives. That’s what real value looks like. 🔹 Legacy doesn’t start at IPO. It starts with intention. When you build from a place of purpose, you're leaving behind more than a balance sheet. You're shaping how your children, team, and even strangers think about ambition. 🔹 Support systems matter. No matter how brilliant you are, if your environment mocks your ambition or your dreams aren’t taken seriously, your journey becomes heavier than it needs to be. Build, but not in isolation. You’ll need both belief and backbone. 🔹 We need to normalise building things that take time. In the age of overnight success reels, stories like Shloka’s remind us that the most meaningful work often grows slowly. With care. With learning. With compounding intent. As someone who listens closely to what is being built in India, not just what is being posted, I believe we, as citizens, need to ask harder questions. Why do we only celebrate businesses after they're profitable? Why is failure still a hush-hush thing in boardrooms? Why don’t we talk more openly about mental fatigue in founders? Why do only some careers feel celebrated, while others, especially in social impact, remain invisible? The truth is, if we don't start recognising different kinds of success stories in India today, we will miss out on building the kind of future our next generation deserves. The world doesn't need only unicorns. It needs people building quietly, consistently, with compassion. Let’s start valuing those stories. And let’s learn to measure success differently. "Keep choosing the work that means something. That’s how real legacies are built." #shlokamehtaambani #entrepreneurmindset #legacybuilding #indianentrepreneurs

HSBC Sticky bond yields and Flight to quality Uncertainty and volatility are set to be a feature, not a bug, of investment markets near-term. For investors considering ways of building portfolio resilience without sacrificing growth, one strategy is to focus on ‘quality’. Quality is a stock market factor – and a proven long-term portfolio diversifier – that can defend against downside risk but still benefit from market upswings. Under the hood, it captures exposure to firms with strong profitability, consistent financial performance, and the safety of robust financial health. These traits help it deliver through-the-cycle performance. It pays off because quality stocks tend to be undervalued by the market. Meanwhile, investors often bid up the prices of lower quality firms that promise lottery-like returns, but which have a habit of underperforming in a downturn. Our latest Multi Asset Insights shows that quality delivers its strongest active returns when the economic outlook begins to cool – making it a potentially useful defensive strategy in portfolios. Faced with elevated volatility, that approach aligns with our view that investors should pay attention to diversification and selectivity in asset allocation. 

Mining companies should treat resource drilling like option portfolios. Conventional drill planning is one of the largest sources of value destruction in the sector. A mining company that hedges its gold price or negotiates a streaming deal is acting like a bank. When that same company plans a $10m drilling program, it does not see it as an investment and thus underestimate the full cost of the program and its built in inefficiencies.  The most capital-intensive decision in the resource cycle is routinely made without the analytical frameworks that govern far smaller allocations of shareholder capital. The trouble starts with the curve of diminishing returns. Every resource conversion program follows one. The first holes generate enormous value, upgrading geological knowledge from speculation to confidence. Each subsequent hole contributes less. As a result, additional drilling confirms what is expected without changing a single decision the company will make. That’s how every metre drilled consumes resources that could create more value if drilled elsewhere. Real options theory explains it perfectly. The framework treats each drill hole as a purchased option on geological information. The cost is fixed. The upside is that a single hole can transform the economics of a deposit. But like any option, its value depends on what you already know. The first hole into an unexplored zone is a cheap call on enormous potential. The fiftieth into a well-defined block is an expensive premium paid for negligible incremental knowledge. The mining industry buys both at the same price The chain of resource classification makes the stakes concrete. An inferred ounce of gold carries a fraction of the market value assigned to a measured one. Each upgrade unlocks financing gates that were previously shut: streaming deals, project debt, and bankable feasibility. The drilling required to achieve each upgrade is the premium paid for that financial option. Pay it efficiently, and you create extraordinary leverage. Overshoot and you consume budget that could have opened floodgates at another opportunity. Objectivity's DRX was built around understanding and communicating the value of decreased returns - where many AIs tell you where to drill, we also tell you when it may be time to stop drilling. By generating multiple optimised drill plans across a range of budgets, and capabilities (e.g U/G vs surface, wedged vs. actively deviated)  and plotting them as an investment curve, it makes the options structure of a drilling program explicit. The steepest part of the curve shows where each dollar generates maximum classification uplift. The flattening region shows where you are overspending. The distance between an existing plan and DRX shows how much value conventional planning leaves behind - we call this the value triangle. Meet us at PDAC to learn more. Booth 623.

