Macro Hive Conversations With Bilal Hafeez

Artem has over 10 years of finance experience in food, agriculture, and farmland. He holds an MBA from The Wharton School, and a BA and MA in Economics from the Higher School of Economics. Prior to founding FarmTogether, Artem was employee #1 and CFO/VP of Operations at Full Harvest Technologies, a now post-Series A B2B platform for​ buying and selling​ produce. He previously worked at Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, Sprott Resource Holdings, E&Y and PwC. In this podcast we discuss types of investable farmland, whether farmland provides an inflation hedge, leverage levels in farmland, and much more. 

Karl is Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and Mentor at Creative Destruction Labs (Said Business School, University of Oxford). He began his career at JPMorgan trading fixed income. In 1996, Karl oversaw Banco Santander's Global Asset-Liability activities in Madrid. In 2001, he returned to London as Global Head of FX for HSBC Asset Management. From 2003, he held Senior Portfolio Manager roles at Brevan Howard, UBS O'Connor, Deutsche Bank's Cross Asset Trading group. In 2012 he joined Barclays Bank Treasury in London as Head of Euro Liquidity Management. In 2017 he joined LPP, Local Pensions Partnership, where he managed the Fixed Income portfolio. In 2018, he was a Participant at the Jackson Hole Economic Symposium. Karl holds two degrees; Physics from Imperial College, London and Molecular Biophysics from University College, University of Oxford. In this podcast we discuss: 1) Capital-ism vs income-ism. 2) The demographic problem. 3) Importance of the scientific method. 4) The end of mean reversion. 5) Investment uncertainty vs risk. 6) The risk of correlation changes. 7) How today’s crises are different to GFC. 8) A coming asset crisis. 9) Phase transitions. 10) Central bank, real economy and political regime changes. 11) What the performance of the 60:40 portfolio tells us. 12) Solving for lower future market returns. 13) Demographic – climate change – machine learning shocks. 14) The failure of factor investing. 15) Have a plan A, B and C. 16) Career risk. 17) Books mentioned: The (Mis)Behaviour of Markets (Mandelbrot), The Upside of Down (Homer-Dixon), The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat (Sacks)

James Fok is a veteran financial and strategic advisor to corporations and governments. He served as a senior executive at Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX) from 2012 until 2021. While there, he played a major role in a number of landmark financial markets initiatives, including the launch of the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect programme (2014), Bond Connect (2017) and the Hong Kong market's Listing Reforms (2018). Prior to HKEX, Fok worked as an investment banker in both Europe and Asia, specialising in the financial services sector. James is the author of the recently published book: Financial Cold War: A View of Sino-US Relations from the Financial Markets (2021). In this podcast we discuss: 1) The impact of the global financial crisis on the US and China. 2) How US-China relations have shifted since the Second World War. 3) China’s demographic challenge. 4) China dynastic history and what it tells us about China. 5) The need for China capital market reforms. 6) Reliance of China on the US dollar financial system. 7) The impact of Russia sanctions. 8) Costs to the US of dollar dominance. 9) Why Cold War analogies are incorrect. 10) How China’s reliance on food and energy imports affects its view on US containment policies. 11) Potential reforms to reduce US-China tensions. 12) The role of HK as a bridge between East and West. 13) Books that influenced James: The Quiet American (Greene) and Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China (Vogel).

Cameron Crise is a macro strategist at Bloomberg, where he writes the Macro Man column and posts on the Markets Live blog. Previously, he was a global macro portfolio manager at Graham Capital in Connecticut and Nylon Capital in London. Earlier in his career, he was a currency portfolio manager and economist for several European asset management firms and held a variety of foreign exchange roles at UBS. He is a graduate of Duke University with a degree in public policy studies and history. In this podcast we discuss: 1) Lessons from working at hedge funds. 2) Where are we in the US growth cycle? 3) Inflation path. 4) How high will the Fed hike? 5) Will bond yields reach new highs? 6) The problem with the Fed’s quantitative tightening (QT) programme. 7) Overnight moves in stock markets. 8) Chances of deeper equity correction. 9) Chances of larger financial crisis. 10) Thoughts on China and Europe. 11) Equity earnings. 12) Books mentioned: Reminiscences of a Stock Operator (Lefevre), Market Wizards (Schwager) , Manias, Panics, and Crashes (Kindleberger) and Devil Take the Hindmost (Chancellor).

