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Should You Invest Like the Russian Gokhran?

Should You Invest Like the Russian Gokhran?

The financial world has undergone some pretty dramatic changes over the past 20 years.  And, by all indications, the next 20 years will most likely be just as turbulent, if not more so.  For investors, the coming monetary upheavals will undoubtedly require an iron will and a deft hand to navigate successfully.

So what is a good practical way to safely negotiate the future financial tribulations that await us?  I have an unusual suggestion: we should strive to invest like the Russian Gokhran.

Now I know what you’re wondering.  Why is the Antique Sage off his medications again?  And what in the world is the Russian Gokhran?  While I can’t help you with the first question, I can certainly shed some light on the second one.

The Gokhran is a state investment fund run by the Russian Ministry of Finance that exclusively buys tangible assets like precious metals and gemstones.  More specifically, it purchases institutional-sized amounts of gold, silver, platinum, diamonds, emeralds, rubies, sapphires, alexandrites, natural pearls and amber.  It also purchases jewelry and objets d’art crafted from these precious materials.  The Gokhran even holds many of the Czarist-era Russian Crown Jewels.

The Russian Gokhran’s hard asset approach to investing is unique among global central banks.  Most central banks investments (which are usually funded by international trade surpluses) are funneled into U.S. dollar and euro denominated bonds.  These foreign currency reserves are important because they project an image of financial strength to the international community.  This helps deter speculative attacks against a country’s currency.

Some countries use a different kind of investment vehicle known as a sovereign wealth fund.  Sovereign wealth funds are much less conservative than central bank foreign exchange reserves.  They often invest heavily in international stocks, real estate, venture capital and private equity.  This is meant to grow national wealth aggressively, unlike foreign exchange reserves which are meant to instill confidence in a country’s currency.  Norway, China, Singapore and various Middle Eastern oil producers control some of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds.

The Russian Gokhran, however, is neither a sovereign wealth fund nor a foreign currency reserve fund.  Russia actually has both types of these other investment vehicles, but they are completely separate legal entities from the Gokhran.

And here is the interesting part.  Nobody (except the Russians) knows the value of the assets in the Gokhran (although they are assuredly many billions of dollars, if not more) or even exactly what assets it holds!

So why is there so much secrecy surrounding this little-known Russian hard asset investment fund?  In order to answer that question, we need to know a little bit about the history of Russia and the Gokhran.

The Russian Kammer Collegium was the original forerunner of the Gokhran.  This predecessor institution was found in 1719 by Peter the Great and enjoyed great prestige, particularly during the 18th century when a series of jewelry-loving empresses sat on the Russian throne.  According to legend, all valuables in the Kammer Collegium were securely held in a vault behind three different locks – each with its own unique key – which were split between three trusted senior ministers.

Even after the fall of Czarist Russia in the early 20th century and the establishment of the Soviet Union, the idea of a state repository of tangible assets persisted.  As a result, the Soviets created the Gokhran in 1920 and decreed that all existing assets inherited from the Czarist crown should be held in trust for the Soviet people.

This was especially important starting in the 1950s, when large diamond deposits were discovered in Siberia.  The Soviet Gokhran ended up purchasing many of these Siberian diamonds in subsequent decades, including the largest rough diamond ever found in the Siberian Mir mine.

Today’s incarnation of the Gokhran was formed in 1996, a few years after the fall of the Soviet Union.  But even though its official name may have changed many times through the centuries, the Gokhran’s mission remained the same: buy and hold high value tangible assets for the benefit of the Russian people.

Basically, the Russian government has a tradition of maintaining wealth in a portable physical form.  And it is a good thing too.  Russia’s history over the 20th century has been particularly tumultuous.  Institutions (or people) that saved in Russian paper money or financial assets tended to do poorly.  The Gokhran was a natural and successful strategy to preserve wealth in such an uncertain world.

It isn’t a great intellectual leap to apply the same logic to our financial situation in the West today.  We face a precarious future, where many solemn financial promises will be broken, if for no other reason than that they cannot possibly all be kept.  And while you and I might not be able to afford to build a billion-dollar fund like the Gokhran, we can certainly create our own miniature versions.

