Macro Voices Podcasts

A conversation on April 4, 2016 between Grant Williams and Michael Schneider, Chief Investment Officer of Brookline Partners.

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Erik Townsend and Aaron Chan welcome Jeffrey Christian to MacroVoices. Erik and Jeffrey discuss:

• U.S. Dollar predictions and the range-bound outlook
• Brexit contagion and potential impacts on gold and silver
• Forward near-term guidane for gold and silver prices
• Outlooks for macroeconomic drivers of precious metals
• Economic and financial susceptibility given middling global GDP growth
• Rejecting old mental models with unprecedentedly low real and nominal interest rates 
• Excess reserve accumulation backfiring against Fed intentions
• Continued expected disinflationary and deflationary forces until monetary and/or fiscal policy shifts
• Low probability of a medium-term moonshot in precious metals prices assuming continued disinflation
• Billionaire investors going public with bearish economic and market calls
• Degradation of global political cooperation
• Trump vs. Clinton implications for global markets and precious metals

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Erik Townsend and Aaron Chan welcome Art Berman to MacroVoices. Erik and Art discuss:

• Looking beyond absolute inventory numbers and gleaning insights from comparative inventories
• Recent anomalous comparative builds relative to historic trends
• Continued time-spread compression reflecting producer hedging or lack of concern for a storage crisis
• The selective capital raising environment for producers
• Oil market balance and Saudi Arabia's fundamentally ineffectual 'production freeze'
• Stabilizing US production and evaporation of upside price catalysts
• Feedback loop of insanity in inventory builds and production
• Claims of sub-$40 producers in the Permian basin
• Concerns over consumption growth not aligning with change in prices
• Timing for a moonshot in oil prices following a period of supply destruction and investment deficits

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A conversation on January 5, 2016 between Grant Williams and Willem Middelkoop, founder of the Commodity Discovery Fund and author of the worldwide bestseller The Big Reset.

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Erik Townsend and Aaron Chan welcome Dr. Gary Shilling to MacroVoices. Erik and Gary discuss:

• The continued perception of the U.S. Dollar as a safe haven currency
• Why the long-bond trade isn't over and illuminate the forces driving yields lower
• Reasoning behind going long defensive stocks despite a bearish view on equities
• Time-horizon for $20 oil
• The global commodity supply overhang
• Helicopter money in the form of infrastructure and defense spending
• The impacts of a Clinton or Trump presidency on markets

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Erik Townsend and Aaron Chan welcome Jeffrey Snider to MacroVoices. Erik and Jeffrey discuss:

• Rich equity valuations despite an on-going earnings recession
• Off-track corporate cash flows and profits as evidence of a weakening economic environment
• The mainstream misconception and myth that the Fed provides liquidity thereby levitating equity valuations 
• The chronic and acute dollar shortage as evidenced by the decaying post-2007 global eurodollar system
• Global central banks resorting to sellng Treasuries as a means to filling dollar funding gaps
• Milton Friedman's Interest Rate Fallacy and how long-run low interest rates demonstrate tightness of money supply
• How the tight-dollar environment manifests itself in the increasingly disorderly global repo market
• The complete disconnect between inferred interest rate bearishness in eurodollar futures and QE as liquidity
• TED-spread volatility and other wholesale financial measures suggesting central banks might be losing control
• The Fed's inadequate response to the structural contraction in the global eurodollar system
• Wholesale eurodollar system not tracking with prior exponential growth and demonstrating permanent monetary disruption
• How the preponderance of evidence necessitates a systemic reset
• Why central bankers lack the answers by being married to an incongruent monetary framework
• The potentially galvanizing catalyst between nations in lieu of a serious crisis

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A conversation on March 21, 2016 between Grant Williams and Paul Brodsky, founder of Macro Allocation Inc. 

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Erik Townsend and Aaron Chan welcome Paul Brodsky to MacroVoices. Erik and Paul discuss:

• The necessary global reset due to insurmountable leverage
• Views and outlook for U.S. Treasuries despite obvious sovereign insolvency
• Signals for exiting the bond market bubble
• The opacity of currency and monetary issues in Europe
• Current monetary policy environment as slow-motion "water torture" for the global economy
• The false deleveraging narrative when viewed in the light of base money
• The possibility of central banks printing money to buy gold
• Thinking behind owning gold bullion relative to gold mining shares
• Oil's role in U.S. Dollar hegemony and likelihood of change
• Scenarios including disinflation, followed by hyperinflation

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Erik Townsend and Aaron Chan welcome Charles Biderman to MacroVoices. Erik and Charles discuss:

• Big picture and current market contexts beginning from Post-WW2
• Dynamics between developed and emerging market currencies
• Flight capital impact on U.S. markets
• Predictions for U.S. Treasury yields
• Possible catalysts to bring-on the endgame and portfolio allocations
• Backstory related to sub-advisor relationship with and termination from AdvisorShares
• TrimTabs' proprietary Float Shrink strategy and outperformance

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A conversation on April 25, 2016 between Grant Williams and Stephen Diggle, founder of Vulpes Investment Management.

