If you’ve been following the financial markets this year with any degree of interest, you’ve probably heard of Peter Schiff. He’s been a media favorite over the past year for calling the US financial collapse and has been everywhere from CNBC to Glenn Beck to CNN to Fox to Bloomberg. I even spotted him in Newsweek a couple weeks ago being credited with calling the collapse.. In an era of rampant corruption, fraud, inept CEO’s and fund managers, Mr Schiff has been made out to be somewhat of a hero in all this. Let’s give credit where credit is due. Peter Schiff has been sounding the alarm for quite awhile and while doing so was often ridiculed by the talking heads on CNBC a year ago. Much of what he’s been saying has come to pass… at least in the US financial markets.
Ah, but there seems to be one small problem. According to Michael Shedlock, Peter Schiff, the President and Chief Global Strategist of Euro Pacific Capital not only didn’t profit from the financial collapse, he failed to do what every other so called professional failed to do for their clients last year. PRESERVE CAPITAL. Turns out, he was largely right on the US macro picture and called a US equity crash but believed global markets would not folllow due to decoupling and that the dollar would continue to crash. Rather than shorting US equities he shorted the dollar (with a bet on hyperinflation) and bought foreign equities and commodities. According to some of Schiff’s own clients, portfolios invested with Schiff were down anywhere from 40 – 70% last year. Ouch. (Shedlock posted an image of an actual Schiff portfolio)
Michael Shedlock points out 12 ways Peter Schiff was wrong last year:
12 Ways Schiff Was Wrong in 2008
- Wrong about hyperinflation
- Wrong about the dollar
- Wrong about commodities except for gold
- Wrong about foreign currencies except for the Yen
- Wrong about foreign equities
- Wrong in timing
- Wrong in risk management
- Wrong in buy and hold thesis
- Wrong on decoupling
- Wrong on China
- Wrong on US treasuries
- Wrong on interest rates, both foreign and domestic
I’ll point out that you can’t beat up Peter Schiff for being wrong. We’re all wrong at times. Where he can’t be excused is in risk management. He has a vested interest to stick with a certain strategy because he’s written a book about it, but he couldn’t admit when he was wrong and move on.. Arrogance in this business is not a recipe for market beating returns. In my opinion BEWARE of the fund manager who is all over the news outlets.
Shedlock has not ruled out that perhaps he stumbled upon the worst portfolios from Schiff and offers a challenge to clear the air: post the average returns by clients of Euro Pacific Capital on a year by year basis.
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UPDATE:
Peter Schiff’s brother Andrew Schiff responded to the article to the Baltimore Sun’s Jay Hancock, saying that Shedlock’s piece is “primarily an attempt to attract business to his own firm (Sitka Capital Management), by bashing a much larger and better known firm. However, the strategies employed by the two firms are completely different and make a direct comparison useless.”
Andrew Schiff does acknowledge that accounts at Euro Pacific have suffered badly in 08 but the losses are exaggerated by Shedlock and that because they are a broker dealer, aren’t allowed to post returns.
Filed under News by Tate Dwinnell
Comments on Peter Schiff’s Euro Pacific Capital Down 40 – 70% in 2008? »
Here is a complete rebuttal to the Michael Shedlock Blog:
http://www.neithercorp.us/nforum/disinfo_propaganda_media_studies/mainstream_media_article_attacks_peter_schiff-t763.0.html
I have been an investor with Peter Schiff for seven years. His rebuttal did say that those who were late to the party did lose significantly in 08 – I am hardly a new investor yet my portfolio is down over 55% from its high in 07.
He states those that have lost most focused on energy and mining stocks – ALL my stocks in Europacific were recommended by his brokers!- yet some are down over 90% because of lack of risk management – my concern that his buy and hold strategy can only work if you have an idefinite life span.
His strategy of high dividend stocks in foreign currencies I can accept – but not buy and hold for ever!
I am considering transfering a portion of my portfolio to Euro Pacific. The fees appear to be reasonable and I am curious about your thoughts on service, fees, advice etc. I understand the premise of the goals ,i,e gold, currency and foreign equities but am interested in your thoughts on the services.
Thanks Tom
Tom, I don’t know anything about them other than it appears they don’t have a preservation of capital plan in place when the market heads for the shitter. In my biased opinion, you’re better off spending the measly $50 bucks a month for my gold service
I keep my clients out of harm’s way in an uncertain market and only get aggressive when safer to do so.
I am down 60% and counting with EPC. I moved my account over in July 08. shoulda, woulda, coulda,…whatever. Scary part about is, what happens if we capatilize on our gold and silver? Is that a good thing? would think the US would be in the crapper if we go 3 or 4 times our earnings on the metals.
