Market Champions

Alf joins us again for another round of macro - and he shares what it takes to build a trading process, his thoughts on where opportuntieis lie, where we may be in the economic cycle and the risks associated with the hiking cycle.

Chase is founder of Pinecone Macro. Here he discusses his views on the banking crisis, why the Fed is making a policy mistake and should've stopped hiking 200bps ago, his favourite currency trades in a recession event and more!

Jeff Snider is the founder of Eurodollar University, a monetary economics education platform and one of the foremost experts on the global dollar system. Here he discusses what really happened behind the banking crisis, what liquidity looks like, QE vs QT, where we go from here and more!

Alfonso "Alf" Peccatiello is the founder and CEO of the Macro Compass, and the ex-head of a $20B bond portfolio. Alf joins me to discuss - is the economy as strong as it seems, whether the labor market is weakening, what's going on in Europe, the Chinese reopening story and more!

Michael Green is Portfolio Manager and Chief Strategist at Simplify Asset Management. Here Mike discusses his views on labor markets, transitory inflation, 0DTE options and their impact on market microstructure as well as recent political events wrt China and how much they matter.

Adam Rodman is the founder and CIO of Segra Capital, a hedge fund presently focused on the nuclear energy industry and uranium. In this episode, we discuss the differences between the present cycle and the one in 2006, how off-balance sheet "carry trades" matter to the uranium market, as well as how Adam uses option markets and shorting to his advantage to manage through the volatility investing in uranium ensues, and more!

Mike Ashton is founder and principal at Enduring Investments, and is known as the inflation guy. We have a wide ranging conversation surrounding demographics, causes of inflation, monetary economics and how money printing works as well as how to build a portfolio that hedges inflation risk.

Eric Basmajian is the founder of EPB Research and is very well-known for his work surrounding economic cycles and leading economic indicators. Here he discusses his favorite economic indicators, how he approaches them using a basket/index approach, and then we discuss what's next for the housing and labor markets! 

Michael Howell is the founder of Crossborder Capital and has been tracking liquidity flows for decades now. Crossborder is well known for their research into liquidity and harnessing it as part of the investment approach. Here he discusses:

When do banks lend?

Does the Fed "print" money?

How does the Fed's liquidity additions make their way to the market?

And much much more!

You can also purchase his book here: https://www.amazon.com/Capital-Wars-Rise-Global-Liquidity-ebook/dp/B086BBF1H9

Alex is the founder and CIO of HonTe Investments, and he returns to Market Champions to give an update on how he's thinking about where the world is headed, why he thinks we have a >50% probability of seeing negative rates by 2024, ways he's thinking of playing it, insights into his risk management process and more!

I had the opportunity to interview the legendary short seller Jim Chanos. Jim is the founder and president of Kynikos Associates and is very well known for shorting Enron, Wirecard, Luckin Coffee among others. In this conversation we touch up on some of the major issues today - the FTX collapse and what it means for the crypto world, the Uber and Lyft story and why they, among other "gig economy" companies, remain unprofitable. We also talk about the fate of the various Cathie Wood names, and much more in this wide-ranging conversation!

John Ciampaglia serves as Chief Executive Officer of Sprott Asset Management and as Senior Managing Director of Sprott Inc. Here we discuss the various dynamics in nuclear energy, uranium markets, where he sees the market heading, as well as a discussion on gold, oil, and more!

Michael Kao is the founder of Akanthos Capital. Here he joins me to give an overview of what is going on in oil and then we jump into a deep discussion on the US Dollar, geopolitics, China and much more!

Julie Cane is the CEO and Managing Partner at Democracy Investments and has a 20-year long finance career that spawned after leaving the navy. Her firm, Democracy Investments is focused around investing by overweighting democracies and underweighting authoritarian regimes. 

Rick Rikoski is the Chief Economist at Democracy Investments, who started in finance after getting a PhD from MIT in Marine Robotics. Here we discuss a lot of the important geopolitical, social and cultural events shaping the economic landscape and how Democracy Investments is looking to take stock of those changes.

Jim Bianco is the founder and President at Bianco Research - based in Chicago, IL. Here, he discusses the various changes he sees in the economy, labor vs capital, and his thesis for how a 4% inflation world looks like. He also shares his views on central banking as well as how they've overstepped their actual function.