As an aside, if our central bankers were really smart, they would be buying hard assets hand over fist in preparation for our inevitable economic unhinging.  For example, a great addition to any central bank’s vault would be the 910 carat gem quality rough diamond that was recently pulled from the Letseng mine in Lesotho, Africa.  This absolutely colorless, nearly flawless diamond is substantially larger than a golf ball and has an estimated auction value of $40 million.   Even though it is the 5th largest gem quality diamond ever found, it would still be easily affordable for many of the world’s central banks.

This unnamed 910 carat diamond would look great in the U.S. National Gem Collection at the Smithsonian Institute, sitting alongside other illustrious gemstones like the Hope Diamond and the Hooker Emerald.  Its purchase would be a boon to U.S. citizens.  Unfortunately, I have little hope that U.S. government officials will take me up on my advice.  They would have to invest like the Russians do, and I find that highly unlikely in today’s politically-charged climate.

 

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The Sad Demise of Physical Paper Assets

The Sad Demise of Physical Paper Assets
Photo Credit (CC 2.0 license): Wystan

The decline of physical paper assets has been one of the more troubling trends in the financial industry over the last couple of decades.  And that is saying a lot, because there have been a number of alarming trends in the financial markets over that time.  Now, when I talk about physical paper assets in this context, what I’m referring to are certificates indicating the ownership of financial assets – things like stock and bond certificates.  But before I continue, I think some historical background and definitions are in order.

Although often taken for granted in the modern age, physical wealth has been the bedrock of Western society for hundreds of years.  Farmland, houses, jewelry and bullion were just a few of the physical assets that traditionally underpinned middle class society from the Middle Ages to the 18th century.  However, as the 19th century progressed and financial markets evolved, new types of financial institutions were created, along with the physical paper assets to match.

Corporations, in particular, were a major step forward in the development of modern economies.  These large businesses raised substantial sums of money in order to channel huge amounts of labor and commodities into profitable ventures.  As corporations came to dominate the business landscape, there naturally developed a need to keep track of who owned what.

Thus, the most fundamental of physical paper assets was born: the stock certificate.  These certificates were often brightly colored and beautifully decorated with engravings in order to make them both visually pleasing and difficult to counterfeit.  Although the holder of a stock certificate did not automatically gain ownership of those shares (that prerogative rested with a company’s stock transfer agent), a stock certificate was still an important symbol and confirmation of equity participation in a company.

The stock certificate was inevitably joined by its financial twin, the bearer bond.  Bearer bonds were debt obligations issued by a government or corporation that made interest and principal payments to whoever had physical possession of the instrument.  Unlike stock certificates, bearer bonds functioned exactly like cash.  If you held a physical bearer bond, you were happy (and rich).  If it was stolen or lost, you were exceedingly unhappy (and poor).

Now that the historical primers are out of the way, it is time for the crux of this article.  For the last 150 years, American households have enjoyed access to four major types of physical paper assets based on the modern economy: stock certificates, bearer bonds, U.S. savings bonds and physical cash.  These physical paper assets were perfect complements to more traditional physical assets like real estate, jewelry, antiques and bullion.

Our access to these time honored physical paper assets, however, is rapidly coming to an end.  In fact, they are being systematically eliminated by the powers that be.

Bearer bonds were the first on the chopping block.  These securities had the advantages of being both readily negotiable and having high face values.  According to the government, this made them perfect for organized crime and tax evasion.  Of course, it also made them perfect for honest citizens who wanted financial discretion.  Predictably, the government didn’t like the idea of regular people being able to easily stuff a million dollars worth of bearer bonds into a suitcase.  That sort of thing should be reserved for members of Congress!

As a result, the U.S. government banned the issuance of new bearer bonds in 1982.  Existing bearer bonds were not redeemed, however, and remained outstanding until their original maturity dates passed.  By now though, in the year 2018, pretty much all U.S. corporate or government bearer bonds have matured.  These physical paper assets are effectively extinct today.

