Alex Gurevich On Trading COVID, Inflation and Games
Alex Gurevich is the Founder and CIO of HonTe Advisors, LLC. Alex has been involved in trading for over 20 years; holding various roles on Wall Street that included the launch of fixed income derivative trading franchises as well as running the macro book at JP Morgan. More recently, Alex has transformed his very successful family office into a global macro strategy suitable for institutional investors. He is the author of The Next Perfect Trade (2015) and soon to be published The Trades of March. Alex was born and raised in St. Petersburg, Russia and earned his PhD in mathematics from the University of Chicago. On this podcast we discuss: How games like chess, go and poker can help your investing Why sticking to take profits and stops is important Which markets follow valuation Alex’s experience of trading COVID in March 2020 and lessons learned How to think about the current inflation debate US real yields could head lower Recent front-end sell is overdone Australia could be a stand-out market Dollar view Why equities don’t follow the economic cycle Books that influenced Alex: Lord of the Rings (Tolkien), On Being Certain (Burton) Sci-fi book recommendations: Hyperion (Simmons), Ender’s Game (Card), Rise of a Merchant Prince (Feist), The Dagger and the Coin (Abraham), Expanse (Corey)
Scott Lynn on Investing In Art, Diversification and NFTs
Scott is the Founder and CEO of Masterworks, a platform for investing in art markets. Scott has been an active collector of contemporary art for more than fifteen years and has built an internationally-recognized collection of Abstract Expressionism that has included works by Clyfford Still, Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning, and more. In addition to Masterworks, Scott serves on the board of v2 ventures (Adparlor, Giant Media, Reachmobi, Amply, and Sellozo), Payability, and the Brooklyn Rail (a non-profit publication in the art industry). In this podcast we discuss: What determines the value of art Importance of gallery representation and marketing How has liquidity evolved in the art market Where are the main buyers of art from? How different segments of art market have performed What is the expected return of art? How does art correlate to other asset classes? When has art underperformed? Examples of artists whose art has performed well: from Basquiat to Gilliam How can investors get exposure to art? Views on NFT Books that influenced Scott: Thinking, Fast and Slow (Kahneman) and Competitive Strategy (Porter)
Azeem Azhar On the Exponential Age, Unlimited Companies and Tech Challenges
Azeem is the creator of Exponential View, a leading platform for in-depth tech analysis. His weekly newsletter is read by 200,000 people from around the world, and his podcast has featured guests including Yuval Noah Harari, Tony Blair and Kate Raworth. A member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Futures Council, Azeem contributes to publications including the Financial Times, Wired and the MIT Technology Review. His new book is called Exponential: How Accelerating Technology Is Leaving Us Behind and What to Do. In this podcast we discuss: The four technologies driving exponential age What’s different between today and previous tech transitions How tech companies defy conventional understanding Why productivity has been low Climate change and productivity Understanding US/China/Europe tech rivalry Importance of big tech in dealing with cyber risk Books that influenced Azeem: Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital (Perez) and Letters to a Young Poet (Rilke)
Boris Vladimirov on Reverse Goldilocks, Central Bank Credibility, and Market Winners
Boris is one of the top macro thinkers in the market. He is a managing director at Goldman Sachs. Before GS, he was partner and portfolio manager at Rokos Capital Management, Fortress and Brevan Howard. Boris started his career on the sell-side which included working at UBS and Dresdner. Boris will be giving his personal opinions and not those of Goldman Sachs or any other organisations he is affiliated to. In this podcast, we discuss: What is reverse goldilocks? Parallels and differences to 1970s stagflation The challenge of the current regime How will policymakers respond? What gives central banks credibility? What does it mean for macro environment? Views on China How will equities, bonds and FX perform Why terms of trade matter
Marc Rubinstein on Understanding Banks, the Crypto Challenge and Private Equity
Marc is author of Net Interest – a leading weekly newsletter on the world of finance. Before this, Marc spent ten years at leading hedge fund Lansdowne Partners, where he was a partner and portfolio manager. This was after he spent time on the sell-side working for Barclays Investment Bank (BZW), Schroders and then Credit Suisse, where he was head of the European banks research team. In this podcast we discuss: How to predict financial crises How are financials different from other companies What do banks price-to-bank ratios tell us? Can banks rebrand themselves as fintech? What are the key fintech trends How will credit evolve Is the crypto challenge to finance real? How to do well in angel investing Why have private equity firms institutionalised better than hedge funds What is the state of sell-side research? Books that influenced Marc: Fooled by Randomness (Taleb), Origin of Wealth (Beinhocker) and The (Mis)Behaviour of Markets (Mandelbrot).
