The U.S. stock market fell Thursday for a fifth straight day on continued concerns about the global economy. The major U.S. indexes haven’t been this low in almost two years.

Not surprisingly, gold, which has been gaining lately, jumped 5% Thursday to trade over $1,257 an ounce, its highest price in a year.

Time to buy U.S. stocks? Not if you’re Mark Cuban, apparently.

Cuban — a billionaire tech entrepreneur, Dallas Mavericks owner, Shark Tank star, and private investor — told a CNBC audience Thursday that he’s confused about the stock market right now but sees gold in the meantime as a momentum play. Thus, he’s bought a lot of call options on the metal.

[Editor’s Note: Cuban didn’t specify the way he’s buying the metal, but many investors use SPDR Gold Trust.]

“When traders don’t know what to do, they go where everybody is,” Cuban told CNBC. “And I thought that would be gold.”

It’s worth nothing that even savvy investors like Cuban don’t necessarily use rigorous fundamental analysis when investing: They go with their gut and they often play market psychology rather than constructing elaborate models to determine a present value.

Meanwhile, Ben Carlson, a respected financial blogger and money manager, is wondering whether the severe drop in several emerging markets is creating bargain prices not worth passing up.

Referring to a table showing the sharp negative returns of country exchange-traded funds outside the U.S, particularly in emerging markets, he notes that the rest of the world is in bear market territory, trading about 30% off of their 52-week highs.

ETFs that play China, SPDR S&P China, and Brazil, iShares MSCI Brazil Capped, are each off more than 40% from their one-year highs, he adds.


“Historically, buying global stocks after they have fallen into bear market territory has been rewarding for investors,” he writes.

I’ll close with a reference to a blog post I saw about the problems of buying currency hedged ETFs.

I rarely cite work from sites run by financial advisors, but the Website of Fortune Financial Advisors, a Kansas-based financial planner, routinely provides thoughtful and contrarian insights built around data analysis.

In a post Thursday, advisor Lawrence Hamtil writes that “currency-hedged ETFs were extremely popular for much of 2015 as investors sought to win two times over by owning shares from countries such as Japan and Germany (which they expected to do well given a devaluing currency), and also benefit from being short the depreciating currency.

“But as many studies have shown, this strategy has been a mixed bag over the very long term as currency movements tend to mean-revert,” he adds.

Hamtil writes that for U.S. investors, currency hedging of foreign equity positions can take away a valuable diversification benefit.

He and a colleague have looked closely at U.S. dollar movements versus activity in the Standard & Poor’s 500 over the past two decades.

“There has been strong correlation between dollar movements and S&P 500 outperformance/underperformance over the last several decades,” he adds.

“In other words, as the dollar has declined in value relative to other currencies, US investors benefitted from unhedged foreign equity exposure as the MSCI EAFE has tended to outperform US stocks during down dollar cycles. Conversely, the S&P 500 has outperformed relative to global equities when the dollar has gained against competing currencies.”

He concludes that owning unhedged foreign equities has been a great portfolio diversifier — as well as a great source of returns — during weak dollar periods. “Currency-hedged ETFs, I believe, can be popular as a trade, but they are likely to be a poor substitute for the unhedged alternative,” he concludes.