In his November 2013 Edelweiss Journal article, Dylan Grice of Edelweiss Holdings writes that “the past three decades’ hidden devaluation of money has caused a subtle but significant devaluation of language” (PDF). Using Google’s Ngrams Viewer to track the rise of various buzzwords in the modern financial industry, Grice concludes that the world has changed the definition of “wealth” to mean “money,” not “value.”
This devaluation, according to Grice, increases the challenges facing investors who try to be responsible stewards of capital, especially in an environment where “inflation, whether credit inflation or otherwise, messes things up because it sends false signals.”
Edelweiss Holdings describes itself as an investment company “focusing on the preservation of wealth against the erosion of the purchasing power of money.” Past issues of Edelweiss Journal have explored different aspects of money and purchasing power, including Grice’s discussion about the value of gold.
During his time as an analyst at Societe Generale, Grice built up an audience of readers and fans. When he joined Edelweiss Holdings, the investment website Zerohedge compiled 4 years’ worth of Grice’s Societe Generale reports into a 244-page online document. And Business Insider collected a list of Grice’s recommended “22 books that everyone must read,” a list that includes Antti Ilmanen’s Expected Returns.
At the Sixth Annual CFA Institute European Investment Conference, Grice discussed how three decades of financial engineering by central Bankers have yielded an “Age of Financialization.”
The 2015 CFA Institute European Investment Conference will be held in London on 26–27 November. Registration is now open for the event, and speakers include Dan Ariely, Anne Richards, Tim Harford and Michala Marcussen, CFA, offering valuable insights on the region’s most pressing economic developments alongside sought-after technical workshops.
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