175 articles
My end-of-week morning train WFH reads: • Trump Has No China Trade Strategy: Washington and Beijing stage a tactical retreat that shows China’s leverage. (Wall Street Journal) • Tax-Slashing ETF Trailblazer Preps for a Fresh $5 Billion Haul: ETF Architect has…
My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures: • Moody’s Sounds Alarm on Private Funds for Individuals: Chasing retail money could pose risks to investors, private funds and financial system, Moody’s says. (Wall Street Journal) • Bitc…
My back-to-work morning train WFH reads: • Making Sense of Recession Probabilities. Preliminary estimate of gross domestic product for Q1 2025,showed GDP declined 0.3%. Even prior to this, Google web searches of the term “recession” hit peak popularity. News …
The transcript from this week’s, MiB: Bill Bernstein on Navigating Uncertainty, is below. You can stream and download our full conversation, including any podcast extras, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and Bloomberg. All of our earlier podcasts on your …
This week, I speak with Steve Laipply, Global Co-Head of Bond ETFs at BlackRock. Previously, he was Head of U.S. iShares Fixed Income Strategy and a member of BlackRock’s Systematic Fixed Income Product Strategy Team. We discuss uncertainty in markets, the im…
My back-to-work morning train WFH reads: • Ken Griffin on Trump, Harvard and Why Novice Investors Won’t Beat the Pros: The founder of $66 billion hedge fund Citadel is making waves in Miami, the nucleus of the new “Wall Street South.” (Businessweek) • Big Tec…
My end-of-week morning train WFH reads: • The Business of Betting on Catastrophe: World Bank pandemic bonds paid out only after death tolls passed a threshold. They’re part of a booming market where investors turn calamity into capital. (MIT Press Reader) • E…
Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures: • Dollar’s Decline Meets Rising Dedollarization: The Threat Comes from Within. The Bloomberg Dollar Index has fallen nearly 8.5 percent, its steepest drop since the 1980s…
My morning WFB (work from beach) reads: • US dollar suffers worst start to year since 1973: Donald Trump’s trade policies and rising debt levels have sparked decline of more than 10% in first half of 2025, US dollar suffers worst start to year since 1973 (Fin…
Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures: • The first rule in Trump’s Washington: Don’t write anything down: A new culture of secrecy in government is taking root — among career staffers and new political appoint…
My morning train WFH reads: • Prime Day is a scam: In reality, Amazon deploys deceptive tactics to exaggerate its markdowns and create a false sense of urgency. Featured items are often available at similar or lower prices at other times. (Popular Information…
My morning train WFH reads: • How to invest your enormous inheritance: What do you stand to inherit? It still feels like a question from a different age, despite its growing importance today. In 2025 people across the rich world will inherit some $6trn, or ar…
Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures: • Venture Capital Firms Bet Big on Gambling. Now They’re Banking on the Addictions. U.S. VC firms have invested $2 billion in gambling businesses in recent years. At leas…
The transcript from this week’s, MiB: Neil Dutta, Economics Chief at Renaissance Macro Research, is below. You can stream and download our full conversation, including any podcast extras, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and Bloomberg. All of our earlier …
My morning train WFH reads: • Why Are Stocks Up? Nobody Knows: A torrent of bad news hasn’t been enough to sink the market. (Wall Street Journal) • How to Spot Bad Investing Advice and Build a Resilient Portfolio: Our investment success depends on how we resp…
The weekend is here! Pour yourself a mug of Colombia Tolima Los Brasiles Peaberry Organic coffee, grab a seat outside, and get ready for our longer-form weekend reads: • The Secret to Reindustrializing America Is Not Tax Cuts and Tariffs. It’s Regulated Compe…
My back-to-work morning train WFH reads: • Want to Be a 401(k) Millionaire? Start With These Fixes. The stock market gains about 10% a year, but your savings may be falling behind. Here’s how to make the most of your 401(k). (Barron’s) • Investors Are Flockin…
Somebody’s paying the tariffs. Looks like it’s you. Source: OptimistiCallie You probably missed V.O.S. Selections, Inc. v. Trump, a little-noticed case that is working its way through the courts. Most investors are not paying attention to this. Maybe …
Happy August! My end-of-week morning train WFH reads: • Almost Every Corner of Emerging Markets Is Surging as Dollar Sinks: After more than a decade as an afterthought in investing circles, developing assets are having a moment as Trump roils the dollar. (Blo…
Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures: • DOGE-Pilled: Luke Farritor could have been an artist, or a builder, or someone dedicated to seeing a great historical mystery through. Instead he wound up at the Depart…
My off-to-Maine morning reads: • Trump Claims the Jobs Report Was Rigged. Was It? He does himself and his party no favors by waving away economic reality—as Biden did with inflation. (WSJ) see also What to Do When the President Acts Like a 5-Year-Old? For ove…
The weekend is here! Pour yourself a mug of Colombia Tolima Los Brasiles Peaberry Organic coffee, grab a seat outside, and get ready for our longer-form Camp Kotok weekend reads: • Trump, the BLS, and Our Age of Choose-Your-Own-Reality Governance: The preside…
