There are still some doubts as to whether the new golden age promised by Donald Trump will dawn with the high tariffs that have been announced but suspended for the time being. The new Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will be in charge of implementing Trump's economic agenda. Will the former hedge fund manager succeed? UPI / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
Performance January
Start of a new golden age?
14.02.2025 / Dr. David-Michael Lincke
The start of the year in global financial markets was characterized by anticipation of a material shift in foreign economic policy from the new US administration, which took power on January 20th. The fact that, contrary to expectations, the imposition of far-reaching new tariff barriers initially did not materialize helped risk assets to a friendly start to the new year. This has also resulted in positive impulses for commodity markets. Particularly, precious metals, grains, and energy commodities were able to benefit.
Picard Angst Commodity Funds
Will energy prices fall?
14.02.2025 / Dr. David-Michael Lincke
The Trump administration has set out with the goal of both boosting domestic fossil fuel energy production and lowering energy prices. These are fundamentally contradictory objectives that can best be reconciled by significantly reducing production costs through deregulation, environmental requirements, and taxes. In the short term, however, it is low inventory levels, continued production restraint from the OPEC cartel, and increased sanctions pressure on Russia and Iran that are supporting oil and refined product prices, pushing them towards the upper end of the trading range of recent years.
The Damocles sword of new US tariffs hangs particularly threateningly over industrial metals. Although no concrete measures have been imposed yet, the new US President has already announced several times that he wants to impose higher tariffs on imports of steel, copper, and aluminum. Nevertheless, at the start of the year, the prices of most base metals initially rose, with the exception of zinc.
After the correction in the fourth quarter, precious metals started the new year with a bang. A supporting factor was that the relentless upward trend of the trade-weighted US dollar has come to an end for now. The calming of long-term USD real interest rates is also a positive factor. The silver price showed particular strength, making up for some of the underperformance compared to gold from the previous year.
Among agricultural commodities, grains, which were badly battered in the previous year, started with particular vigor. This is supported by hopes for higher US exports of corn, wheat, and soybeans as part of new trade agreements. However, soft commodities, which are threatened by new tariffs, have also developed favorably.
Picard Angst All Commodity Tracker with a strong start to the year
The broad commodity benchmarks mostly registered broad-based gains in January. The broadly diversified Bloomberg Commodity TR Index improved by +3.95%, while the S&P GSCI Commodity TR Index advanced by +3.32%. Our in-house PACI strategy had an even stronger start into the new year with a gain of +4.30%. The outperformance was owed primarily to the portfolio selection in the energy sector (exclusion of US natural gas) as well as among base metals. The Picard Angst All Commodity Tracker Plus Fund performed weaker than the base strategy with a return of +3.90% (share class D in USD), as the adaptive roll and contract selection overlay made a negative contribution in the reporting month.
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Picard Angst Thematic Funds
The Food Revolution – New Factsheets
14.02.2025 / Elad Ben-Am
The structural shift towards a more sustainable and efficient food system continues to gain momentum, resulting in accelerating earnings momentum for most of our "Food Revolution" portfolio companies. Read more in our Q4-2024 Investor Letter.
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