Jeffrey deGraaf Renaissance Macro Research
The buy side says: “He’s the only technical guy I read.”
Jeffrey deGraaf left ISI Group in February to launch his own firm but maintains his place atop the roster for a seventh consecutive year. DeGraaf, 43, “spells out the technical analysis in plain language and comes up with unbelievable calls — he caught all the big turns in the market in the past year,” asserts one impressed investor. One example: The Renaissance Macro Research strategist broke with the consensus in November when he told clients that, despite having quadrupled in price since 2002, gold had not achieved bubble status, which he says occurs when an asset class is “overowned, overhyped and overvalued.” Reviewing historical data, deGraaf determined that gold is not overowned, since it accounts for less than 1 percent of global financial assets — far below the levels it reached in 1968 (4.8 percent) and 1980 (2.8 percent). Nor is it overhyped, he says, because “a high number of bulls has consistently led to above-average forward returns.” Finally, gold is not overvalued, deGraaf concluded, noting that the world supply (excluding unmined metals) is worth $7 trillion — or just over half the value of the U.S. stock market, as measured by the Wilshire 5000 index. The spot price of gold, at $1,355 per ounce at the time of his report, had rocketed 33.8 percent, to $1,813.50 per ounce, by late August. DeGraaf remains bullish. “He dives deep, breaks down and analyzes the technical details of everything — if it has a price, he looks at it,” marvels one client.