Talking Rates in the Maine Woods With Economists Over Good Wine Taking place right before the Jackson Hole Economic Symposium, the gathering is a chance for money managers, traders, and economists to discuss crucial issues without restraint. Businessweek, Aug…
Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures: • How AI, Healthcare, and Labubu Became the US Economy: The Three Americas and aspirational displacement. (Kyla’s Newsletter) • Trump vs. the Bureau of Labor Statistics: …
At The Money: How to Manage Your News & Data Flow (August 13, 2025) We live in an age of endless news and spin. We rely on data and news releases, but it’s really easy to get tripped up by all of it. How should investors manage this firehose of numbers? Full…
Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures: • What Declining Cardboard Box Sales Tell Us About the US Economy: Box demand touches nearly every industry, from flat-screen TVs to packaged food, all of which see sales…
My end-of-week morning train WFH reads: • The United States Is Southern Now: From booming metros to culture-defining exports, the South has quietly become a demographic powerhouse and a battleground for the country’s identity. (Businessweek) • The Trillion-Do…
Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures: • The umpire who picked a side: John Roberts and the death of rule of law in America: The chief justice of the US has painted himself as a modern institutionalist over th…
One of the challenges that comes from analyzing markets and the economy is just how much “gray” there is. Most data points exist along a noisy continuum, subject to future revisions. The meanderings above or below the trend may be just noise, or the start of …
The transcript from this week’s, MiB: Ellen Zenter, Chief Economic Strategist at Morgan Stanley, is below. You can stream and download our full conversation, including any podcast extras, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and Bloomberg. All of our earlier …
My morning train WFH reads: • How America’s 1% came to dominate stock ownership: Market’s tenfold gain since 1990 mostly has gone to the richest part of the population. (Financial Post) • • The Lisa Cook Case Could Be the Whole Ball Game: If the Supreme Court…
It’s late August, before a holiday weekend. You don’t need yet another analysis of POTUS’ attempt to fire Lisa Cook – there have been plenty already. Instead, let’s get philosophical and consider a different question: Why Aren’t Markets Freaking Out? Paul Kru…
This week, I speak with Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, a subsidiary of Moody’s Corp. Dr. Zandi is a cofounder of Economy.com, which Moody’s purchased in 2005. He currently hosts the “Inside Economics” podcast. We discusse the state of the U…
My end of Summer, 3-day weekend reads: • Walmart and Other Retailers Have Eaten the Cost of Tariffs. Now It Is the Consumer’s Turn. While the last quarter’s sales were strong, price increases could be felt starting now. (Barron’s) see also No More Free Ride f…
The transcript from this week’s, MiB: Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, is below. You can stream and download our full conversation, including any podcast extras, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and Bloomberg. All of our earlier podcasts …
On this special edition of the show, I speak with Neal Katyal, Milbank LLP partner and former acting Solicitor General of the US. We sat down in the studio on Wednesday, August 27th, just two days before the D.C. Court of Appeals issued its decision in …
My end-of-week morning train WFH reads: • ‘The Einstein of Wall Street’: How I Became the Face of the Wall Street Trader: It all began with a picture taken in February 2007. But my own Wall Street story started long before that. (Wall Street Journal) • The US…
The weekend is here! Pour yourself a mug of Colombia Tolima Los Brasiles Peaberry Organic coffee, grab a seat outside, and get ready for our longer-form weekend reads: • MotorTrend Lived With A Tesla Model Y For 2 Years And Hated Every Second Of It: After ope…
Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures: • It’s Only a Matter of Time Until Americans Pay for Trump’s Tariffs: Whether they come in the form of higher prices, lower quality or fewer options, tariffs can’t hide f…
The transcript from this week’s, MiB: Special Edition: Neal Katyal on Challenging Trump’s Global Tariffs, is below. You can stream and download our full conversation, including any podcast extras, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and Bloomberg. All of our…
My back-to-work morning train WFH reads: • BlackRock Says Fiscal Angst in Global Bond Markets Is Overblown: Bond markets are seeking a new equilibrium after years of ultra low yields, and investors expect countries like France to ultimately sort out its budge…
The transcript from this week’s, MiB: Heather Boushey on Reimagining the Economy, is below. You can stream and download our full conversation, including any podcast extras, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and Bloomberg. All of our earlier podcasts on you…
My end-of-week morning train WFH reads: • How to Build a Million-Dollar Future for Your Kids: Setting your child up for life doesn’t require a windfall — just time, consistency and a willingness to think beyond bonds and birthday cards. (Bloomberg) • The Citi…
Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetence, corruption and policy failures: • Mind the Gap 2025? The more investors traded, the less they made: We estimate the average dollar invested in US mutual funds and exchange-traded funds earned 7.0% per y…
