MARKETS

“Alan thinks about the financial system the way a historian would, studying the incentives, guardrails, and market structure that determine how things play out.”

“And I used to just sit there and rail on Warren Buffett year after year after year. And I would self-congratulate myself for trashing because goes, you know, he just happened to be in the right place at the right time and caught this bull market. And I was just thinking, "Oh my god, why couldn't I be Warren Buffett? Just believe in America." What I realize now is what an idiot I was. That guy is a flipping genius cuz he understood the power of compound interest which I somehow managed brilliantly to avoid my entire career. He understood it at nine. But anyway, if Warren, if you happen to hear this, I'm deeply apologetic. You are the OG of compound interest and I wish I was onetenth as as smart as you are.”

“I'm not going to be thinking about the 87 crash or or Bitcoin. I'm going to be thinking about who I loved and who loved me. That's what I'm going to be thinking about and what kind of relationships we had and what kind of times we had. I think the professional aspects are these great tools that allow you to do more meaningful things and the things that count which is what have you done with your family? What have you done with your friends? How have you served others? What have you done to leave a legacy of uh happiness and betterment and goodness to the people that you've been privileged enough to come in contact with?”

“President Trump has given Iran until tomorrow to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which carries about one-fifth of the world's oil supply. Or the US will strike Iran's infrastructure. Today, he renewed that threat. In profane language, he said that otherwise Tuesday will be Power Plant Day and Bridge Day.”

“Investors cannot control external events but must remain flexible... sitting on the sidelines may be the most prudent strategy.”

“Some of the biggest pain points over the years are dual registered entities. So think of like a registered investment advisor that's also a commodity trading advisor. This is pretty much every hedge fund and asset manager. And they're regulated for the same thing, but it's not the same examination program, examination cycle, set of reports you're filing. So a lot of pain points to solve there.”

“The world's first facility for permanently disposing spent nuclear fuel is set to begin operating in Finland after decades of construction. The site on an island near three of Finland's five nuclear reactors was chosen for its stable bedrock, but experts have safety concerns, especially for future generations.”

“It was such a great question because the kindest thing was also my very, very, very first childhood memory. I was probably two and a half or three. It was probably 1957, something like that. And I was with my mother at this place called the Curb Market. And uh I got separated from my mother. And boy, you can imagine being 2 and 1/2 years old and separated from your mother. You just it's it's you're terror stricken. And this elderly black gentleman came up and I was sitting there balling my eyes out cuz I thought my mother had left me and said, "What's the matter, little boy?" And I said, "I lost my mama." And he said, "Here, don't you worry. we're going to find her."”

“2023 also saw the roots of a global banking crisis arise out of four American regional banks, the two largest being Silicon Valley Bank and First Republic Bank. 2021's inflation surge moderated in 2023, while the Federal Reserve continued to raise its interest rates in the first half of the year.”

“It’s a courtship dance with millions of dollars potentially on the line.”

“He has suspended sanctions on Iranian oil... he doesn't hate them so much that he's willing to take even higher costs for his own gas prices.”

“People are leaving their jobs. The stock market in Mumbai, back then it was called Bombay, but the stock market in Mumbai, shut down. People were leaving the stock market. They're like, oh, we can make profits tomorrow. Let's go find this out. Word began to spread around the globe. Hey, Joe, remember when you left New Delhi? What a rube. The gods here are drinking milk.”

“Assuming there's actually a ceasefire and that Iran is interested in respecting it, it's going to be at least a couple of months. Reopening of the straits will be slow because it may have been mined. Also the logistics of getting all the ships that are trapped in out and the ones that are out in will be slow.”

“And what my largest concern is that sometimes when the president says we won, the next words I have is about our cease operations. That would actually lead to a capital L loss for the United States and for our allies and partners because very quickly, we become clear to everyone that Iran remains in control of the Straits of Hormuz at this time. We have not yet established our control over that.”

“Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he's authorized negotiations with Lebanon aimed at disarming Iranian backed Hezbollah militants and establishing relations between the countries. They've technically been at war since Israel was established in 1948.”

“The headline item is most major digital assets are now clearly in the commodity side of the regulatory categorization ledger, which is a level of certainty for market participants that lets you start to build new products, allocate capital with certainty in the United States. And you might say, well, that's been happening for years... But what we haven't seen in this space is a lot of the traditional financial services firms really dive in in a tangible way.”

“There are still restraining mechanisms. There is Congress. There is a media... there are polls, there are markets. There are all these things that don't exist in North Korea.”

“This won’t be the next GFC because the holders of the risk don't have the same asset-liability mismatch as the banks did in 2008; they have long-term capital to match long-term assets.”

“Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he's authorized negotiations with Lebanon aimed at disarming Iranian backed Hezbollah militants and establishing relations between the countries. The nations have technically been at war since Israel was established in 1948. Meanwhile, president Trump posted on social media that Iran is doing a very poor job of allowing oil through the Strait Of Hormuz.”

“And this guy had just had a dream that Lord Ganesh, the elephant headed god of wisdom in Hinduism, said, I want milk. He's the god of wisdom. I think you might have been able to say it with a couple more $5 words. It made it a little more like snazzy and he just didn't stare at the man. The whole dream was just this elephant headed god staring at the man going, milk, milk, milk, milk.”

“It’s a courtship dance with millions of dollars potentially on the line.”

“I have long maintained that better than a business school degree. Journalism 101 should be mandatory subject in every college which is newspaper writing in particular. What newspaper writing does is it teach teaches you you have to write where the conclusion comes first. So unlike writing something and then at the end we get the story here the end comes first and you have to write it with this incredibly rigid discipline so that every succeeding thing that you write the most important part is in the first sentence of the first paragraph. There's that old saying, if you can't tell your story in 15 seconds or less, no one's going to listen.”

“But this isn't about retribution. This is about preventing them from imposing their will on the Middle East and on US security interests in the Middle East for the next three, five or seven years. And in that case, I am okay with this conflict. We are achieving a lot of mission, but we haven't won.”

“The one thing that I think should be part of this next election the simplest most important thing that we can do is we can demand that all AI is watermarked. That's the single most transformative thing that we could possibly do for the country, for the world. Make it a felony if someone knowingly violates that three times and put them in jail. I want to know what's authentically human and what's not. And when that happens, talk about restoring trust in the country, which I think is one of the biggest problems.”

“The biggest problem with AI is that if you think about the the way AI is being deployed, practiced and deployed right now is the it's the build break iterate model. Build it, break it, fix it and iterate. If you think about it, that's been the invention model since the beginning of man. Build, break, iterate. But we've never been in a situation where the tail event the break can do so much damage could could be hundreds of millions if not billions of lives. When I was able to ask them pointedly how do you think that AI safety gets resolved the pretty much the consensus answer is I think we'll finally do something about it when 50 or 100 million people die in an accident.”

“The yield curve is flattening, signaling changing economic conditions and potential stress in lending and growth.”

“Israel is now focusing on targeting Iran's steel and petrochemical industries, which are important for Iran's economy and military. Prime Minister Netanyahu said in a video statement that Israel's military strikes in Iran have destroyed the majority of Iran's capabilities to manufacture steel.”

“Bunker Hunt was squeezing silver at the time and he bought about 200 million ounces at an average price of about three 12 bucks. And between 1976 and 1980, we had crazy monetary policy. Inflation started ripping and silver went literally through the roof. So at 50 bucks now, he's worth about 11 billion and he's got a multiple of five or six on the next closest guy. So anyway, they made liquidation only. Silver collapsed. It went from 50 bucks to under 10 bucks in the space of about eight weeks. And that had a searing impact on me to see him go from the richest guy to virtually bankrupt in the short space of six or seven weeks.”

“2023 also saw the roots of a global banking crisis arise out of four American regional banks, the two largest being Silicon Valley Bank and First Republic Bank. 2021's inflation surge moderated in 2023, while the Federal Reserve continued to raise its interest rates in the first half of the year.”

“The AP reported at least 50 new Polymarket accounts placed substantial bets on a US Iran ceasefire hours before president Trump made the announcement. It isn't the first time such well timed bets have occurred. Donald Trump junior has a sizable stake in Polymarket.”

“I'm kind of in shock. I wanted to feed Mundy and Tara close together. And so I fed Tara over here. She picked up her food and brought it right over to the fence line here so she could be eating with Mundy. So you tell me what that means. I think that is really good.”

“The South Carolina Supreme Court strikes down the state's six-week abortion ban, ruling it violates the state's Constitution. The Idaho Supreme Court upholds the state's ban on abortion in a 3A2 ruling.”

“What they were doing is they were taking spoonfuls of milk. So the smaller amount of milk, the easier it is to make mistakes. A gallon of milk disappearing is far harder to explain or hand wave than a teaspoon of milk. They would take milk and they would hold it to the mouth of the statue. And they would slightly turn the spoon. And then the milk would disappear.”

“When Mundy first arrived in Georgia, she was kept apart from the other elephants by a fence. Carol Buckley, who cares for the animals here, says she wasn't sure how the others would react. But one of them, called Tara, took an interest right away. She picked up her food and brought it right over to the fence line here so she could be eating with Mundy.”

“She gives me a GP. The GP, a general practitioner. So she makes me go in. I see the guy and uh this guy's 83 years old. And I say to him, "You're living here in the land of the walking dead. Everyone here is basically fossilized. Um, what is the secret to longevity?" And he goes, "It's real simple. You retire, you die." And that had a really profound impact on me because I realized as I get older, and maybe when you get older, you will too. Boy, you better. If you don't use it, you're going to lose it.”