Anas Alhajji On the Energy Outlook, Climate Change and Arctic Oil
This episode is sponsored by Masterworks. Dr. Anas Alhajji is a leading energy markets expert, and advises governments, companies, and financial institutions on energy markets. He focuses on oil and gas market outlook, energy geopolitics, energy security, and the impact of disruptive technologies on the supply and demand of energy. He is the Managing Partner at Energy Outlook Advisors LLC, and was previously the Chief Economist of NGP Energy Capital Management. He is also a contributing editor for top industry publication: World Oil. Before moving to industry, Anas taught economics at the University of Oklahoma, the Colorado School of Mines and Ohio Northern University. In this podcast we discuss: False ideas around what drives oil prices What supply and demand drivers matter Why OPEC doesn’t matter Why peak oil is wrong Why bearish oil demand forecasts on ESG/climate change are wrong How governments and companies are not acting on carbon neutrality How Iran oil supply has continued despite sanctions Oil underinvestment in oil producing nations Saudi, US and Russian oil supply outlook The Arctic oil play China’s dominance in oil markets The rise of private generators Book that Anas rates: Kuwait in the Time of British Empire (Khajah)
Richard Muirhead On VC Investing, Picking Winners and Web 3.0
Richard is a co-founder and Managing Partner at Fabric Ventures – a VC fund adapting the early, technical, and patient approach of venture capital to investing in Web 3.0 and decentralised data networks. Fabric invested in the likes of Polkadot, Ocean Protocol, Orchid, Blockstack, zeppelin_os, and Keep, among others. Richard combines a pedigree in open source, developer-oriented tools, and early-stage venture investing with blockchain focus since 2013, and has invested in Pantera Venture Fund, Bitstamp, Bitrise, Tray.io, Transferwise, and Citymapper. Richard was previously a 3x software entrepreneur, building/ scaling Automic (CA), Tideway (BMC), and Orchestream (Oracle) – reaching a cumulative market cap of billions. In this podcast we discuss: Starting companies versus investing What makes start-ups and their founders successful What returns should one expect in VC What is the Open Economy and Web 3.0 Centralisation vs de decentralisation Books that influenced Richard: Strangers in a Strange Land (Heinlein), Future History (Heinlein), Atlas Shrugged (Rand), and The Third Chimpanzee (Diamond)
David Dredge On Defining Risk, Profiting from Extreme Moves, and Convexity
David has over 30 years’ experience of managing risk across global markets. David is the CIO of Singapore-based Convex strategies – which focuses on risk management including protecting against dislocations in asset markets. Prior to launching Convex Strategies, he served as a Managing Director and Portfolio Manager at Artradis Fund Management in Singapore. Earlier in his career, David built and ran Asian and Global EM trading businesses for RBS (ABN AMRO Group), Bankers Trust and Bank of America. David holds an MBA from University of California, Berkeley. He currently sits on the Monetary Authority of Singapore Markets Committee (SFEMC). In this podcast we discuss: The confusion between measuring risk and managing risk The problem with value-at-risk and defining risk What is convexity Why buying options is not ‘expensive’ Importance of compound returns over arithmetic returns How to think about ergodicity Why allocation to bonds don’t provide the right downside protection Getting your defense right, insurance and long vol strategies The role of central banks in shifting equity-bond correlations The importance of time in convexity strategies The growing fragility in the financial system Managing correlation risk Books that influenced David: How Nature Works (Bak), The Misbehaviour of Markets (Mandelbrot), The Incerto Collection (Taleb), The Road to Serfdom (Hayek), Ubiquity (Buchanan), Radical Uncertainty (King)
Todd Edgar On Managing Money, China and Advice from Paul Tudor Jones
Todd Edgar has over 28 years’ experience in financial markets. He has spent the last 2 years as CIO of Atreaus Family, a family office, allocating capital to equities, rates, commodities, FX, Crypto and real estate. Prior to that, he spent 9 years as Founder of Atreaus Capital, a global macro hedge fund with a peak AUM of over $3bn. He also served as Global Head of Macro Proprietary at Barclays Capital and before that as Global Head of the Commodities and FX Proprietary Trading at JPMorgan. Todd has also been a Portfolio Manager at Tudor Investment Corp. He graduated from the University of New South Wales, Sydney, currently lives on Long Island, NY. In this podcast we discuss: Challenges of running a hedge fund How have markets changed since the global financial crisis (2008) Approach to investing Reasons for being long China bonds PBoC the new Bundesbank Are commodities in a new supercycle? How to think about inflation Views on crypto markets How to avoid losses impacting your future performance Advice from Paul Tudor Jones Book that influenced Todd: Market Wizards (Schwager) and Trading in the Zone (Douglas)
David Woo On Persistence Of COVID, Stagflation, and Political Taboos
David is the author of the blog, David Woo Unbound. Before that, he was Head of Global Rates, FX and EM Fixed Income Strategy & Economics Research at BofA Merrill Lynch Global Research. In that role, he was responsible for the bank’s views and forecasts for developed and emerging sovereign bond yields and exchange rates. He was earlier at Barclays Capital, Citigroup and the IMF. David has a Ph.D. in economics from Columbia University. In this podcast we discuss: Why news media has become more politicised The impact of globalization on inequality What explains countries with high COVID cases Why Trump was right on vaccine vs COVID elimination COVID to remain a factor in coming years Return to stagflation Mnuchin under-rated as Treasury Secretary, Yellen over-rated Supply-side policies/inequality under Trump The fundamental shifts in US-China relations China tech policy is what Biden wishes he could do Book that influenced David: Predictioneer (de Mesquita)