Ken Miller is a portfolio manager at Simplify. He was formerly at PIMCO (where he was a PM and EVP), where he worked closely with Bill Gross and at Longtail Alpha, where he was a PM and worked closely with Vineer Bhansali.

In this episode, Ken gets into optimizing trade structure, how to analyze market internal dynamics as well as talk about how he found his best trades / hedges right before the financial crisis in the Japanese Yen options market, and more!

Mercer is the world's largest outsourced asset manager with about $300B in AUM and $15T in AUA. I had the opportunity to speak with Mercer Canada's CIO, Rachel Volynsky, to discuss what asset managers are up to, where she sees inflation going, how she's thinking about allocating in this environment, and much more!

Shailesh Gupta is a portfolio manager and head of trading at Simplify Asset Management. Here he discusses the profile of short vol strategies, how to size positions as an "alt equity" exposure, as well as why strategies like XIV blew up and much more!

Check out the video for charts as well!

Hugh Hendry is a financier and was the founder and manager of Eclectica Asset Management, a former global macro hedge fund. Here he shares his views on inflation, the Fed, multipolar world theory, as well as some ideas around finding trade ideas from the "inside".

You can get his hats and other merch here - https://pixel-gallery.co.uk/collections/acid-capitalist-trucker-hats

Marko Papic is a partner and chief strategist at Clocktower Group, an alternative investment asset management firm. He leads the firm's Strategy Team, providing bespoke research to clients and partners on geopolitics, macroeconomics, and markets.

Here he discusses the various aspects of his geopolitical analysis framework, how the idea of the Buenos Aires consensus has evolved, as well as what the Chinese government will do on the CCP meeting, and much more!

You can get his book here: https://www.amazon.ca/Geopolitical-Alpha-Investment-Framework-Predicting/dp/1119740215 

Louis-Vincent Gave co-founded GaveKal in 1999 with his father Charles and Anatole Kaletsky and serves as CEO. GaveKal started as a research firm and evolved in 2005 to include fund management and data analysis services.

Here Louis discusses China, inflation, the European energy crisis and much more!

Richard Howe is the founder of Stock Spinoff Investing. Prior to this, he was at Citi Private Wealth where he worked as a Senior Vice President, and was an Equity Research Associate at Eaton Vance. Here he discusses how he discusses Stock Spinoffs, special situations, as well as some of his past investments and ideas he's watching right now!

You can find his blog here: https://stockspinoffinvesting.com/

Rory Johnston is a commodity and energy analyst and the author of Commodity Context. Here he discusses the various narratives and dynamics driving the oil market since the pandemic, where the shortages are, what supply vs demand is looking like at the moment, how to analyze futures curves and more!

Lyn Alden has been performing investment research for over fifteen years in various public and private capacities and founded Lyn Alden Investment Strategy in 2016. In this episode she discusses economic growth, the Fed, as well as an update on her energy positions and where she's looking to allocate capital.

Devin Crane is co-founder and CEO of Breaking Equity Strategies. Breaking Equity brings a two-sided platform to build, buy and sell automated strategies. Here Devin discusses how to create individual ETFs, how Breaking Equity can help traders incoroporate AI into their daily trading and more!

Mark Koyama is an Associate Professor of Economics at George Mason University's Mercatus Center, Senior Scholar. Professor Koyama got his PhD in Economics from the University of Oxford. 

Here he discusses the ideas presented in his latest book, where he talks about how demographics, institutions, culture and more have had influences on the economic development of a country.

You can find the book here: https://www.amazon.com/How-World-Became-Rich-Historical/dp/1509540237

Paul has over 25 years’ experience as an economic and political strategist. He founded View from the Peak in 2011, seeing a need for a truly global, multi-asset class research platform that focuses on the interactions between public policy, economic trends, technology, and geopolitics. View from the Peak takes its name from Victoria Peak, the highest point on Hong Kong Island and the firm aims to look at the world from a 360-degree view with an Asian perspective. Prior to that he traded under trading legends like Bruce Kovner and Louis Bacon!

Andy Fately is an FX trader, and writes the fxpoet blog! Here he discusses what it was like back in the 1980s and 1990s ("heyday of Wall Street"), shares some fun trading stories, and also shares his views on where he thinks markets are headed next!

Brent is the founder of Santiago Capital, and well known for his ideas around the Dollar Milkshake Theory. Here he discusses Japan, emerging markets, what the Fed is up to, and more, as well as an update on the Dollar Milkshake and where he sees the USD going from here!

