Old Mutual precious metal fund invests in bitcoin
Old Mutual Global Investors, the UK-based asset manager, is taking positions in cryptocurrencies, such as bitcoin, through its Gold and Silver Fund, Bloomberg reports. The fund, which manages $216m in mostly listed equities, started buying bitcoin in April, with a mandate to allocate up to 5% to cryptocurrencies, manager Ned Naylor-Leyland told Bloomberg on Thursday. The plan was to take profit from bitcoin as the price rose and reinvest it in gold and silver assets. The bitcoin price exceeded the gold price for the first time in March. While the price of gold is up 8.7% over the past year, bitcoin has shot up 1,000%. This has caused many to label the cryptocurrency a bubble, although pundits point out that less than 1% of the world’s population owns it, suggesting that the price could rise further. “The more the value of bitcoin goes up, the more seriously people are taking it,” said Chris Becker, an economic strategist at Investec Bank. Domestic fund managers were not yet investin...
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