Why this bearish hedgie shorted gold before his rivals

An ultra-bearish US hedge fund manager shorted gold a year ago, when it was still in favour with most investors, and thinks the price of the metal is on track for a multi-year drop.

Keith McCullough, chief executive at Hedgeye Risk Management, said the only reason to buy back into gold would be if Ben Bernanke were to announce further quantitative easing, weakening the US dollar. He said the market widely expects the Fed to put an end to its money printing programme, which would, on the contrary, strengthen the US currency. In this scenario, gold, which is effectively "the opposite of the dollar", will slump, he argued. McCullough said: "We have called Bernanke's bubble in commodities, probably our biggest ever macro move. "The violence of the move in gold...