Michael Ashton

Michael Ashton is Managing Principal at Enduring Investments LLC, a boutique investment management company that offers focused inflation-market expertise and investment strategies. Prior to founding Enduring Investments, Mr. Ashton worked as a trader, strategist, and salesman at a number of well-known financial institutions including Deutsche Bank, Bankers Trust, Barclays Capital, and J.P. Morgan. Since 2003 he has played an integral role in developing the U.S. inflation derivatives markets and is widely viewed as a premier subject matter expert on inflation products and inflation trading. While at Barclays, he traded the first interbank U.S. CPI swaps. He was primarily responsible for the creation of the CPI Futures contract that the Chicago Mercantile Exchange listed in February 2004 and was the lead market maker for that contract. Mr. Ashton has written extensively about the use of inflation-indexed products for hedging real exposures, including: “TIPS, the Triple Duration, and the OPEB Liability: Hedging Medical Care Inflation in OPEB Plans,” Volatility Management in Pension & OPEB Plans, Society of Actuaries, 2012. “‘Real-Feel’ Inflation: Quantitative Estimation of Inflation Perceptions,” Business Economics, Vol 47, No 1, National Association for Business Economics, pp. 14-26, January 2012. “Maximizing Personal Surplus: Liability-Driven Investment for Individuals,” Retirement Security in the New Economy: Paradigm Shifts, New Approaches and Holistic Strategies, Society of Actuaries, 2011. “Inflation-Linked Corporate Bond Spreads: Are Corporate Linkers Really As Rich As They Look?” The Euromoney Derivatives & Risk Management Handbook 2008/2009, Euromoney, 2009. “History of Commodities as the Original Real Return Asset Class,” with Bob Greer, Inflation Risks and Products, Chapter 4, Incisive Media, 2008. In March 2016, Mr. Ashton published What’s Wrong With Money? The Biggest Bubble of All (Wiley, 2016), a book which explores the strengths and inherent weaknesses of our system of money, makes predictions about the future of inflation, and presents useful information about how to protect one’s lifestyle against such an outcome. Mr. Ashton is a summa cum laude graduate of Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. He is married with two children and lives in Morristown, New Jersey