My back-to-work morning train WFH reads: • Sell Rosh Hashana; Buy Yom Kippur: This seasonal stock-market trading pattern is coming up — and worth observing The Wall Street adage — ‘Sell Rosh Hashana; buy Yom Kippur’ — focuses on the market’s performance betwe…
My end-of-week morning train WFH reads: • Forbes 400: The definitive ranking of America’s Richest People 2025. The wealthiest people in America have never been wealthier. Here’s who’s up, who’s down and who’s new. (Forbes) • Here’s why CEOs think Trump’s econ…
Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures: • Levy: I Thought I Knew Silicon Valley. I Was Wrong: Tech got what it wanted by electing Trump. A year later, it looks more like a suicide pact. (Wired) • Inside the Jag…
The N.Y.P.D. Is Teaching America How to Track Everyone Every Day Forever: Wherever you go in New York City, there’s a good chance the police are tracking you. Drive into the city and traffic cameras will automatically photograph your car, capturing your vehi…
Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures: • The Story of DOGE, as Told by Federal Workers: WIRED spoke with more than 200 federal workers in dozens of agencies to learn what happened as the Department of Governme…
My back-to-work morning train reads: • The War Between Silicon Valley and Hollywood is Officially Over… And the tech bros won Long before five years are up, Hollywood will have been acquired by Silicon Valley. The tech bros might maintain some of the old land…
My morning train WFH reads: • A “Fairly Highly Valued” Market”: The Fed Chair Opines on Stocks, but should we listen? (Musings on Markets) • A New Wall Street Trade Is Powering Gold and Hitting Currencies: Investors are pouring money into dollar alternatives …
My end-of-week morning train WFH reads: • Sharpie Found a Way to Make Pens More Cheaply—By Manufacturing Them in the U.S. Newell Brands moved production without cutting employee count or raising prices. (Wall Street Journal) • Your Wealthiest Friend Has a Pri…
Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures: • Who maintains the scaffolding of freedom? The prosperity the western world enjoyed for decades was the result of ideas, specifically classical liberal ideas about free …
My end-of-week morning train WFH reads: • Revisiting “Intelligence Drift” Why AI models still feel like they’re getting dumber. Anecdotal but widespread experience of LLMs seeming great at first, then getting progressively “dumber” over time. With models like…
Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures: • How America Got Hooked on Ultraprocessed Foods. The earliest processed foods promised ease and convenience. They filled the bellies of soldiers at war. But now, the evo…
My back-to-work morning train WFH reads: • Volatility Is Back in the Stock Market. Here’s the Zen Way to Handle It. The S&P 500 fell 2.7% this past Friday, ending a 33-day streak without a 1% move and highlighting renewed market volatility. Diversification be…
My morning train WFH reads: • The Myth of the Stock-Picker’s Market: Investors, be warned: Hope springs eternal, but outperformance is rare. (Morningstar) • Brokerages Battle to Win Over Active Investors. Trading Platforms Are the New Arms Race. They’re launc…
The weekend is here! Pour yourself a mug of Danish Blend coffee, grab a seat outside, and get ready for our longer-form weekend reads: • Why I Don’t Own Any Gold. It’s not a productive asset. It doesn’t do anything — no earnings or cash flow. If you are big o…
Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures: • My Car Is Becoming a Brick: EVs are poised to age like smartphones: Cars from the 2000s/2010s will be serviceable for decades to come. Cars from the 2020s? Not so much……
My back-to-work morning train WFH reads: • How Many Stocks Outperform the Stock Market? By my calculations, 149 stocks outperformed the index in the five years ending 2020. That’s around 30% of the total. That’s a fairly low number. In the last 5 years, 241 s…
Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures: • Tesla May Have Sold a Million Fewer Cars Because of Elon Musk’s Toxic Politics: The billionaire CEO did his electric vehicle company no favors by aligning with the MAGA…
The transcript from this week’s, MiB: Jon Hilsenrath, Serpa Pinto Advisory on the Fed, is below. You can stream and download our full conversation, including any podcast extras, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and Bloomberg. All of our earlier podcasts o…
My morning train WFH reads: • The Old Order Is Dead. Do Not Resuscitate. Few things are more disconcerting than feeling the ground shift beneath you, as anyone who has experienced a serious earthquake knows. This is what we are living through. A way of orderi…
Note: The Big Picture has been re-publishing Bob Lefsetz’s work for over 20 years(!). His perspecitve is always insightful and unvarnished. This is Bob’s take on Tuesday’s election results… The story for me is how out of touch the press is. The right said …
Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures: • Crypto investors lose billions in biggest-ever liquidation event: A record $19 billion crypto liquidation rocked markets this month. Discover what caused the crash and …
My back-to-work morning train WFH reads: • The Dow Is Close to 50,000. How the Heck Did We Get Here So Fast? It took a 103-year slog through market crashes, depression, and crippling inflation to reach that “once-unthinkable milestone,” as The Wall Street Jou…
Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures: • Bitcoin’s Plunge Means Trouble Beyond Tokens: Robinhood, Coinbase, and Interactive Brokers are getting clobbered, too. But you can protect your portfolio. (Barron’s) • …
My end-of-week morning train WFH reads: • Why the Time Has Finally Come for Geothermal Energy: It used to be that drawing heat from deep in the Earth was practical only in geyser-filled places such as Iceland. But new approaches may have us on the cusp of an …
Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetence, corruption, and policy failures: • I looked into CoreWeave and the abyss gazed back: Meet the company Nvidia is propping up. (The Verge) • How billionaires took over American politics: The concentration…
It’s that time of year again when families gather to feast on bountiful harvests and to give thanks for all of our blessings. This year, skip the “Vibes” and instead focus on market data. Don’t lose sight of nuances and shades of grey; they don’t make for gre…
At The Money: Ben Hunt on How to Use Narrative Information (November 26, 2025) Do fundamentals or narratives drive market valuations? That is the question so many are wrestling with in today’s 24/7 algo-based platforms and AI-driven mediascape. Full transcri…
My morning train WFH reads: • Time to admit the truth: Brexit has been an unmitigated economic failure: Leaving the EU has reduced Britain’s GDP by up to 8pc, according to a devastating US study. GDP down up to 8%; Investment down 18%; Productivity down 4%; E…
The weekend is here! Pour yourself a mug of Danish Blend coffee, grab a seat outside, and get ready for our longer-form weekend reads: • In the Shadow of Jane Street and Citadel Securities, Hudson River Mints Billions: The quiet flash boy has morphed into a p…
Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures: • Legendary short seller James Chanos on the problem with Strategy’s business model: The noise has grown louder about Strategy being in trouble, but most experts think St…
My back-to-work morning train WFH reads: • Trump’s Tariffs Could Be Overturned. Companies Are Rushing to Get Refunds. Dozens of importers, including major companies, are filing lawsuits to preserve their right to tariff refunds ahead of a key December 15 dead…
Perhaps the most overlooked element in the “affordability hoax” is the president’s own role in it. Before we get into the details, a few preliminary caveats. First, as COVID-19 ran wild, lockdowns were beginning, and a vaccine was still off in the future, the…
My end-of-week morning train WFH reads: • Howard Marks: Is It a Bubble? Ours is a remarkable moment in world history. A transformative technology is ascending, and its supporters claim it will forever change the world. To build it requires companies to invest…
SPOTIFY EMBED ATM: Title At The Money: with Guest name, company affiliation (Month Date Year) Is it better to blurb or not to blurb? That is the question? In this episode of At the Money, I speak with Guest. Full transcript below. ~~~ About this week…
The weekend is here! Pour yourself a mug of Danish Blend coffee, grab a seat outside, and get ready for our longer-form weekend reads: • Once a Gamble in the Desert, Electric Grid Batteries Are Everywhere: An early grid battery was installed in the Atacama De…
Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures: • As Netflix Swallows Warner Bros., Hollywood Is in Full-Blown Panic Mode: “Everyone’s just like, ‘How is David Zaslav going to make so much money when he ran the company…
At The Money: Stock Market Stories via the Narrative Machine. (December 17, 2025) Full transcript below. ~~~ About this week’s guest: Ben Hunt is founder of Perscient, a firm that studies how narratives and stories shape markets, investing, and social behav…
At the Money: The New Deregulatory SEC with Michelle Leder (December 24, 2025) Big changes are afoot at the Securities and Exchange Commission. More IPOs, more crypto, and less enforcement are coming as the SEC becomes smaller and much more corporate-f…
My Boxing Day morning reads: • Playing Santa Does Strange Things to a Man. What It Did to Bob Rutan Was Even Stranger. Bob Rutan is legendary among the tight-knit fraternity of Macy’s Santa Clauses. Like many of these men, playing Santa changed Bob. Profoundl…
Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures: • Scams, Schemes, Ruthless Cons: The Untold Story of How Jeffrey Epstein Got Rich: For years, rumors swirled about where his wealth came from. A Times investigation revea…
The week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve Monday morning reads: • Charles Schwab CEO Explains Why Investing Works—and Gambling Doesn’t. Rick Wurster, Charles Schwab CEO, says the firm manages $11.8 trillion in assets across 46 million client accounts, se…
My morning train WFH reads: • The Unexpected Winner of Rising American Tariffs Is Mexico: Its exports to the U.S. have surged since President Trump imposed new duties on countries this year. (Wall Street Journal) • Earth Is Running Out of Sand … Which Is, You…
My New Years Day reads: • Financial Discipline Is an Easy Resolution to Make, but a Hard One to Keep: We all say we want to save more and spend less. The key is to think more broadly. (Wall Street Journal) • Trump’s First Year Back, in 10 Charts: President Tr…
52 things I learned in 2025: This year I stopped being a consultant, started a tiny company, sold hundreds of little modular synths… https://medium.com/@tomwhitwell/52-things-i-learned-in-2025-edeca7e3fdd8 See also 52 things I learned in 2025 The news (to m…
