Merk’s mission is to help our clients achieve superior risk-adjusted portfolio performance.

Axel Merk is the President and Chief Investment Officer of Merk Investments.

Founder of the firm bearing his name, Merk is an expert on macro trends. He is a sought-after speaker, contributor and author. Axel Merk holds a B.A. in Economics (magna cum laude) and a M.Sc. in Computer Science from Brown University.

Axel Merk has grown Merk Investments into a $1 billion investment advisory firm offering investment funds and advisory services on liquid global markets, including domestic and international equities, fixed income, commodities and currencies.

Married with four children, he is a long-distance runner, weekend vintner and private pilot.

Follow Axel on Twitter to receive real-time updates on the economy, currencies, and global dynamics directly from Axel Merk.

Daniel Lucas is Managing Director - Quantitative Research & Trading at Merk Investments and member of the Portfolio Management Group. He focuses on quantitative research and systematic investment strategies, and oversees the development of data and trading systems. Prior to joining Merk Investments, Daniel gained experience as Quantitative Analyst at Kellner Capital and as M&A Associate at Network Corporate Finance. He also worked at Deutsche Bank's FX & Commodities Options Trading desk in Frankfurt, Germany, trading a variety of currencies and precious metals derivatives.

Daniel holds a M.Sc. in Financial Engineering (MFE) from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley as well as a Master’s Degree from the University of Stuttgart, where he studied finance, economics and management. He is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) charterholder.

Daniel lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and two kids. His personal interests include sports, cooking and traveling.

Peter Maletis is the Vice President - Gold & Precious Metals Research at Merk Investments and member of the Portfolio Management Group. He focuses on gold and precious metals companies. Prior to joining Merk Investments, Peter gained experience as Research Analyst at Franklin Templeton Investments from 2010 until early 2019. Prior to that, he worked at Marathon Resource Investments; the Cypress Funds; Banc of America Securities LLC.

Peter holds an MBA from the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business, as well as a B.A. in Economics from Connecticut College.

Peter lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and three kids. His personal interests include sports, family, travel, golf and movies.

James Holman is a Portfolio Manager at Merk Investments and member of the Portfolio Management Group. He focuses on gold and precious metals companies and the broader mining sector. Prior to joining Merk Investments, James was a Director at Invesco US, where he worked on an industry-leading mining fund for nine years. Prior to that, he worked at Oppenheimer Funds and as a Research Fellow at Colorado School of Mines. He also worked for Royal Gold and competed as a professional skier.

Mr. Holman holds an M.Sc. in Mineral and Energy Economics from the Colorado School of Mines, as well as a B.A. in Geography from UC Santa Barbara and is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) charter-holder.

Darshan Bhavsar is Financial Analyst at Merk Investments. Besides financial analysis and supporting the Portfolio Management team, Darshan also focuses on database development and automation of processes.

Prior to joining Merk Investments in 2019, he gained experience as an Investment Accounting Analyst at State Street Corporation. Darshan holds a M.Sc. in Management Science from the Naveen Jindal School of Management at The University of Texas at Dallas and is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) charterholder.

Darshan lives in San Francisco Bay Area. His personal interests include Formula 1, cricket and movies.

William Poole is Distinguished Senior Scholar at the Mises Institute and Senior Advisor to Merk Investments.^(*)

At Merk, Poole is a consultant contributing to economic and monetary policy research and analysis.

Poole retired as President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis in March 2008. In that position, which he held from March 1998, he served on the Federal Reserve’s main monetary policy body, the Federal Open Market Committee. During his ten years at the St. Louis Fed, he presented over 150 speeches on a wide variety of economic and finance topics. Working with his Research Director, Robert Rasche, he did pioneering research on the forecasting accuracy of the federal funds futures market.

Before joining the St. Louis Fed, Poole was Herbert H. Goldberger Professor of Economics at Brown University. He served on the Brown faculty from 1974 to 1998 and the faculty of The Johns Hopkins University from 1963 to 1969. Between these two university positions, he was senior economist at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in Washington. He held a Presidential appointment as a member of the Council of Economic Advisers in the first Reagan administration, from 1982 to 1985.

Swarthmore College awarded Poole his AB degree in 1959, with High Honors. He received his MBA and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Chicago in 1963 and 1966, respectively. Swarthmore honored him with the Doctor of Laws degree in 1989. He was inducted into The Johns Hopkins Society of Scholars in 2005 and presented with the Adam Smith Award by the National Association for Business Economics in 2006. In 2007, the Global Interdependence Center presented him its Frederick Heldring Award.

Poole has engaged in a wide range of professional activities, including publishing numerous papers in professional journals. He has published two books, Money and the Economy: A Monetarist View, in 1978, and Principles of Economics, in 1991. In 1980-81, he was a visiting economist at the Reserve Bank of Australia and in 1991, Bank Mees and Hope Visiting Professor of Economics at Erasmus University in Rotterdam. At various times, he served on advisory boards of the Federal Reserve Banks of Boston and New York, and the Congressional Budget Office. He was a senior fellow, Cato Institute, 2008-17.

He is a member of the American Economic Association, the National Association for Business Economics and the College of CentralBankers of the Global Interdependence Center.

Poole was born and raised in Wilmington, Delaware. He has four sons.

(*) Dr. Poole is an advisor to Merk Investments and is not an employee of the firm.