Jelly Donut Podcast

Just as when we launched, the timing feels right to pause. At this point, The Jelly Donut Podcast has achieved its goal. Mission accomplished, for now.

We’d like to thank all of the guests, listeners, sponsors, and stakeholders who helped make the show a success. We’ll be on hiatus for an indefinite period — until there’s a turning point in markets or when creativity sparks, whenever that time might be.

With that we’d like to say good luck. And goodbye — for now.

-The Jelly Donut Podcast

Jelly Donut Podcast #39 was recorded in April 2020.

Thomas R. Saving is Director of the Private Enterprise Research Center and University Distinguished Professor of Economics at Texas A&M University. Prior to joining the economics faculty in 1968, he was on the faculty at the University of Washington in Seattle and Michigan State University. His early research was on Monetary Theory and Policy and he earned a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1960. 

Jelly Donut Podcast #36 was recorded on Wednesday May 27, 2020.

Cullen Roche is the founder of Orcam Financial Group, a low fee financial advisory firm as well as the founder of the popular financial blog Pragmatic Capitalism. He specializes in macro investing with a focus on fixed income and conservative strategies.

The Jelly Donut Podcast #35 was recorded on May 27, 2020.

Lyn Alden is the founder of Lyn Alden Investment Strategy at LynAlden.com, where she provides market research to individual investors  and financial professionals with both a free newsletter and a premium  research platform.

She also writes for the financial sections of several publications,  and has been cited on Business Insider, Marketwatch, Money Magazine,  Kiplinger, Huffington Post, The Street, US News and World Report, and  other financial media.

Her investment strategy focuses on value investing with a macro  overlay, which means finding long-term opportunities in individual  stocks and various asset classes while taking into account the broader  macro picture. Lyn's background comes from a blend of engineering and  finance, which she uses to apply systems analysis on various investments  and macro themes. She has a bachelor's degree in electronics  engineering and a master's degree in engineering management, with a  focus on engineering economics and financial modeling.

Jelly Donut Podcast #34 was recorded on Wednesday May 7, 2020.

Jelly Donut Podcast #33 was recorded on Wednesday May 18, 2020.

Marko is a Partner and Chief Strategist at Clocktower Group, an alternative investment asset management firm based in Santa Monica, California. He leads the firm’s Strategy Team, providing bespoke research to clients and partners on geopolitics, macroeconomics, and markets. 

Prior to joining the firm, Marko founded BCA Research’s Geopolitical Strategy practice (GPS) in 2012, the financial industry’s first dedicated political analysis investment strategy. The GPS service generated geopolitical alpha by identifying gaps between the market’s political expectations and the firm’s forecasts. Marko was a Senior Vice President and the firm’s Chief Geopolitical Strategist. 

Marko began his career as a Senior Analyst at Stratfor, a global intelligence agency where he contributed to the firm’s global geopolitical strategy as well as its analyst recruitment and training program. In his academic work, he helped create the Center for European Union Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Marko holds an MA in Political Science from the University of Texas at Austin and an MA from the University of British Columbia. 

Jelly Donut Podcast #31 was recorded on Wednesday April 29th, 2020.

Demetri Kofinas is a technology and media entrepreneur and the host of Hidden Forces, a popular podcast dedicated to uncovering the forces driving global events, technological innovations, market movements, and social changes.

Demetri graduated from NYU in 2004 with a dual bachelors’ degree in Economics and Political Science. Throughout the course of his career he has held positions in financial services, interactive entertainment, television & theatre production, and various other forms of media and entertainment. His passion for markets, economics and storytelling led him to create a drive time radio program called Covering the Spread, which he hosted on 91.5FM WNYE New York. 

This subsequently led him to create and executive produce the popular international news program Capital Account, which was watched by hundreds of thousands of people around the world.

Jelly Donut Podcast #30 was recorded on Friday April 17, 2020.

Dr. Ashby Monk is the Executive and Research Director of the Stanford Global Projects Center. His current research focus is on the design and governance of institutional investors, with particular specialization on pension and sovereign wealth funds. Outside of Stanford, he is the co-founder and Chairman of Long Game Savings. He received his Doctorate in Economic Geography at Oxford University and holds a Bachelor's in Economics from Princeton University.

Jelly Donut Podcast #28 was recorded on Friday April 24th, 2020.

Brendan Whittington is an associate portfolio manager at a hedge fund unit in a Boston-based asset management firm. His focus is on corporate high yield debt and distressed credit investing with an emphasis on off-the-run middle market companies. Brendan started his career at Lazard Freres & Co. as an investment banking analyst where he worked on corporate finance and capital structure engagements in addition to special advisory mandates including with the U.S. Treasury. In 2013, Brendan joined start-up hedge fund BulwarkBay Investment Group as an investment analyst where he began his buy-side career focusing on the high yield and distressed market. 