The weekend is here! Pour yourself a mug of Danish Blend coffee, grab a seat outside, and get ready for our longer-form weekend reads: • The Era Of The Business Idiot: We live in the era of the symbolic executive, when “being good at stuff” matters far less t…
Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures: • Partying at Mar-a-Lago with the New MAGA Media Stars: While major news outlets obsessed over the anticipated release of the Epstein files, Trump-friendly news influence…
My back-to-work morning train WFH reads: • 11 Data Points and Discoveries That Stuck With Us in 2025: Squinting at a table, or a list, or a rough chart to divine meaning from it led to some memorable examples of process paying off: a few numbers, the shape of…
My morning train WFH reads: • Behind every influencer is an army of the influenced, many adrift in debt and mass-produced clutter. The platforms need influencers and influencers need audiences — but what the influenced need is not so simple. (The Verge) • Was…
My morning train WFH reads: • The Great Credit Convergence: How public and private credit are now one market (Paul Kedrosky) • The Emperor’s New Oil Wealth: You may have heard that Venezuela has the world’s largest oil reserves — 300 billion barrels. You prob…
Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures: • Stop, Shop, and Scroll: Behind every influencer is an army of the influenced, many adrift in debt and mass-produced clutter. The platforms need influencers and influenc…
* Hopefully… This is likely the week the Supreme Court issues a ruling on the IEEPA tariffs in place since April 2025 (excluding the 90-day suspension, and other sundry modifications, revisions, pauses, exemptions, etc.). As I noted from the start, this is …
My morning train reads: • Bill Pulte: Agent of Chaos: In an administration hardly known for competence, coherence and subtlety, Pulte stands out. When Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent reportedly threatened to punch Pulte “in your fucking face” and to “fucking…
My morning train WFH reads: • For Years, Powell Avoided Fighting Trump. That’s Over. After receiving grand jury subpoenas Friday, Powell spent the weekend deciding how to respond. By Sunday, he had his answer. (Wall Street Journal) • The golden handcuffs are …
My end-of-week morning train WFH reads: • 10 Breakthrough Technologies: Here are the advances that we think will drive progress or incite the most change—for better or worse—in the years ahead. (MIT Technology Review) • $25 Billion. That’s What Trump Cost Det…
Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures: • Is This Billionaire a Financial Genius or a Fraudster? Michael Saylor’s financial alchemy thrust an ordinary software company, Strategy, into the center of the crypto f…
My morning train WFH reads: • Donald Trump vs. the World: “The bond market cannot be bullied, fooled, or bribed. It does not flatter or make deals. It reveals all.” (The Bulwark) • Greenland Clash Risks Undermining America’s Place in World Economic Order: The…
My end-of-week morning train WFH reads: • Five Reasons Gold Is Surging Toward $5,000 an Ounce: Buying the precious metal has become the antidote for market jitters (Wall Street Journal) • Rich Americans Had a Good 2025. Everyone Else Fell Behind: The top 1% o…
Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures: • I’ve Covered Police Abuse for 20 Years. What ICE Is Doing Is Different. There were no promises of an impartial investigation. There was no regret or remorse. There was …
My back-to-work morning train WFH reads: • Meme Stocks Turn 5. Will There Ever Be Another GameStop? Five years after GameStop shareholders launched a revolt, Wall Street has adapted and may have won the war. (Barron’s) • UK Telegraph: Trump has crossed all li…
The transcript from this week’s MiB: Zach Buchwald, Russell Investments CEO and Chairman, is below. You can stream and download our full conversation, including any podcast extras, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and Bloomberg. All of our earlier podcast…
My snowbound morning train WFH reads: • Hedge Funds Are Back on Top After a Long ‘Alpha Winter’ Nearly half of investors plan to increase exposure to hedge funds, Goldman Sachs survey finds. (Wall Street Journal) • 24-hour trading? Log off: Treasury vigilante…
Two weeks ago, I wrote “It’s Tariff Week! *.” The asterisk added the word “Hopefully…” “This is likely the week the Supreme Court issues a ruling on the IEEPA tariffs in place since April 2025.” I wrote, getting it totally wrong. It turned out to be (mostly) …
My morning train WFH reads: • Will Danoff, Fidelity Contrafund’s Legendary Manager Keeps Beating the Market. Now He’s Getting Closer to Passing On the Reins. The legendary manager has taken on two co-managers to help him run the mammoth fund. Just don’t use t…
My end-of-week morning train WFH reads: • The average 50-something American is now worth $1.4 million: Want to get rich? Get old. That’s what the data tells us about net worth in America. The average 50-something American has a net worth of $1.4 million, acco…
Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures: • Trump’s Year of Anarchy: The Unconstrained Presidency and the End of American Primacy. (Foreign Affairs) • The Crypto CEO Who’s Become Enemy No. 1 on Wall Street: Coinb…
My back-to-work morning train WFH reads: • Kevin Warsh Is Trump’s Man—and His Own. How He Will Reshape the Fed. Kevin Warsh is President Trump’s nominee for the next chair of the Federal Reserve, Trump says in a social-media post. (Barron’s) see also A Bad He…