Physical stock certificates were the next to go.  Between 2006 and 2010, a series of obscure changes in back-office operations dealing with stock settlement and registration slowly discouraged the issuance of physical stock certificates.  This culminated in 2009, when the Depository Trust Company (DTC) – the centralized New York City clearinghouse for stock settlements – instituted a prohibitively expensive $500 fee for every new paper stock certificate issued.

Over the next few years, most brokerage firms, including Scottrade, Charles Schwab and eTrade, either passed on this exorbitant fee to their customers or ceased issuing physical stock certificates altogether.  In 2013, the pace of change quickened when the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) – the parent company of the DTC – proposed the elimination of all physical stock certificates.  To make the proposed change sound less offensive to a reluctant public, the DTTC euphemistically refers to this draconian policy as “dematerialization”, claiming it will lower costs.

Although many investors have enjoyed the convenience of digital registration of stock ownership, it is not without drawbacks.  Any stock you have in a brokerage account is always held in “street name”.  Street name means that the legally recorded owner of the security is your broker, not you.  This means that in some situations your broker can legally pledge these securities as collateral to a third party.

Under normal circumstances, securities held in street name by your broker are not a problem.  But when the financial system is under duress and bankruptcies are commonplace, this practice transfers considerable risks to account holders.  Yes, your assets would theoretically be covered under the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC), but I wouldn’t want to be forced to rely on government promises in such a situation.

Even staid U.S. savings bonds have not avoided the digital carnage waged on physical paper assets.  These time-honored investments have been a fundamental building block of U.S. middle class wealth since the Great Depression.  Available in denominations as small as $25, U.S. savings bonds have provided generations of Americans with a safe place to park their extra money.

U.S. savings bonds were traditionally issued in physical form.  Much like physical stock certificates, U.S. savings bonds did not represent direct ownership.  Instead, the U.S. government registered ownership upon issuing a savings bond.  Physical savings bond certificates not only confirmed ownership, but also provided a tangible token of the act of saving that doesn’t exist with a regular bank account.

Or they used to, at least.  The U.S. government discontinued the issuance of physical savings bonds back in 2012, claiming it would save the American people a paltry $70 million over five years.  In my opinion, this act was the death knell of an already wounded U.S. savings bond program.

Even that final bastion of physical paper assets – paper money – is under widespread assault.  Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers has publicly come out in favor of discontinuing the $100 bill.  The European Union recently followed his questionable advice by getting rid of their highest denomination bill, the €500 note, in 2016.

The argument in favor of removing high denomination bills from circulation is that they purportedly help fund organized crime and corruption.  However, such a move also has the (fully intended) side effect of moving all financial transactions firmly under the watchful eye of less than benevolent governments.  As credit cards, PayPal, wire transfers and other digital means of moving money become more ubiquitous, it is not so far-fetched to imagine a dystopian future where governments consider completely eliminating cash.

Maybe the demise of physical paper assets was inevitable.  Maybe a fancily embossed sheet of paper that unequivocally states you own an asset is an unnecessary anachronism in a computer driven, digitally-connected world.  But I have had too many experiences in my life where the unsympathetic voice on the other end of the phone flatly declares, “I’m sorry sir, but we have no record of that in our systems.”  Without physical certificates to prove ownership, such a situation could quickly escalate from an annoyance to a disaster.

The rise of digital wealth in modern society may be inescapable at this point, but that does not necessarily mean it is a wholly positive development.  I believe the slow, irreversible death of physical paper asset is both a warning and an opportunity for the average person.  It underscores the importance of those tangible assets that remain available to us – fine art, antiques, gemstones and bullion – while prompting us to ask ourselves how much of our personal financial information we want to expose to monopolistic corporations and power-hungry governments.

 

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U.S. Savings Bonds – A Disquieting History

U.S. Savings Bonds - A Disquieting History

U.S. savings bonds have been a time-honored method of accumulating wealth for middle class families.  They are simple to buy and redeem and are also backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government.  But these hallowed financial instruments have slowly evolved over the years, and, unfortunately, most of it hasn’t been for the better.