Brendan holds a Bachelor of Science in Commerce and Economics and is presently completing his Master of Business Administration from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management.  

Jelly Donut Podcast #27 was recorded on Friday May 1, 2020.

Hugh Hendry is the founder and former CIO of Eclectica Asset Management

Jelly Donut Podcast #26 was recorded on Friday April 24, 2020.

Chris Irons is a former bartender that is wholly unqualified to talk about finance. He hosts the popular QTR podcast.

Jelly Donut Podcast #25 was recorded on Friday April 3, 2020.

Dr. Benn Eifert is the managing member and CIO of QVR. He was previously co-founder and co-portfolio manager of Mariner Coria in New York. Before that he was Head of Quantitative Research and Derivatives Trader for the Wells Fargo prop desk, which became Overland Advisors. 

He has taught extensively in the Masters in Financial Engineering program at UC Berkeley, and started his career as an emerging markets macroeconomist at the World Bank. 

He holds a PhD in Economics from UC Berkeley and BA in Economics and International Relations from Stanford.

Jelly Donut Podcast #24 was recorded on Friday March 27, 2020.

Grant Williams has spent more than 30 years in the finance industry. He is a co-founder of Real Vision, and the author of the Things That Make You Go Hmmm … investment newsletter. Grant is also a portfolio and strategy advisor to Vulpes Investment Management in Singapore, and a regular speaker at investment conferences around the globe.

Jelly Donut Podcast #23 was recorded on March 20, 2020.

Peter Atwater is the president of Financial Insyghts and an adjunct professor in the Economics Department at William & Mary.  

He is a pioneer in the field of confidence-driven decision-making, studying how and why our confidence level naturally determines consumer preferences, decisions and actions.  

Called "a favorite source" by Rana Foroohar of the Financial Times, Peter's work has influenced the thinking of professional investors, business leaders and global policymakers.  

The Jelly Donut Podcast #22 with Julian Brigden was recorded on March 18, 2019.

Julian Brigden is the Co-Founder and President of Macro Intelligence 2  Partners. He brings 25 years of experience in financial markets. Julian  spent five years at Medley Global Advisors, a leading macro policy  intelligence firm and served as North American Head of Hedge Fund Sales at Crédit Agricole. He has worked in London, Zurich, New York and Vail  at UBS, Lehman Brothers, HSBC, Drexel, Credit Suisse, and Salomon  Brothers in FX and precious metals. He's been featured many financial  outlets including Bloomberg, CNBC, the New York Times, Wall Street  Journal and in Barron’s, for the firm's research on EM, liquidity, QE,  Bubbles, and global Fx.

Jelly Donut Podcast #21 was recorded on Friday March 13, 2020.

Mark B. Spiegel is the Managing Member & Portfolio Manager of Stanphyl Capital Partners and is a New York-based equity investor. Prior to founding Stanphyl in 2011, he spent six years as an investment banker (most recently as a Principal with Piper Jaffray & Co.) financing public companies. Prior to becoming an investment banker Mark spent a year working for a microcap Nasdaq tech company, and he began his career with 17 years in the commercial real estate industry where he experienced firsthand the opportunities and challenges faced by a wide array of client companies. Mark believes that all these experiences– banking public companies, working for a public company and securing real estate for a wide variety of companies– combine to provide the kind of “real world” experience that’s extremely useful for an investor. 

Jelly Donut Podcast #20 was recorded on March 13, 2020.

Alain Naef is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley. Previously, he was Teaching fellow in the Economics Faculty at the University of Cambridge where obtained his PhD on central bank intervention on the foreign exchange market. He has been a teaching assistant at the Economic History department of the London School of Economics and research associate at Judge Business School. 

He holds a bachelor in History, an MBA (Geneva and Wharton) and an MSc in Economic History with distinction (LSE). He won the Hunt price for best LSE economic history dissertation, the Distinguished Teaching Fellow prize from the Economics Faculty in Cambridge and was awarded a prize by the Cambridge Society of Applied Research (CSAR) for his work on central bank intervention.

He held visiting positions at Bank of France, Universidad de los Andes and Rutgers University. His research is currently funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation and he has won various grants from the Bank of France, the Keynes fund and the Economic History Society. His research has been featured in BBC radio, The Wall Street Journal, Le Temps and Newsweek. 

