November week 4 - Best podcasts & articles
Another week of excellent content
What I’m thinking about
Jeff Snider’s videos have been getting increasingly bearish, pointing to fuckery like widespread yield curve inversions, desperate Chinese stimulus, and oil markets falling into contango (don’t know what contango is? see my article here). All of these factors (and more) suggest bad things to come. Starting to see the same bearish sentiment out of other accounts like FX Evolution & Wifey Alpha, to name a few.
But then! Just as I was writing these words I found a Tweet showing massive inflows into junk bonds. Which is not something you’d expect to see before a massive capitulation. Markets are confusing.
Moving over to the clusterfuck that is crypto, this has been an exciting week for me. I’ve been trying to time the bottom which has been annoyingly stressful but also epic in its own right. I’ve been forced to confront the colossal unpredictability of price action, and all of the strong emotions that come with volatility. The entire game is amplified when there’s money on the line. No paper traders here. Stressful week, but also fascinating. Wouldn’t trade it for the world.
And with that, here is some content from people who have markets figured out a hell of a lot more than I do.
Best of articles
November 2022 Newsletter: The Long-Term Fiscal Spiral
Theme: Solid article from Lyn Alden. Key takeaway for me was that there are fewer buyers for US government debt. Apart from the investing implications (I am still long TLT, I’m a masochist) there is the societal question of how does America keep running these massive deficits if nobody is buying the debt?
VC Poster Child: Coming Unglued – OWTW
Theme: Short overview of what’s happening around the world, special focus on the clusterfuck that is Masayoshi San and Softbank.
Theme: Excellent Twitter thread about how Alameda went from a prime brokerage to a bunch of degen gamblers. Fascinating to see the decay and hubris straight from the mouth of Trabucco.
L.P.D.: Libertarian Police Department
Theme: A wicked clever bit of humor, I laughed thoroughly. It reminded me of another gem from the New Yorker, this piece poking fun at Ayn Rand. Too funny.
Theme: Outstanding thread from the good people over at Coinmetrics, following transactions to find out how user money went from FTX to Alameda.
Best of YouTube
#103 Akhil Patel: The Power of Cycles, where the bull market might end
Theme: This episode is a few years old but since the topic is multi-generational cycles, a few years on either side is no big deal. Very interesting thesis about an 18 year cycle in the markets. Will be studying this closely.
MacroVoices #344 Alex Gurevich: A Deflationary Depression Lies Ahead
Theme: In his own recent appearance on MacroVoices, Mike Green recommended this episode with Alex Gurevich. So I gave it a listen. I had to pay attention carefully and rewind a few parts because the arguments are multi-layered (also, Alex has a strong accent). In the end, I agree more than disagree. Excellent episode. Depressing. Would suggest that 2023 and 2024 are going to be depressing years where we talk about recession and job loss, not inflation.
MICHAEL KAO: FTX Rug Pull | Alpha Leak of Macro Economics
Theme: The title might be a bit misleading here, since the first hour ten is all about oil. A good primer on why long term oil prices are likely to remain elevated, even if short term prices are falling.
Learning From Market Tremors | Hari Krishnan
Theme: Not related to the content, but Hari has an amazing voice. I could listen to him speak for hours. Obviously an incredibly intelligent human being. He made a few connections that displayed how well he understands markets. Topics include interest rate swaps, volatility and the FTX blowup.
Brent Johnson LIVE!! (Dollar, Gold, Inflation, Yield Curve Inversion Deep Dive)
Theme: Bloody fantastic conversation! Covered a lot of topics that I touched upon in my recent Eurodollar article. Insight into the dollar, gold, collateral, leverage and interest rates. So nice to see an in person interview too! There is something extra there, versus the incessant zoom calls.
Polynya's Crypto Thesis
Theme: For the crypto geeks (all 17 of them left), this was an outstanding podcast. I’ve casually followed Polynya for a while, although to be honest much of what he/she writes about goes over my head. Obviously a very intelligent person, and this podcast didn’t disappoint. Themes include Ethereum scaling, optimistic outlook on humanity and value accrual to layer 2s versus layer 1. Exceptional.
The End of Magical Thinking: When Narratives Fail | Grant Williams & Pippa Malmgren
Theme: Ultimately this video is about how the markets might look in the future, with the Fed liquidity tap turned off and higher inflation. What worked in the past for investing, won’t work in the future. This video changed my thinking.
This Signal Predicted the 2008 Financial Crisis Crash. | The Same Pattern Would Be Devastating Today
Theme: Generally I’m not a huge fan of this channel, I like FX Evolution better, but I thought this short video was quite good. It reveals the correlation between the home builders ETF and the stock market. I learned something!
It’s time to go off topic
Interesting video about why a new supersonic jet could be financially viable. Long story short: billionaires.