“British defense secretary John Healey says they tracked a Russian attack sub and two spy submarines north of The UK. NATO countries have expressed concern that Russia could sabotage underwater cables crucial for global communications.”

“Eligible men between the ages of 18 and 25 will automatically be registered into the US military draft pool starting in December. That's a change from the current requirement to self register. The military has not held a draft since 1973 during the Vietnam War.”

“The rise of artificial intelligence and large language models dominated not only the economy but has also been at the root of a Hollywood double strike conducted by Writers Guild of America and a SAG APTRA strike. These were part of a larger phenomenon of labor strikes across the country, in which such large diverse groups, such as Teamsters and Auto Workers, won new contracts.”

“At issue is whether a crime was committed to justify a judge signing off on the warrants. Riverside County sheriff Chad Bianco, a Republican, obtained them to investigate an alleged vote count discrepancy in a statewide election last year. In that election, Californians voted to redraw the state's congressional map to favor Democrats.”

“The second is that we have combat air patrol, probably either two or four set slots, which means four or eight aircraft persistently overhead whenever we're convoying with F-15s, F-16s or F-18s equipped with what's called the Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System, APKWS, a cheap rocket, a $25,000 rocket that is extremely effective against the Shahed drones. It's used extensively by Ukraine and it's effective in a maritime environment.”

“Fans in LA went from ecstatic to heartbroken when they logged on to buy Olympics tickets and saw prices in the hundreds and thousands of dollars. Seats at the games start at $28 but go as high as 5,500, including a whopping 24% service fee on each ticket. And the cheap seats sold out fast.”

“Today we talk the war impact on the US Economic cycle, where global uncertainty is distorting market behavior and the gap between perception and reality.”

“The rise of artificial intelligence and large language models dominated not only the economy but has also been at the root of a Hollywood double strike conducted by Writers Guild of America and a SAG APTRA strike. These were part of a larger phenomenon of labor strikes across the country, in which such large diverse groups, such as Teamsters and Auto Workers won new contracts.”

“My mother used to always say, uh, and I think this is what this country really needs right now. You've just got to kill them with kindness. So, you're going to wake up someday it's going to be terrible. You're going to be in a bad mood. There's going to be something on TV that's going to make you angry. And particularly in these times right now, my gosh, when everyone wants to demonize the opposition, I think we've got to realize it doesn't have to be that way. We can humbly uh devote ourselves to finding the kindness within ourselves and the goodness within ourselves and transmit that to somebody else during that day. I think that's I think that's the secret to happiness.”

“Forecasters at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration say an El Nino will likely begin this summer or fall, and it could be a big one, a super El Nino. That doesn't always produce big weather impacts, but typically, it means more rain in the Southern US and drier weather in the Northern US.”

“The CFTC announced an innovation task force on March 24th. And its stated purpose is to look at digital assets, AI, not surprising, and then prediction markets. It's going to be led by the Chairman's staffer, Michael Pasalacua, who joined Chairman Selig from private practice and has taken on a lot of the innovative agenda at the CFTC.”

“The factory model is the industrialization of liability-gathering and asset deployment that is the root cause of everything happening in private markets today.”

“Every day this war goes on... it could cause unheard of economic damage comparable to or worse than the damage that we experienced during the pandemic.”

“The agency always is a funding issue. It's funded by Congress. It's not funded by fees. And their staffing is limited by that budget. They can't spend more than their budget. So every year, there's this debate. CFTC have enough money. Should it have more? Should it switch to a fee model so that it can hire more staffers?”

“Repair, there's been a lot of damage to infrastructure. We don't know how bad. Takes time to get the crew in. There's also restart. A lot of the oil fields have been damaged in Iraq and in other places. You can't turn them on fast with old infrastructure, or you can damage the fields.”

“Many stocks are experiencing deeper drawdowns than headline indexes suggest, masking underlying weakness.”

“There is a significant disconnect between public perception and reality, especially in areas like global oil supply.”

“Attention is the most valuable currency.”

“Basel III and Dodd-Frank created System 3, effectively moving the risk-taking from the banking system to the investment system, making it perhaps the best system we've ever had.”

“China since 1949, since the communists took over, has a track record of never ever ever helping in any international organization or environment. They're cheap skates at the United Nations when it comes to paying bills. I mean, we may not pay our bill but at least we volunteer to have a big bill. On top of it, they don't untreat the security anywhere in the world.”

“The actual threats that have been articulated as they have, he's not going through with those. I would stake my reputation on that.”

“Attention is the most valuable currency.”

“Market price action is the most reliable indicator of truth, reflecting collective positioning and expectations.”