Jelly Donut Podcast #19 was recorded on Monday March 2, 2020

Michael Every is Head of Financial Markets Research, for the Asia-Pacific region, at Rabobank. He has nearly two decades of experience working as an Economist and Strategist. Previously, he was a Senior Economist and Fixed Income Strategist at RBS and was an Economist for Dun & Bradstreet. He holds a Masters degree in Economics with distinction from University College London, speaks Thai, and is a contributor to zero hedge.

Jelly Donut Podcast #18 was recorded on February 21st, 2020 

Jim Bianco is President and Macro Strategist at Bianco Research.

Since 1990 his commentaries have offered a unique perspective on the global economy and financial markets. Unencumbered by the biases of traditional Wall Street research, Jim has built a decades long reputation for objective, incisive commentary that challenges consensus thinking. Previously, he was a Market Strategist in equity and fixed income research at UBS Securities and Equity Technical Analyst at First Boston and Shearson Lehman Brothers. He is a Chartered Market Technician (CMT) and a member of the Market Technicians Association (MTA). He holds a B.S. in Finance from Marquette University (1984) and an MBA from Fordham University (1989).

Jelly Donut Podcast #17 was recorded on January 31st, 2020

Brad Cornell is a Managing Director Berkeley at Research Group, Emeritus Professor of Finance at Anderson Graduate School of Management, UCLA, and Senior Adviser at Cornell Capital Group. He has an A.B., Physics, Philosophy, and Psychology.  A masters in, Statistics and Ph.D., Financial Economics, all from Stanford University.

Jelly Donut Podcast #16 was recorded on January 24th, 2020

Dave Collum is a professor of Organic Chemistry at Cornell University. His popular year in review is widely anticipated among market participants and his work has been featured in ZeroHedge and Peak Prosperity. He’s appeared on Real Vision as well as many podcasts including Tales from the Crypt and QTR. He holds a B.S. in Biology from Cornell and a Ph.D Chemistry from Columbia.

Jelly Donut Podcast #14 was recorded on January 10th, 2020.

Mark Yusko is the Founder, CEO and Chief Investment Officer of Morgan Creek Capital Management and Managing Partner of Morgan Creek Digital Assets.

Prior to founding Morgan Creek, he was CIO and Founder of UNC Management Company (UNCMC). Before that, he was Senior Investment Director for the University of Notre Dame Investment Office.

He received a BA with Honors from the University of Notre Dame and an MBA in Accounting and Finance from the University of Chicago.

The Jelly Donut Podcast #12 was recorded on December 6, 2019.

Tavi Costa has been an analyst on Crescat’s investment team for more than five years with a focus on global cross-asset research. 

Tavi built Crescat’s macro model that identifies the current stage of the US economic cycle through a combination of 16 factors. His research has been featured multiple times in financial publications such as Bloomberg.

The Jelly Donut Podcast #11 was recorded on December 6, 2019.

Lyn Alden is the founder of Lyn Alden Investment Strategy at LynAlden.com, where she provides market research to individual investors and financial professionals with both a free newsletter and a premium research platform. 

She also writes for the financial sections of several publications, and has been cited on Business Insider, Marketwatch, Money Magazine, Kiplinger, Huffington Post, The Street, US News and World Report, and other financial media. 

Her investment strategy focuses on value investing with a macro overlay, which means finding long-term opportunities in individual stocks and various asset classes while taking into account the broader macro picture. Lyn's background comes from a blend of engineering and finance, which she uses to apply systems analysis on various investments and macro themes. She has a bachelor's degree in electronics engineering and a master's degree in engineering management, with a focus on engineering economics and financial modeling.

The Jelly Donut Podcast #10 was recorded on November 24, 2019.

George Pearkes is the Global Macro Strategist for Bespoke Investment Group. He covers markets and economies around the world and across assets, relying on economic data and models, policy analysis, and behavioral factors to guide asset allocation, idea generation, and analytical background for clients of ranging from individual investors to large institutions.

George started his career at Bank of America. He graduated from Duke University with a major in Public Policy, a minor in economics, and certificate in Markets and Management Studies. 

The Jelly Donut Podcast #9 with Julian Brigden was recorded on November 24, 2019.

Julian Brigden is the Co-Founder and President of Macro Intelligence 2 Partners. He brings 25 years of experience in financial markets. Julian spent five years at Medley Global Advisors, a leading macro policy intelligence firm and served as North American Head of Hedge Fund Sales at Crédit Agricole. He has worked in London, Zurich, New York and Vail at UBS, Lehman Brothers, HSBC, Drexel, Credit Suisse, and Salomon Brothers in FX and precious metals. He's been featured many financial outlets including Bloomberg, CNBC, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and in Barron’s, for the firm's research on EM, liquidity, QE, Bubbles, and global Fx.

