Nominations Open for the CIO Power 100 | Chief Investment Officer

Many of us are going through quite the year. And as we begin to emerge from the pandemic storm, some will be weary from the battle at sea, yet many of us will have important stories to tell and lessons to share about those who have inspired us.

This year, at ai-CIO.com, as we prepare our Power 100 list, and look for the most innovative and inspiring CIOs, we would like to hear your stories. We’ve reached out to our advisory board of CIOs for advice on what would make the most realistic criteria for a year torn by COVID-19. They suggested: CIOs who had the strongest leadership during the crisis; who saw the biggest turnaround; who were the most collaborative with others; who communicated best with their team, committee and managers; who had the most creative repositioning of their portfolio; who performed best during the downturns; who created numerous jobs with their investment program; and, of course, those who had the best long-term performance and stayed truest to their benchmarks. We’re interested in hearing about all CIOs from public plans, private plans, sovereign wealth funds, endowments and foundations, and family offices.

As we all come together virtually with renewed appreciation for great CIO leadership in 2020, let’s do so in the spirit of encouraging each other and sharing what we’ve learned from other CIOs that has been truly helpful. And let’s give credit where credit is due. We’re all in this to forge the best course for 2021 for the sake of the millions who will be relying on these important pensions, funds, and managers. And the mantle of responsibility has rarely been more important.

As you share your insights through this nomination process, feel to make more than one nomination. Our list will be released later this year.

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Begin your nomination here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/G5PW3NB.

Good luck finding inflation now or anytime in the near future. But in five years or so, it will come back at around 5% to 10% yearly, admonishes Stanley Druckenmiller.

The culprit will be all the loose money injected into the economy by the Federal Reserve’s asset-buying campaign, the noted hedge fund operator said this week. Not to mention its partner in crime, Congress, with those multi-trillion aid programs, aimed at fighting the coronavirus recession.

“For the first time in a long, long time, I’m actually worried about inflation,” Druckenmiller told CNBC on Wednesday. He termed the Fed’s current policy “dangerous.”

“I think we could easily see 5% to 10% inflation in the next four or five years,” said Druckenmiller, who now runs his own family office, created after he shuttered his Duquesne Capital hedge fund firm. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, Druckenmiller lamented, “created this massive asset bubble.”

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Of course, that would be nowhere near the double-digit inflation that plagued the US four decades ago. The yearly high then was 13.5% in 1980, although some months were even loftier.

Right now, the 12-month-trailing Consumer Price Index (CPI) is running at a paltry 1%—around where it has been for many years. Powell would like to see CPI hitting 2%, which he feels would be better for economic growth. Current low inflation, the Fed chief fears, flirts with deflation, an iniquitous state reminiscent of the Great Depression.

In fact, to give the Fed flexibility in future years, the body has said it would tolerate inflation readings above 2% before tightening the money supply. To Druckenmiller, such seeming nonchalance toward such inflation is reckless. “Look what they’re risking in terms of financial stability to get that 2% mark,” he said.

Powell is actively courting future problems, Druckenmiller charged. “We actually have the chairman of the Federal Reserve with a $3.5 trillion deficit,” he said, “out lobbying Congress to do more spending and then guaranteeing those of us on Wall Street that he’ll underwrite it.”

Also on CNBC yesterday, former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan echoed Druckenmiller’s concerns about inflation. He pointed to expanding entitlement spending, such as for Social Security, which he contended would end up “crowding out private investment and productivity growth” needed for economic expansion and stable prices.

These two are not alone. A number of economists have sounded the same inflation alarm for several years out, once the recession is over. Germany’s Berenberg Bank issued a research report this week predicting that “the 40-year trend of declining inflation has likely run its course.”