Brian Romanchuk is a consultant, author and blogger, and writes at bondeconomics.com where he writes about central banks, monetary policy, bonds and more! In this interview he discusses how central banks really function, what the Fed is doing by hiking rates, what most people get wrong about MMT and more!

Ben Emons is Managing Director and Macro Strategist at Medley Global - one of the largest macro research firms in the world. Here he describes whether we're entering a recession in the US, how to think through Europe and Asian macro as well as how to think through rates and FX trades here and more!

Tom Roderick is a portfolio manager at Trium Capital. Before that, he was partner at Eclectica Asset Management and he talks about how he went from theoretical physics to finance, his thoughts on the lockdowns+yuan, inflation and his 3 "D" framework, and much more!

Russell Clark was the founder and manager of Russell Clark Investments, and now writes at russell-clark.com. Here he discusses how minimum wage laws have changed over time, how he's thinking about China and more!

Brent Donnelly is President at Spectra Markets and writes am/FX - a daily newsletter dedicated to currency markets. Here he discusses his views on the macroeconomy, how he's thinking about the Fed as well as how he thinks through changing regimes as they relate to rate differentials and more!

Shrubbery Capital is presently the CIO and founder of a hedge fun - here he discusses the bullish case for commodities, stagflation, and how cash serves as a hedge in what he considers to be a dangerous market for investors!

Josh Wolfe is the co-founder of Lux Capital, a $4B venture capital firm. Here he discusses some of the biggest advances made in precision manufacturing, science, biotech, AI and how they drive the future of our world!

Andy is the former CIO of a hedge fund, and has a pedigree with some of the biggest hedge funds on Wall Street. Here he discusses the Fed and how they affect asset markets from a risk premium standpoint, what he continues to watch for, and more!

Jeff Snider is Head of Global Research at Alhambra Investments. Here he discusses analyzing the Eurodollar futures curve as a probability distribution, what different yield curves are telling us, why the Petrodollar is not a real thing and more!

John Ciampaglia has more than 25 years of investment industry experience and serves as Chief Executive Officer of Sprott Asset Management and as Senior Managing Director of Sprott Inc. Here we discuss uranium market dynamics, how the spot market for uranium really works, why the market is so opaque and more!

Jim Leitner is the founder of Falcon Management, a family office based in Wyckoff, NJ. Here he talks about the long ags trade, his BRL and CLP long trades as well as why he's out of his uranium position.

Daniel Want is the founder and CIO of Prerequisite Capital based in Australia. Here he shares his story, his views on markets ahead and how to apply a systems thinking framework for thinking about the world.

Lots of awesome information from Daniel!

Bilal Hafeez is the founder of MacroHive and formerly an FX and Rates Strategist at some of the big banks. Here he talks about how to build a framework, his thoughts on the Russia-Ukraine situation and where he sees opportunity going forward!

Jon Turek is the founder of JST Advisor and the publisher of the Cheap Convexity blog. Here he discusses his thoughts on the hiking cycle, what's next for Europe and Asia and more!

You can find his blog here- https://cheapconvexity.substack.com/

Michael Kao began his career on the desk of J Aron and went on to run his own relative value convertible arbitrage hedge fund - Akanthos Capital. Here he shares his journey, the ups and downs and how one call from George Soros changed his career

Alf is the author of the free macro newsletter The Macro Compass, which you can find here: https://themacrocompass.substack.com/

Here he shares his macro outlook, yield curves and what theyre telling us why growth is likely to slow, and more!

Russell Clark was formerly running Russell Clark Investment Management, and is well known for his thoughts on Asia, macro, short selling and hedge funds. He presently shares his thoughts here- https://substack.com/profile/46635037-russell-clark

In this episode we discuss - central banks, Japan, China, higher energy prices, food prices and more!

Jeff Dorman is the CIO of Arca, and was formerly a trader in the "tradfi" world - at places like Lehman and Citadel. Here he talks about his transition to DeFi from Tradfi, the case for digital assets and where he sees opportunity today!

Alex Gurevich is the founder and CIO of Honte Investments and formerly ran global macro at JP Morgan. Here he discusses building a macro process, sizing, where he sees opportunities, his take on the transitory narrative, and his new and upcoming book - The Trades of March, where he discusses how he traded (very profitably) through March. 

You can order the book here: https://www.amazon.com/Trades-March-2020-against-Uncertainty-ebook/dp/B09NX372KG