Gamblers dream of achieving a trifecta: picking the first three horses, in the right order, in a given race. The payout is huge but so are the odds against success.
The same could be said, in financial markets, of a strategy that backed equities, gold and government bonds. The three asset classes do not tend to perform well at the same time. Both gold and equities can be classed as inflation hedges but government bonds are hard hit by higher consumer prices. Both gold and government bonds could be bracketed as havens for risk-averse investors but equities are definitely classed as risky assets.
The bet has paid off this year, however. According to Dhaval Joshi of RAB Capital, a fund-management firm, the three asset classes have all produced double-digit returns over the past three months. That has occurred only twice before in the past 50 years.
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Moral of the story: don’t rely on historical correlations to forecast future correlations.