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Erik Townsend and Aaron Chan welcome David S. Rose to MacroVoices. Erik and David discuss:

• Background and introduction to angel investing and entrepreneurship through his great uncle David Rose
• What angel investing actually is, how it might fit in a portfolio, and who it is suited for
• The time-horizon, temperament, and risk-tolerance required for angel investing
• The appropriate mind-set when approaching angel investing
• Expected investment returns from angel investing and the role of diversification
• Why it's “far better to invest in the jockey than on the horse”
• Balancing and matching between entrepreneurial execution and bright ideas
• Mechanics and funding sequence of an angel deal
• Post-investment lifecycle 
• The importance of networking with veteran angel investors prior to initial investments
• How the Angel Capital Association vets angel investing groups
• Learning through reading, finding a mentor, and investing
• Gust.com angel investing platform, Singularity University and exponential technology

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Erik Townsend and Aaron Chan welcome Eric Hunsader to MacroVoices. Erik and Eric discuss:

• Regulation National Market System (NMS), securities information processors (SIPs), high-frequency trading (HFT), and latency arbitrage
• Eric's incredible story of exposing the NYSE's selling of higher-speed data feeds to high-frequency traders
• "Quote-stuffing" and how it provides an unfair advantage through compromising quote systems
• Manual traders "spoofing" as a means of tricking algorithmic systems
• The fallacy of HFT providing greater liquidity in the market
• The legal immunity of U.S. exchanges as Self-Regulatory Organizations (SRO)
• How retail investor orders are executed and taken advantage of by internalizers
• Micro-timestamp resolution as a means for transparency
• How IEX prevents latency arbitrage through "speed-bumping" by 1/1000th of a blink of an eye
• The potential of combining power and integrity in a market devoid of transparency
• Nanex's differentiated market data offering

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A conversation on May 29, 2016 between Grant Williams and Stephanie Pomboy, founder of MacroMavens.

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Erik Townsend and Aaron Chan welcome Richard Dickson to MacroVoices. Erik and Richard discuss:

• Lowry Research’s approach of looking at markets through buying power and selling pressure
• The divergence in price action versus buying power and selling pressure indices
• What the divergence means in terms of market accumulation or distribution
• Dynamic of foreign capital flight in an environment of zero interest rates
• Similarity between new market entrants in 1999 and present day
• The poor balance of supply and demand in the FTSE 100 post-Brexit
• The increase in the balance of selling in Italian equities, where 65% of stocks are trading on intermediate down-trends
• Buying power topping and selling pressure accelerating in Italy and Spain prior to Brexit
• How even a perceived economic stalwart like Germany is susceptible to weakening market conditions
• Lagging European sectors relative to the rest of the world
• Chinese, Japanese, Indian, and Australian supply and demand dynamics
• How much further U.S. indices have to advance before reaching a level that generates profit-taking

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Erik Townsend and Aaron Chan introduce the Accredited Investor Academy Series, Part I. We’re taking this week off from our regular show format, so instead of a featured interview guest, we’re airing the first of a four-part series about learning to be a sophisticated private investor.

Erik and Aaron discuss:

• Erik's personal journey from successful software entrepreneur to hedge fund manager
• What it means to be an accredited investor and the associated challenges that go along with the distinction
• Private banking and possible red flags
• Erik's personal experience with private bankers and "exclusive" investment deals
• The lessons learned from the implosion of this "exclusive" private banking deal that resulted in substantial loss of capital
• Erik's subsequent reinvention into a professional investor
• The challenges associated with transfering from software business culture to Wall Street
• Coming in Part II: The process of re-inventing oneself from Entrepreneur to sophisticated Private Investor
• Coming in Parts III and IV: Angel investing, Venture Capital, Private Equity LPs, & Hedge Funds

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A conversation on January 26, 2016 between Grant Williams and James Grant, author of Grant's Interest Rate Observer.

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Erik Townsend welcomes Grant Williams to MacroVoices. Erik and Grant discuss:

• Grant’s experience and insights from observing Brexit outside of the UK
• The next-steps and long-run view for the UK post-Brexit
• The potential of the EU making an example out of the UK to prevent other countries from leaving
• The current political void in British politics and who might step-up to fill this void
• The precarious state of the European banking system
• Deutsche Bank’s status as “Too Big to Fail”
• How Brexit will spread political contagion and stoke calls for referenda in other European countries
• The likelihood of the Fed having to ease with only 25 bps of room
• What the dollar and gold both moving higher portends for the state of the global economy
• The non-zero probability of war as a means of resolving unsurmountable debt burdens
• Possible war scenarios under Trump or Clinton
• Grant’s wonderfully-done “Crazy” presentation on RVTV

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Erik Townsend welcomes Steve Keen to MacroVoices. Erik and Professor Keen discuss:

• Brexit's economic consequences and possible political spillover into other European countries
• Ditching the ivory tower in favor of working with entrepreneurs
• The emergence of alternative currencies backed by labor and assets
• The possibility of an energy-backed currency
• The fundamental ingredient of trust in alternative currencies
• The risk of entrusting private enterprise with money creation
• Negative interest rates and fractional reserve banking
• Fading mainstream confidence in neoclassical central bankers
• Possible catalysts for the next financial crisis

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A conversation on May 23, 2016 between Grant Williams and Simon Mikhailovich, Co-Founder of Toqueville Bullion Reserve.

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Erik Townsend welcomes John Llewellyn to MacroVoices. Erik and John discuss:

• How the Brexit vote is simply a prelude to a highly uncertain process
• Polling accuracy and the distinct possibility of Britain exiting the EU
• The near-term economic impacts of Brexit on the British economy including lower foreign-direct investment and trade re-negotiations
• The broader global economic impact of a “leave” vote
• Brexit’s impact on the U.S. Dollar and the possibility of re-igniting a Asian debt crisis
• Potential monetary policy accommodation from the ECB
• The implications of Brexit on global oil prices
• Rise of European populism as a leading indicator of the U.S. political theatre

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