Jelly Donut Podcast #8 - Tony Greer

The Jelly Donut Podcast #8 with Tony Greer was recorded on November 8, 2019.

Tony Greer is Editor of the Morning Navigator newsletter.  He managed currency and commodity risk for Sumitomo Bank, UBS, and Goldman Sachs throughout the 1990's.  He operated an equity sales trading franchise from several shops Wall Street from 2000 to 2016 until he launched his own publication and research product.  The only constant, along 30 years of institutional trading, has been Tony's daily written commentary on markets, currently known as the Morning Navigator newsletter.  This daily note reaches over 1,000 market professionals on a daily basis and impacts the lives of many others.

The Jelly Donut Podcast #7 with Kevin Muir was recorded on November 1, 2019.

Kevin Muir heads research of global and domestic investment products at East  West Investment Management.  Kevin is the former Head of Equity  Derivatives at RBC Dominion Securities and was awarded the CFA Charter in 2001.  He is also the author of The Macro Tourist newsletter.

The Jelly Donut Podcast #5 with Miles Kimball was recorded on October 17, 2019.

Miles Kimball holds the Eaton Chair in Economics at the University of Colorado Boulder and is Emeritus Professor of Economics and Survey Research of the University of Michigan. 

He is a pioneer in monetary policy is an advocate for deep negative interest rates to successfully fight economic crises. You can find his ideas on his blog, "Confessions of a Supply-Side Liberal.”

He holds a BA in Economics from Harvard, Master's in linguistics from BYU, and a also doctorate in economics from Harvard.

The Jelly Donut Podcast #4 with Jesse Felder was recorded on October 21, 2019.

Jesse has been managing money for over 20 years. He began his professional career at Bear, Stearns & Co. and later co-founded a multi-billion-dollar hedge fund firm headquartered in Santa Monica,  California. 

Since founding The Felder Report in 2005 his writing has been featured in many major finance publications including, The Wall Street  Journal, Barron's, The Huffington Post, MarketWatch, Yahoo!Finance,  Business Insider, Investing.com, Seeking Alpha and more. 

Jesse also  hosts and produces the "Superinvestors and the Art of Worldly Wisdom" podcast. Today he lives in Bend, Oregon with his wife and two kids.

The Jelly Donut Podcast #3 with David Einhorn was recorded on October 25, 2019.

David Einhorn is the president of Greenlight Capital, a long/short hedge fund he co-founded in 1996. 

He is active in various philanthropic efforts including City Year New York, Sohn Investment Conference, Robin Hood Foundation, and Einhorn Charitable Trust.

He graduated from Cornell University and is the author of the book, Fooling Some of the People All of the Time.

The Jelly Donut Podcast #2 with Ben Hunt was recorded on October 14, 2019.

Ben Hunt is the Chief Investment Officer at Second Foundation Partners, a consultant for large institutional investors, and the author of Epsilon Theory, a newsletter and website that examines markets through the lenses of game theory, history and nature. 

Over 100,000 professional investors and allocators across 200 countries read Epsilon Theory for its fresh perspective and novel insights into market dynamics. 

In prior positions, Ben has managed a billion dollar hedge fund and served as Chief Strategist for a $13 billion dollar asset manager. He has a Ph.D. from Harvard University, was a tenured Political Science professor, and has co-founded three technology companies. 

Ben spends lots of time on a family owned farm, which inspires many original ideas on the parallels between human and animal behavior.

The Jelly Donut Podcast #1 - David Levine was recorded on October 14, 2019.

David Levine founded Odin River in 2015.  Previously, David served as CIO of Artivest, a venture-backed company that provides Insight and Access to exceptional investing. Before  Artivest, David honed his investing experience at Paulson & Co., a hedge fund firm led by John Paulson.  While at Paulson & Co., David  made investments in industries including automotive, energy, software,  hardware and Internet. David was previously on the private equity investment team at Colony Capital, making investments in gaming,  hospitality and real estate. 

His investment experience also includes time at Canyon Capital and PAAMCO. David began his career in Lehman Brothers’ Mergers & Acquisitions Group where he focused on power.   David received an MBA, with honors, from Harvard Business School and a  JD, cum laude, from Harvard Law School.  He graduated from Washington  University, receiving an AB in Philosophy, summa cum laude, and a BSBA  in Finance, magna cum laude. David is also the Vice Chairman of the  Leadership Council of Year Up New York and is a member of the New York bar.