“Oh we were so long cotton one weekend and uh there was a great drought, spectacular drought and of course it rained all through the belt over the weekend. Walk in market was limit down. He'd gotten absolutely smashed. I thought, "Oh my god, it's over." That day for lunch, his wife brought in four of her friends. He had the most beautiful office I've ever seen in my life. And he came out and just, oh my god, he had a smile on his face. Oh, ladies and flirting with the wives. I mean, I was in sitting there going, "Are you kidding me? This guy's just broke and he's acting like uh he's Rock Hudson or something." When the going gets tough, the tough get going.”

“It turns out in Hindu temples all over the world, if you bring milk to one of these statues, the milk disappears. This thing spreads worldwide. And at this point, journalists from around the world are covering it as well. They're doing new segments on it. They're sending reporters out to these temples to see if there's any truth to this story.”

“The dominant political story of the year has been the 270-day-long speakership of Representative Kevin McCarthy, whose slim majority in the House of Representatives has enabled a far-right rebellion to exert more weight over the lower chamber. The battle between the rebellious Freedom Caucus and McCarthy has been at the heart of an averted debt ceiling crisis and the annual budget debate nearly devolving into a government shutdown, all culminating in the removal of McCarthy on October 3.”

“Stylistically and from a tone perspective, there is an intentional transition from regulation by enforcement to regulation by regulation. And what I've seen that mean is they're putting out guidance, they're putting out proposed rules, they're putting out advanced notices of proposed rules, meaning they're giving a signal to the market that we might do a rulemaking on prediction limits, or prediction markets, for example.”

“Bitcoin is unequivocally the best inflation hedge that there is more than gold because Bitcoin is finite. There's only so much Bitcoin that can be mined. The problem with it is inflation hedge is if you got into kinetic exchange, there's clearly going to be cyber warfare and anything that you have to deal with electronically is going down, including Bitcoin. So, strike one. And then secondly, quantum computing. Who knows if and when with AI advancing as fast as it is that we may actually have quantum computing. Now quantum computing, someone can come in and can hack any bank and hack anything they want to.”

“Elephants are intelligent and social. They especially respond to reunions, the birth of a new calf, or the death of a loved one. They're capable of complex emotions, and Buckley says they're sensitive to what's happening around them. They feel all the vibration and energy that comes into their area, which is one of the reasons we're not open to the public.”

“Formed in the later years of The USSR, Memorial has often been at odds with the Kremlin, not only documenting the darker chapters of the Soviet past, but also abuses in Vladimir Putin's Russia. For that work, Memorial was among human rights groups awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2023. Now Russia's highest court has effectively criminalized any and all of Memorial's activities.”

“The dominant political story of the year has been the 270-day-long speakership of Representative Kevin McCarthy, whose slim majority in the House of Representatives has enabled a far-right rebellion to exert more weight over the lower chamber. The battle between the rebellious Freedom Caucus and McCarthy has been at the heart of an averted debt ceiling crisis.”

“I had a dream and it had nothing. It was just a normal dream. And then something happened and there was a knock at my door and I opened the door and Satan was standing at the door and he had sliced off Jesus's face and was wearing it like a mask. And he did this little toe tap routine. And it wasn't like the devil with like the red horns and the pointy tail.”

“The world is better off if people are incentivized to be right rather than just being loud.”

“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again... Have you ever seen anything like this?”

“When you say are we in a bubble, I don't know if we're necessarily in a bubble. We're clearly so leveraged in equities in this country. We're so dependent upon firm equity prices at this point in time. And when I say leveraged, we're 252% of stock market cap to GDP. So 1929 we were I think at the top we were 65%. And then in 87 we got to about 85 or 90%. Then 2000 we got to 170% and now we're at 252. 35% on 250% of GDP is 80 90% of GDP the reverse wealth effect oh my gosh 10% of our tax revenues or capital gains they go to zero so you can see the budget deficit blowing up.”

“A US. Air Force officer who, along with another crew member ejected from a jet shot down in Iran on Friday, was rescued by US forces Sunday morning. Tasnim News Agency, affiliated with Iran's Revolutionary Guard, says at least five people were killed by US and Israeli forces involved in the operation.”

“AI, creative destruction, and the resulting opportunity require a flexible financial system that can adapt to new technological realities faster than traditional bank balance sheets.”

“The world is better off if people are incentivized to be right rather than just being loud.”

“And the fourth and the most important, the one that does not exist at this moment, is 10 to 14 large surface combatants. We know them as ages destroyers, like the Arleigh Burke class destroyers you're seeing on the TV, Launch of the Tomahawks. Those same ones have a great air defense system. They're the perfect escort ship. I think 10 to 14 of them is kind of the right number to at least get the initial choke, the 250 ships that are stuck on the inside the Gulf out.”