It might seem like an absurd suggestion, but U.S. savings bonds have a dirty, secret history.  For the past 15 years, the U.S. Treasury has been systematically degrading the attractiveness of these traditional financial vehicles.  As a result, it is very difficult to recommend them as anything other than a cash-substitute in certain niche financial situations.  If you really want to make money, or even just preserve your purchasing power, you will need to redeem your savings bonds and roll the proceeds into better investments.

Let’s start at the beginning.  The history of U.S. savings bonds stretches back to the Great Depression.  In 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt approved a law that allowed the U.S. Treasury to issue small denomination government bonds, sometimes called “baby bonds”, directly to the American public.  The government paid a very generous (for the Depression years) 2.9% interest rate on these initial notes.

The U.S. savings bond program remained relatively small until World War II, when the federal government’s financing needs skyrocketed.  As a result, the popular Series E bonds were introduced in 1941.  These fixed rate financial instruments were purchased and held by millions of households during and after the War.  From the 1940s until the 1970s, savings bonds almost always paid an interest rate that was comfortably higher than inflation.

In 1980, Series E notes were phased out and replaced by Series EE bonds.  Series EE savings bonds, which are still being issued today, earn either a fixed or variable rate of interest, depending on their issue date.  They pay no interest outright, but instead accrue interest like a zero-coupon bond.  Series EE savings bonds were traditionally sold for half of their face value, with a $100 bond selling for $50.  They are guaranteed to accrue to face value by the end of their original maturity, which is currently 20 years from the date of issue.

The other type of U.S. savings bond currently being issued is the Series I bond, also known as I-bonds.  The interest rate for these notes is based on the inflation rate as measured by the CPI (Consumer Price Index) plus a fixed “real” (after-inflation) interest rate.  Series I bonds were first issued in 1998 and, like Series EE bonds, accrue and compound interest until redemption.

 

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Now this is where things get interesting.  In 2003 the minimum holding period for both EE and I-bonds was increased from a reasonable 6 months to a rather unreasonable 12 months.  The U.S. Treasury supposedly changed this rule to prevent retirees, children, the frugal and other unrepentant savers from arbitraging the interest rate differential between savings bonds and short-term debt instruments!  As the U.S Treasury arrogantly stated, “Savings Bonds are designed to be a long-term savings vehicle.”  Just to drive home its point, the U.S. government also penalizes you three months worth of interest on any savings bond you redeem that is less than 5 years old.

And while the U.S. Treasury claimed that savings bonds are for the long-haul, their actions indicated otherwise.  From 1997 to 2005, Series EE savings bonds earned only 90% of the prevailing 5 year U.S. Treasury note’s interest rate.  It’s a very raw deal to give your valued “long-term” savers a subpar 90% of the lower interest rate 5-year bond, when the U.S. government could have easily paid 100% of the higher interest rate 20 or 30-year Treasury bond!  Unfortunately, this was a portent of worse things to come for long-suffering savings bond investors.

Then we fast forward to 2005, when the Treasury changed the terms on EE bonds from the old, floating rate model to a new, fixed rate one.  At first, this new fixed rate was effectively identical to the old floating rate (90% of the 5-year treasury).  Fair enough.  But the Treasury Department couldn’t resist the urge to turn the screws on small savers.

 

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By spring 2006 the EE series was only offering 74% of the going 5-year treasury rate.  By May 2010 that number had fallen to 57%.  Another 4 years later, in May of 2014, it was a pitiful 30%.  At the latest rate-reset in November 2017, the Series EE savings bond paid an almost non-existent 0.10%, or $10 per annum for every $10,000 invested, fixed for the life of the note.  This translates into an insulting 5% of the then-current 5-year Treasury bond rate!

Savers hoping for better treatment with I-bonds were also sorely disappointed. Immediately after their introduction in the late 1990s, Series I savings bonds were very competitive, with the real rate hovering between 3.3% and 3.6%.  But after the 2000 tech bubble burst, the U.S. Treasury decided it was time for the little saver to pay his “fair share”.