My morning train WFH reads: • The Dow, the Uncool Index, Has Its Moment in the Sun: The oldest, most unfashionable stock benchmark is suddenly outperforming. (Wall Street Journal) • A New Crypto Winter Is Here and Even the Biggest Bulls Aren’t Certain Why: So…
My mid-week morning train WFH reads: • Andreessen Horowitz’s Rising Influence Over Trump-Era AI Policy: The VC giant is shaping how Washington thinks about artificial intelligence — and the stakes couldn’t be higher. (Bloomberg free) • “Everything is gambling…
Today’s (belated) nonfarm payroll report had a little something for everyone. Whether you are bullish or bearish, recession or expansion, MAGA or Never Trump, there were nuggets of data in the report for you. My charge is to put this into a broader context mi…
My morning train WFH reads: • Here’s Fidelity Contrafund’s Will Danoff’s Secret Sauce: Fidelity Contrafund’s retiring manager showed how long-term stock-picking success is still possible. After decades running one of the biggest mutual funds on the planet, Da…
My end-of-week morning paraskevidekatriaphobia WFH reads: • The Big Money in Today’s Economy Is Going to Capital, Not Labor: Soaring profits and stocks funnel more of GDP toward companies, their top employees and shareholders. AI will intensify this trend. (W…
My three-day weekend reads: • Why a ‘K-Shaped’ Economy Means More Risk for Stock Investors: The wealthy are propping up consumer spending thanks to a multi-year bull run, while lower earners pinch pennies. That creates a fragile circular dynamic — if stocks s…
My morning train WFH reads: • The grift economy is going mainstream Scams and grift have evolved from fringe activity into normalized economic behavior, marking a fundamental shift in how cons operate in plain sight. (Your Brain on Money) • Detroit Automakers…
SCOTUS: Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution specifies that “The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises.” The Framers recognized the unique importance of this taxing power—a power which “very clear[ly]” includes …
Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures: • Jeffrey Epstein Was Vladimir Putin’s Wealth Manager, FBI Source Claimed in Newly Released Epstein Files: Unsealed evidence related to the billionaire sex offender inclu…
My Two-for-Tuesday morning train WFH reads: • A Yale Professor’s Investment Formula Says You Need More Stocks. See How It Works. James Choi’s research suggests most investors are too conservative with their asset allocation — and he’s got the math to back it …
My end-of-week morning train WFH reads: • People Loved the Dot-Com Boom. The A.I. Boom, Not So Much.: The dot-com era generated genuine public excitement. The AI boom is generating anxiety, skepticism, and resentment — even as the money keeps pouring in. (New…
Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetence, corruption and policy failures: • Cabinet Apocalypse: A News Review in an Imagined Conversation: “Calling this meeting to order. That was a long speech that I just gave. State of the Union. Long speech.…
Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures: • The Worst Acquisition in History, Again: Scott Galloway on whichever deal just earned this dubious distinction. After six months and eight failed bids, the Ellisons mad…
My morning train WFH reads: • Iran tells world to get ready for oil at $200 a barrel as it fires on merchant ships: Tehran is targeting commercial shipping and warning of triple-digit oil. The Strait of Hormuz risk premium is no longer theoretical. (Yahoo New…
At The Money: Finding Alpha via Unique ETF Strategies (March 12, 2026) If you want market performance (beta), you buy broad index funds. But what if you want to use a portion of your portfolio to try to beat the market (alpha)? One option is to pursue …
My back-to-work morning train WFH reads: • Barron’s 100 Most Influential Women in U.S. Finance: Our annual list honors women helping their companies, clients, and country through volatile markets and challenging times. Meet this year’s 28 new additions. (Barr…
The transcript from this week’s MiB: Matt Cherwin, Co-Founder and Chief Investment Officer of Marek Capital, is below. You can stream and download our full conversation, including any podcast extras, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube (video), YouTube (audio…
My early two for Tuesday morning train WFH reads: • Et Tu, S&P 500?: Robin Wigglesworth on the fascinating possibility that S&P index rules may be rewritten to accommodate SpaceX—the implications for passive investing and index integrity are enormous. (Financ…
My mid-week morning train WFH reads: • The stock market looks wild under the surface: The S&P 500 appears relatively calm on the surface this year, but dig a little deeper and you’ll find some wild swings. Dispersion hiding beneath calm headline indices — sec…
My first day of Spring (yay!) reads: • Finance Bros to Tech Bros: Don’t Mess With My Bloomberg Terminal: Professional investors spend more time with the computer system than they do with their spouses. So when AI evangelists declared it ‘cooked,’ it was war. …
My morning train WFH reads: • Traders Placed $580mn in Oil Bets Ahead of Donald Trump’s Social Media Post on Iran Talks: Someone placed enormous oil bets right before Trump’s Iran post moved the market. Coincidence is one explanation, but not the most obvious…
Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures: • Why Kalshi Won’t Pay Winners: Kalshi has refused to pay $54 million to traders who won their bets on when Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei would leave office. Gam…
Welcome to April! Kick off the month with my WFH reads: • The oil market’s COVID moment: During the pandemic, demand for oil plummeted by about 7 million barrels a day. Gas prices plunged, and at one point oil prices went negative in the U.S. The Iran war is…
It’s been exactly one year since the Liberation Day Tariffs were announced, implemented, challenged, and ultimately overturned at every level. They served as the foundation of the administration’s main economic policy. What has been the overall impact – econo…
My end-of-week morning train WFH reads: • The AI Jobs Scare Meets 250 Years of Data: What does history show? The economic stories of transformative technologies often display two important elements. 1) A rough patch at some point; 2) Business productivity (e…
Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures: • What China Just Learned From the Iran War: Beijing watched America bomb Iran and drew its own conclusions about red lines, deterrence, and Taiwan. The lessons are not t…
My mid-morning Plane reads: • The Era of Free Seas Is Unraveling—and Now Everyone’s Going to Pay: Three centuries of open maritime commerce are buckling under geopolitical pressure. Iran’s toll booth at the Strait of Hormuz is just the beginning of a much mor…
Everybody’s attention has been focused on the Iran War,1 but I want to draw your attention back to a different war — the prior Trade War. Eighteen months ago, the Trump administration was elected to its second term. After November 2024, there was a lot of noi…
My Two-for-Tuesday morning train WFH reads: • 50 years. 50 facts. Indexing since 1976. As the golden anniversary of index fund investing approaches, the strategy is widely available across and within asset classes. Its appeal is evident: Indexing is an easy-t…
The labor economics of ‘Alien’ — and its lessons for inequality on Earth. https://www.npr.org/sections/planet-money/2026/04/14/g-s1-117075/the-labor-economics-of-alien-and-its-lessons-for-inequality-on-earth Nobody Cares: A bracing essay on why effort without…
Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures: • Tourists Are Staying Away from the U.S. in Droves: With the World Cup approaching and the country’s 250th anniversary also on tap this summer, 2026 was supposed to be a…
My back-to-work morning train WFH reads: • Don’t Fret the War. Why ‘Big Money’ Investors Are Bullish—and Where They’re Investing Now. Barron’s twice-yearly survey of professional money managers finds bulls firmly back in charge, with small-caps, international…
My morning train WFH reads: • Renewable energy just broke a 100-year-old streak Coal’s century at the top of the world’s power mix is over. (Vox) • I Just Drove a $10,000 Chinese EV and It Didn’t Suck: Geely’s EX2 is the hottest car in the Chinese market, and…
My back-to-work morning train reads: • Sell in May and Go Away? Not This Year. The S&P 500 Just Had Its Best Month Since 2020. Don’t let sell in May’ spook you. Stocks have been on a tear. The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA -0.31% has risen 0.9% this past …
My morning train WFH reads: • I Asked ChatGPT to Manage a Stock Portfolio. Here’s How It Did. What followed was a monthslong back-and-forth on everything from tariffs to leveraged funds . Spoiler: it picked momentum and got beaten by a bad market. Useful as a…
Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures: • Why Almost Everyone Loses—Except a Few Sharks—on Prediction Markets: A WSJ analysis shows a small number of accounts on Polymarket and Kalshi—often pros using data-driv…
The transcript from this week’s MiB Howard Lindzon, Social Leverage, is below. You can stream and download our full conversation, including any podcast extras, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube (video), YouTube (audio), and Bloomberg. All of our earlier pod…
My back-to-work morning train WFH reads: • Trade court rules Trump’s replacement tariffs illegal: A divided three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of International Trade concluded that Trump’s 10 percent global tariffs are unlawful. Same trade-court ruling, seco…
My end-of-week morning train WFH reads: • Miami got NYC’s billionaires. Will it get their businesses? The fact is, high earners who were formerly geographically tethered to their companies can now work remotely. They are optimising their domicile for taxes, w…
Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures: • Trump’s China Trip Underscores How Power Has Shifted East. Given that Trump explodes at even the most trifling perceived affront—pulling 5,000 American troops out of Ge…
The transcript from this week’s, MiB: Shelia Bair, former FDIC Chair, is below. You can stream and download our full conversation, including any podcast extras, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube (video), YouTube (audio), and Bloomberg. All of our earlier po…
My Taco Tuesday morning train strike Lyft reads: • Words That Mattered: Fed Chair Jay Powell: A close reading of Powell’s most consequential lines, dated and re-contextualized. Excellent reference for the next FOMC parse. (Stay-at-Home Macro) • How Trump plan…
My mid-week morning train WFH reads: • Stock Gains Without All the Taxes? How the Hottest Trade on Wall Street Works: The stock-market surge has propelled the use of a new kind of tax-loss harvesting. We break it down. The WSJ on the surge of direct-indexing …
