Jefferies’ Chris Wood boosts Bitcoin holdings to 10% at the expense of gold
The Global Head of Equity at Jefferies, Christopher Wood, has joined the group of investors that are ditching gold for more Bitcoin exposure. He has reduced his position in gold to expand his investment in the world’s largest cryptocurrency.
Wood believes that traditional financial institutions like banks should focus on blockchain and promote the technology instead of anticipating its downfall.
This isn’t the first time Wood is forfeiting gold for the sake of Bitcoin. In December 2020, he cut down the gold stock in his long-only asset allocation for USD-based pension funds from 50% to 45%.
Interestingly, Wood has not always been a fan of the digital asset. He had carefully avoided crypto investments in the past due to security concerns. However, he has had a change of heart just like most institutional players of recent. While he still maintains his bullish stance on the yellow metal, he also believes it may be unwise to ignore the revolution fueled by Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
According to the Economic Times, Jefferies presented a note to its investors suggesting that if blockchain technology manages to infiltrate the conventional finance space by bypassing the need of third parties and intermediaries, it could also lead to the fall of the “dollar paper standard.”
While comparing BTC to gold, Wood admitted that the performance of the latter had been hugely disappointing, especially with the negative rates in the US. Due to this, he believes the launch of the much-anticipated Bitcoin Futures ETF in the country highlights the need to make further adjustments to the global portfolio for US-dollar denominated pensions funds.
Meanwhile, Wood is yet to consider adding Ethereum to his portfolio despite his renewed stance on Bitcoin. The exec reiterated his previous position when it came to Ethereum, establishing that he had no plan to include ETH in any pension fund portfolio as it is not a “store of value” asset. However, he opined that the leading altcoin has the potential to outperform Bitcoin in the near future.
The current assets in the exec’s portfolio are 10% BTC exposure, 40% gold, 30% Asian (excluding Japan) equities, and 20% unhedged gold mining stocks.