Real interest rates on I-bonds crashed during 2001 and 2002, declining from 3.4% at the beginning of that period to 1.6% by the end.  Real rates then bounced around the 1.0% to 1.5% level until the Great Financial Crisis of 2008.

At this point, the federal government decided that I-bond holders didn’t deserve to earn any interest on their savings at all.  After all, the Feds had to pay for all those bank bailouts somehow!  Real rates quickly plummeted to the 0.0% to 0.2% range where they have remained ever since.  That’s right.  As of November 2017, Series I savings bonds currently pay a measly 0.1% as their real rate of return.

 

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As an added insult, the U.S. Treasury discontinued issuing Series HH bonds in 2004.  These now defunct savings bonds allowed existing Series EE and I bond holders a tax-free exchange option once their notes had reached final maturity.  Series HH bonds did not accrue interest like other savings bonds, but instead paid it out directly to note holders on a semi-annual basis.  This way, loyal, long-time savings bond owners could defer Federal income taxes while also receiving interest payments via physical check or direct deposit.

But I believe the real death knell for U.S. savings bonds came in 2012, when the U.S. government discontinued issuing paper savings bonds.  Over the decades, countless savings bonds had been gifted at holidays, graduations, weddings and birthday parties.  By switching over to an electronic only distribution model, the Federal government destroyed the utility of savings bonds as gifts or savings vehicles for children.  Yes, the U.S. Treasury provides optional, print-it-yourself gift certificates, but these are a laughably poor substitute for the tactile and visual enjoyment provided by an official savings bond certificate.

If you care to look at the historical record, it is pretty obvious what is going on here – financial repression.  The government doesn’t want you, or anyone else, to save.  Instead they want to force you to recapitalize the nation’s financial system by giving you no alternative to low-interest bank accounts.  Or, if you’re inclined, the Federal Reserve is also happy for you to speculate with your life savings in the stock market casino.  Either way, the U.S. government wins and you lose.

Of course, you can always refuse to play their game.  That’s why I recommend you buy hard assets – things like fine art, antiques, precious metals and gemstones.  Savings bonds don’t represent the safe, lucrative investments they once did.  It’s time to redeem your savings bonds and convert them into tangible assets that will actually preserve your wealth.

 

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The Obscure Certified Coin Bubble of the Late 1980s

The Obscure Certified Coin Bubble of the Late 1980s
Photo Credit: PCGS

In today’s age of serial asset bubbles, it is easy to believe that financial history began in the late 1990s.  But this is not the case.  Few investors know this, but the U.S. rare coin market experienced a truly gargantuan certified coin bubble in the late 1980s.

I had my own, personal experience with this certified coin bubble.  In the late 1980s, I was subscribed to COINage magazine, a nationally distributed industry periodical.  Among its pages I found an advertisement for a coin I desperately wanted – an 1872 U.S. three-cent nickel that was certified MS-62 by PCGS.  This eccentric coin was available for the princely sum of $795, an amount that a 13 year old boy in 1989 could never hope to afford.  In the end, that was probably for the best.

The U.S. mint struck the three-cent nickel from 1865 to 1889.  This small, odd-denomination coin was a reaction to a shortage of small change that arose during the U.S. Civil War.  During the war, the U.S. government issued “shinplasters” – cheaply-made, legal tender fractional notes meant to temporarily satisfy demand for low denomination cash.  Once the war ended, the U.S. mint flooded the economy with small-denomination coins to replace the hated shinplasters.  The three-cent nickel was one of these new, post-Civil War denominations.

The three-cent nickel that I badly coveted wasn’t in a particularly high condition.  MS-62, otherwise known as Mint State-62, is much closer to the lowest mint-state grade of MS-60 than the perfection of MS-70.  An MS-64 or MS-65 example really would have been much better (and more expensive).  But a mitigating factor was that 1872 was a somewhat less common date for the three-cent nickel series.  The mintage was only 862,000 versus 11 million plus for the most common date in the series.

 

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That scarcity didn’t stop the coin from plummeting in value when the certified coin bubble burst.  Even today, nearly 30 years later, you can still buy a slabbed MS-62 three-cent nickel for only $200.  That is a stunningly high cumulative loss of nearly 75%.  If you measure the decline in inflation-adjusted terms, the situation is even worse, with a loss of over 88%!