My morning train WFH reads: • Before you invest in crypto, watch this film: Mother Jones on a documentary diagnosing crypto as a wealth-transfer machine pointed at retail. The OC star turned skeptic remains an unlikely but effective explainer. Ben McKenzie sc…
My end-of-week morning train WFH reads: • What’s the Sticker Price of Exorbitant Privilege? A clean Substack walk-through of the dollar’s “exorbitant privilege” — what reserve status earns the US, what it costs, and what would actually shake it. The de-dollar…
Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures: • The Global Fertility Crisis Is Worse Than You Probably Think: Everybody knows about the decline in birthrates. Fewer people understand why—or just how significantly it …
My morning train WFH reads: • Land Appreciates. Homes Depreciate. The structure (house) is a depreciating asset: without continuous investment and updates, its value declines over time, even after renovations. The land is the appreciating component: long-term…
Welcome to June! Kick off your back-to-work with our expertly curated morning reads: • The Lowest Consumer Sentiment EVER: We are currently sitting at the lowest level of consumer sentiment in the past 75 years!. Lower than the Great Financial Crisis when the…
My mid-week morning plane reads: • Real-Estate Agents Are Quitting the Slow Housing Market: Four years into a struggling market, even agents who survived the initial shakeout are hitting their breaking point. Fewer sales, longer timelines, second jobs. (Wall …
My morning train WFH reads: • Shorting SpaceX? Jefferies Becomes Go-To Bank After IPO Miss: It’s the kind of look that ambitious investment bankers usually strive to avoid: When SpaceX named the roughly two dozen firms handling its IPO, Jefferies Financial G…
My end-of-week morning train WFH reads: • Congrats. You’re About to Unwittingly Make Elon Musk a Trillionaire. SpaceX is IPOing next week. And there’s a good chance you’re gonna own a portion of it—whether you like it or not. (The Bulwark) • Oil industry warn…
Of all the dumb things Wall Street is infamous for, perhaps none is sillier than the all too regular forecasting game. Quarterly earnings, Non-farm payrolls, annual S&P predictions, oil prices, inflation rates, FOMC cuts — its a never-ending parade of predict…
Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures: • “This Is Not Financial Advice”: How finfluencers prey on economic desperation. NOEMA on the meme-finance ecosystem hiding behind the disclaimer — and what regulators ha…
My morning train WFH reads: • The Future of Work & AI: How 16 top economists think AI will change the job market, and how to prepare for AI’s labor-market implications. Useful as a baseline against the louder, less data-grounded takes. (Wall Street Journal) •…
My mid-week morning train WFH reads: • A Good Family: Fight Warsh says he wants one, inflation demands it, and the dot plot is how we’d see it. All eyes will be on Kevin Warsh this week as he chairs his first FOMC meeting. However, with PCE inflation on track…
At The Money: Deregulation Will Free Your Portfolio (June 18, 2026) The new administration promised deregulation and ending red tape to unleash business and animal spirits. An ETF allows you to deploy capital to take advantage of that theme. Full transc…
Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures: • The World’s Leading Deepfake Expert No Longer Trusts His Own Eyes: NYT on Hany Farid losing confidence in unaided visual judgment as generative video improves. The impl…
My back-to-work morning train WFH reads: • The impact of the AI capex boom on S&P 500 return on equity: Record profitability has been one of the factors supporting high S&P 500 valuations. S&P 500 ROE has surged by 150 bp during the past four quarters, driven…
My Two-for-Tuesday morning train WFH reads: • Trump picked Kevin Warsh to cut rates. The new Fed chief just told us he has other plans. Here’s what the central bank’s hawkish agenda means for your money. MarketWatch on Warsh’s first public posture as Fed chai…
My morning train WFH reads: • The Coming Loop: I don’t prompt Claude anymore. I have loops running that prompt Claude and figuring out what to do. My job is to write loops. The Flask creator on agentic AI and the feedback loops we’re about to build into every…
My mid-week morning train WFH reads: • The Humbling of the Once Almighty Dollar: Krugman on the greenback’s slipping grip and what dethrones a reserve currency (slowly, then not). Wonky, contrarian, and worth arguing with. (Paul Krugman) • How the Mag 7 becam…
Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures: • Surveillance Tech Company Is Pitching An Unholy ALPR/Stingray Hybrid To Law Enforcement: Here’s something no one but cops and the tech firms that love cops wanted: an A…
My Two-for-Tuesday reads: • Are Humanoid Robots Ready to Be Deployed?: The New Yorker asks whether humanoid robots are actually ready for real work. The demos are dazzling; the deployment numbers, less so. (The New Yorker) • Why Small-Cap Stocks Are Beating …
My mid-week morning reads: • The 20 highest-paying jobs in America? Doctors, doctors, more doctors. Doctors earn more than any other broad category of worker, according to federal data: More than engineers. More than computer scientists. More, even, than lawy…
Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures: • It’s a World-Class Investment. It’s a Junk Investment. What Is Going On With SpaceX? The answer starts with Wall Street’s long-held distinction between “smart money” an…