Schiff and his brokers mean well, but they are all still brokers. I pulled all my money with them, and put it in gold and silver bullion, losing about 54% of the money! I’m not whining, after all, it is the stock markets we are talking about. Learning a lesson is hard somtimes! My advice to anyone with Europac is get out while you can!
By the way, the United States is in the Crapper no matter what, with all due respect!
I’ve worked as an advisor at Sitka Pacific since last fall and can tell you that a lot of people have come to our firm because we’ve done quite well, and the transparency is extremely refreshing. What will happen in the future, who knows? But, I would put our firm’s returns up against any other firm’s returns anyday. Mr. Andrew Schiff’s comment can be lauded, who wouldn’t want additional funds under management? The trick is whether or not the returns are really there…
I’ve been living in China for the past 4 years, completed an MBA, propounding Schiffian ideas since mid-’07. It’s really a straw man to say Mr. Schiff is ‘wrong’ on so many ideas that have yet to play out. How can we deny the debasement of the Dollar? – look at real inflation and the money supply; it follows the most basic of economic PRINCIPLES. As Schiff and other realists have touted, the West is merely in the eye of a perfect shit-storm, and hardly deserves the immaculate glossing currently being spread by rampant gov’t spending. China, or any other economy firmly based on actual manual labor, hardly needs to concerned; their problems have been opposite the West’s, and could stand even further contraction. In any case, I pushed family and friends away from Dollar assets in time to save many from the worst of the last 10 months. And I always credit Pete Schiff for waking me up to the facts at hand. Hell, even Buffett was warning us to get out of housing and derivatives 2 years ago and more! shall we blame His Majesty for our losses as well?
I am an advisor in GA and I ahve had several clients ask me about my thoughts on Peter. I called Euro pac and asked questions anyone concerned about their money should ask. I was given some alarming answers:
-Peter doesn’t really think the US is a bad place to invest. It’s just not good now. His opinion is the same on the dollar.
-I asked the guy to compare Euro Pac’s returns to the S&P. “Returns cannot be quantified” according to the guy I had on the phone. Huh?!?!? Really? Sounds “Madoffish” to me.
-Gold has only returned 3% on average over time so why would you consider that a long term hold? That jsut keeps pace with inflation. It has been a huge loser as of late.
-He has been “saying the sky is falling” for years. How about all of the years he was wrong? He was right in 2008 so now he is saying, “I told you so.” I don’t buy that.
Schiff is in it to make money. He has some good principles, but his investment judgement is seriously flawed in my opinion. To each his own, but if you can’t quantify numbers, there is a real issue. How do your clients know if you are performing?
What is a gold backed US dollar???
Pete was RIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2I0QN-FYkpw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2I0QN-FYkpw
Over the past several months, I watched many interviews with Peter Schiff. I learned from them. He is very knowledgeable and articulate. It’s amazing that he called the crash that that took place in the equity markets in 2008. I noticed recently that he is calling for hyperinflation. Then I came across Mike “Mish” Shedlock’s interview with Max Keiser “On the Edge” (Aug. 28, 2009). After considering both viewpoints, I am more inclined to go with Mike Shedlock’s deflationary scenario as the more likely one. One obvious sign of deflation is that real estate prices have fallen, and they are likely to continue falling. Falling real estate prices do not support a hyperinflationary scenario. It will be interesting to see how things develop.
THE SIMPLE ;AW OF DILUTION IS IN PLAY HERE. I F YOU CAN NOT SEE THIS YOU ARE HEADED FOR BIG TROUBLE PETE IS CORRECT. YES IN THE SHORT TERM METALS HAVE PULLED BACK DUE TO THE BANK USING FREE MONEY TO INVEST IN TESE SAME METALS. YES THE DOLLAR LOOKS GOOD NOW BUT WAIT. WHEN THE GOVERNMENT STOP PUMPING TRILLIONS INTO THIS MARKET THE EFFECT WILL BE TRAGIC
OF EPIC PROPROTION.
PETE IS RIGHT ON.
Leaving a year old article on you main web page puts the web site’s Believability in question.
Get on to something current!!
Jon B
The article isn’t in the main page Jon. The main page blog page is at http://selfinvestors.com/tradingstocks/
Hope I’ve regained my believability
Please don’t take down the article! It was very informative – it didn’t reduce my inclination to go with EPC. (I hope the guy who pulled out in March didn’t leave the market altogether!) My guess is that most of EPC clients didn’t do any worse than investors in the US with the same asset allocation. EPC appears to me to be a decent hedge against the worse happing here in the US due to poor management by the administration.
Yeah but whatever you have invested with Euro isn’t it for the long term 5- 10 years from now