There were several root causes of the massive certified coin bubble of the late 1980s.  First, memories of the 1970s and its dreaded inflation still lingered in the minds of many investors.  In early 1987 the price of silver spiked to more than $10 a troy ounce, almost double its normal price at the time.  Many people thought inflation might be making a comeback and rare coins seemed to be the perfect way to hedge this risk.

Another contributing factor to the late 1980s certified coin bubble was the 1987 stock market crash, widely known as Black Monday.  On October 19th 1987, the Dow Jones Industrial Average collapsed by 22.61%.  It was the largest one day percentage loss in the index’s history.  Even though the resulting bear market in stocks was over within a few months, many disillusioned equity investors looked for alternative investments.  Numismatically valuable U.S. coins seemed to offer a good substitute to the treacherous stock market.

But the most important factor in the certified coin bubble was undoubtedly the development of slabbing itself.  Third-party certification was an attempt to impose grading standards on an industry that was famous for its inconsistency.  In 1985, PCGS became the first third-party coin grading company.  PCGS found immediate success in the numismatic industry and soon spawned a close competitor, NGC, in 1987.

 

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The advent of independent, third-party certification had a seismic impact on the rare coin industry.  Before slabbing, numismatics was overrun with fly-by-night companies and boiler-room operations that sold severely over-priced, grade-inflated coins as investments to unsuspecting consumers.  The arrival of PCGS and NGC changed the industry nearly overnight.  Now dealers, collectors and investors could buy or sell slabbed coins “sight unseen” because they all trusted the grades given by the major grading services.

This situation is typical of all great bubbles.  A legitimate innovation or discovery takes place that promises the future creation of tremendous wealth.  In this case, the certified coin bubble was driven by the almost religious belief that slabbing would transform the numismatic market.  It was widely thought that certified coins would enjoy greatly improved liquidity generated via massive institutional demand from financial firms.  Proponents at the time felt these factors justified perpetually rising rare coin prices.

As the late 1980s unfolded, the enthusiasm for slabbed coins reached a fevered pitch.  As with so many other bubbles, it didn’t take long for Wall Street to join the certified coin bubble.  In February 1989 the respected financial firm of Kidder, Peabody & Co. started a limited partnership, the American Rare Coin Fund.  A year later Merrill Lynch launched a similar fund called the NFA World Coin Fund Limited Partnership.  UBS, another Wall Street firm, created an internal rare coin division dedicated to advising its high net worth clients on numismatics.  The potential for certified coins seemed almost limitless at the time.

 

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And then it all came crashing down.  The U.S. certified coin bubble peaked sometime in mid 1989 and slowly – almost imperceptibly at first – began to weaken.  By late 1989 some categories of high-grade, common date coins, like Morgan silver dollars, were clearly in decline.  But the real, gut-wrenching carnage didn’t hit numismatic dealers and coin shows until the 1990 – 1991 timeframe.

The PCGS3000 Index, a key indicator of the rare U.S. coin market, peaked at $181,088 in May 1989.  The index bottomed out in December 1994 at $46,819 – a vicious 74% loss.  Even now in January 2018, the PCGS3000 index rests at $57,076 – a loss of more than 68% since the 1989 peak.

I think it is important to learn the right lessons from the late 1980s certified coin bubble.  It isn’t that tangibles are bad investments – far from it, in fact.  I think that tangible assets are, generally speaking, great buys at the moment.  After all, some high-grade, certified U.S. coins are available today for the exact same prices they sold for in the mid 1980s!

Instead, you should be wary of any asset class that is over-hyped by the financial media and Wall Street.  Avoid investing in that hot stock or index fund that all your friends, co-workers or relatives can’t stop talking about.  Right now these dangerously overvalued assets include high-flying tech stocks, like Netflix, Amazon and Tesla, along with virtual crypto-currencies like Bitcoin.  Ironically, some certified U.S. rare coins are a great investment at today’s prices; it just took nearly 30 years to get there.

 

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