Blog Posts

Japanification, or Japanization, refers to the idea that other developed markets are at risk of following Japan in its low-growth and low-inflation pattern that has characterized the decades following the popping of the country’s 1989 bubble. Japanification is also often called secular stagnation. Japan has lots of debt, negative population growth, and sagging productivity growth rates. […]

Given how low cash and bond rates are (and because that’s, generally, how it always is), the nature of monetary and fiscal policy has big effects on currencies (FX) and commodities as well. In this article, we’ll discuss why currency (FX) and commodities trading are likely to see a rebirth in popularity. At the least, […]

After a recession, the central bank has big incentives to get the economy going again. Traders then largely shift to what are called reflation trades, which will benefit from this backdrop. Central banks start by lowering interest rates. This makes cash less attractive to own. This incentivizes the ownership of riskier assets and more spending […]

Business models can take many different shapes depending on the way the products and services are delivered to the market. Asset-lite and asset-heavy businesses can largely be viewed through a “pipes” (pipelines) vs. “platforms” framework. Recognizing the two and their differences is important as it will ultimately help determine the nature of a stock‘s upside […]

Cryptocurrency is an incredible invention. It’s increasingly become a type of currency and store of value that’s been programmed into a computer and sustained to last. At this time of increased money and debt creation as economies try to relieve their economic problems – a process that will go on for some time – there […]

AQR recently published its report on its expectations for asset class returns over the medium-term – i.e., next 5-10 years. This covers the following asset classes: – US equities – Non-US developed market equities – Emerging market equities – US high-yield credit – US investment-grade (IG) credit – US 10-year Treasuries – Non-US 10-year government […]

GameStop (GME) and AMC Entertainment (AMC) made a notable run, ignited by a social media frenzy that took on a life its own. We discussed more of the backstory in other articles, such as here. There was a pop and that eventually faded. This was inevitable, as these companies – and other widely shorted small caps […]

In short, GameStop (GME) mania began when some smart retail traders started hyping up a stock on social media with some peculiar characteristics: 1. It had a low valuation. Its price reached a low of $2.57 per share. That valued the once-popular video game and consumer electronics retailer at only a couple hundred million dollars. […]

There is a new paradigm in monetary and fiscal policy. This has implications for investing in a zero interest rate environment. For a brief refresher, there are three broad categories of monetary policy (which has been covered in other articles in more depth). i) Adjustment of short-term interest rates. Once you get those to zero […]

Envisioning the next major military war and its impact on financial markets (and, of course, the world) is difficult, as the range of unknowns is so high. But one thing we should acknowledge is that it’s likely to be much more brutal than most would imagine. World War II was much more deadly than World […]