The fund manages says abrupt changes in policy from Trump is diminishing the attractiveness of trading gold, which has relatively high transaction costs:
Abrupt changes in President Donald Trump's policies (cites his alternating stances on North Korea)
- fuel speculation that his temperament toward tariffs on China could also change over the next few months
- weakening the case for holding haven assets over a longer period
"People jump to gold if they really think that these geopolitical events will last" … Trump "has demonstrated already that he changes his mind very quickly" … That unpredictability "dulls the effect" on gold
- bid-ask spread on gold is almost triple that of yen, making it more costly for investors to trade bullion
Bloomberg carrying the comments from Darwei Kung, a portfolio manager of the $3.3 billion Deutsche Enhanced Commodity Strategy Fund