Refecting on the upcoming World safety Day, the metals & mining industry remains one of the most hazardous sectors globally, with a fatality rate five times higher than the industrial average. In 2023 alone, over 3,000 mining-related fatalities were reported worldwide, with thousands more suffering life-altering injuries. Key #risks include hazardous working conditions, equipment failures, and exposure to toxic materials. Yet, 80% of mining accidents are preventable with the right safety culture, digital monitoring, and proactive #RiskManagement. Beyond protecting workers, a strong #SafetyCulture directly impacts profitability, operational efficiency, and ESG performance. -#FinancialGains: companies with strong safety records see 30% fewer operational disruptions and reduced insurance premiums. -#Regulatory & ESG compliance: investors increasingly favour firms with robust safety and sustainability frameworks. -#Workforce retention & productivity: mines with high safety standards experience lower turnover and higher efficiency. dss+ helps metals & mining companies invest in long-term resilience, reputation, and revenue—not only by prioritising the safety and well-being of their most precious asset, their workforce, but also through integrated performance management. By aligning safety, risk management, and operational efficiency, we help clients drive sustainable improvements, reduce downtime, and enhance overall productivity. A safer workplace is a more efficient and profitable one. #WorldSafetyDay #WSD2025

Tail Risk Hedging and Trend Following: A Combined Framework The paper implemented a tail risk hedging strategy and overlaid it on a trend-following approach, referred to as the Portable Alpha Portfolio. The Portable Alpha Portfolio consists of two components: 100% exposure to the MSCI ACWI Index as the beta source, while alpha is generated through a tail risk hedging overlay and a 50% exposure to a trend-following strategy. -The tail hedge is constructed by systematically purchasing three tranches of 10-delta SPX put options with one year to expiration, rolled quarterly, and notionally sized. -The trend-following component includes 79 futures contracts, with normalized returns computed over four lookback periods: 3, 6, 9, and 12 months. Positions are taken long when the lookback return is positive and short otherwise. Findings -The Portable Alpha portfolio produced a statistically significant monthly alpha of 0.25% after controlling for equity, bond, and commodity factors. -Outperformance was most pronounced during crisis periods, especially in the first half of the sample, while more recent periods showed returns comparable to the ACWI benchmark. -Across the full sample, the portfolio achieved superior risk-adjusted performance and stronger downside protection. -Performance attribution analysis indicates that convex return streams can be effectively overlaid to enhance portfolio performance without reducing core equity exposure. Reference: Bruno Schwalbach & Christo Auret, Enhancing global equity returns with trend-following and tail risk hedging overlays, Investment Analysts Journal, 2025 Join a community of 6,000+ quants—subscribe to the newsletter! Link in profile #portfoliomanagement #riskmanagement #investing ABSTRACT This paper demonstrates that overlaying a combination of trend-following and tail risk hedging strategies onto a global equity portfolio significantly enhances performance. These strategies are complementary. Tail risk hedging mitigates equity risk effectively during sudden market crashes, while trend-following supports equity during slower bear markets. By employing a portable alpha framework, the performance of a 100% global equity portfolio is compared with a Portable Alpha portfolio that retains full equity exposure (beta) while layering on trend-following and tail risk hedging strategies (alpha). The resulting portfolio returns remain largely driven by global equity but exhibit a large, positive, and statistically significant alpha of 0.25% per month after controlling for traditional equity factors and other asset class excess returns. Outperformance in absolute terms was strongest during periods of market turmoil, while the improvement in risk-adjusted performance was evident across the entire period.

Enterprise Value (EV) — the key measure of mining project attractiveness. Unlike market capitalization, which only shows equity value, EV includes debt, potential dilutive instruments, and cash reserves. This gives a complete picture. Junior miners often carry significant financial leverage because mining projects are capital-intensive. EV accounts for market capitalization, debt, and cash, providing a fuller view of a company’s financial health. Market capitalization is like the tip of an iceberg—visible but not the whole story. EV reveals the entire iceberg, including what's hidden beneath the surface. This is how investors can understand a company's true value. It involves looking beyond equity. Debt obligations, cash reserves — data that’s important in the mining operations. Comparing junior mining companies using EV is insightful. These companies might have similar market caps but very different financial structures, with varying levels of debt and cash. EV levels the playing field, offering a consistent standard for comparison. For instance, a junior miner with significant debt might have an EV much greater than its market cap. It could signal potential leverage. It might be a warning or an indicator of growth potential, depending on the company’s assets and efficiency. A mining company with substantial cash reserves (from partnerships or pre-production revenue), could have a lower EV than its market cap. It means it’s undervalued. Traditional mining valuation multiples, like price-to-earnings ratios, often misleading. Market shocks cause earnings to fluctuate wildly, making these multiples unreliable. EV cleans up these distortions by including debt and cash. Think about a mining company investing in new technology. Its short-term earnings might drop, making it look less profitable if you only consider traditional multiples. However, EV captures the full financial impact, showing the potential future benefits of this investment. Mining is cyclical. Earnings rise and fall, causing multiples to fluctuate. EV remains stable through these cycles, considering long-term debt and cash. This offers a more reliable valuation over time. During mergers and acquisitions, the market cap alone can deceive. EV includes debt and synergies from the deal, providing a more accurate measure of the new entity’s value. When a company changes its strategy, for example diversifying into new commodities, it can affect its valuation. EV is better equipped to account for these changes. It reflects the company's long-term value. EV is a critical component in the due diligence of companies listed on TSX, TSX.V, and AIM stock markets.