Denise Shull is the Founder and CEO of ReThink. In that role, she uses neuroscience and modern psychoanalysis to help clients become successful in investing, trading, and leading teams. She has consulted on the development of Showtime’s BILLIONS, coached Olympic champions, and often appears on CNBC, Bloomberg and in the Wall Street Journal. Before ReThink, Denise worked in finance. She started at one of the first electronic trading firms in Chicago, then traded at Schonfeld Securities before she ran her own desk at Sharpe Capital. Denise holds a Master of Arts from the University of Chicago. Her thesis was cited in 2013 as one of the first papers written about neuropsychoanalysis. In this podcast we discuss: 1) Why understanding perception, judgment and decision making matters. 2) How your unconscious affects your decision making. 3) The particular challenge of trading and investing in markets. 4) The role of emotions and why we can’t ignore them. 5) Differences between emotions and impulse. 6) Understanding conviction levels. 7) Using intuition over impulse. 8) How to incorporate emotions into your dataset. 9) Traits of successful traders. 10) How to set up a hedge fund. 11) Books that influenced Denise: Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain (Feldman Barret), and The Drama of the Gifted Child (Miller).

Diego is Managing Partner at $1.8b Quadriga Asset Managers. Prior to joining Quadriga in Madrid in 2017, Diego worked in London, New York, and Singapore for two decades and held senior leadership roles across macro commodity markets at JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, BlueCrest Capital, Dymon Asia, and Old Mutual Global Investors. Diego is best-selling co-author of ‘The Energy World is Flat’ (Wiley, 2014) and author of ‘The Anti-Bubbles’ (BEP, 2017).  Diego has a MS Mineral Economics from Colorado School of Mines, MS Petroleum Economics and Management by the French Institute of Petroleum in Paris, and MS Mining and Petroleum Engineering by the Madrid Polytechnic School of Mines. In this podcast we discuss the definition of an ‘anti-bubble’, why inflation is higher than you think, the right asset allocation for stagflation, and much more.

Lindsay Politi is Head of Inflation Strategies at  One River Asset Management. Lindsay began her career at Wellington Management in Boston where she was head of Global Inflation-linked Investments. In that role she was one of the top TIPS managers by assets, managing over $10 billion in dedicated assets, with a top quintile track record for excess in her peer group. She then joined Tudor Investment Corporation in Greenwich as a discretionary macro investor, translating her inflation strategy onto a macro hedge fund platform. She then joined One River Asset Management in 2018. In this podcast we discuss: 1) The short-, medium- and long-term drivers of inflation. 2) Why near-term inflation could still rise even with growing recession fears. 3) Why changes in interest rates could matter more than the levels of interest rates. 4) How housing affects inflation. 5) Are there parallels to the 1970s? 6) Why inflation volatility matters. 7) Will the Fed cut rates in 2023? 8) Why the TIPs market may not give an accurate measure of long-term inflation. 9) The income potential of TIPs bonds. 10) The case of low inflation in Japan. 11) Books mentioned: Slouching Toward Utopia (DeLong), The Dawn of Everything (Graeber, Wengrow), Amusing Ourselves to Death (Postman).

Ivy Zelman is CEO at Zelman & Associates. She co-founded Zelman & Associates in 2007 which is a leading housing research firm in the US. In 2005, Ivy called the top of the housing market. From there, she called the bottom of the housing market in January 2012. She helped best-selling writer, Michael Lewis, with research related to the mortgage crash which became a part of his best-selling book turned movie, ‘The Big Short.’ Michael wrote in the book ‘all roads led to Ivy.’  Ivy was inducted into the Institutional Investors - America Research Team’s inaugural Hall of Fame in 2012 as a result of Ivy and her team earning eleven 1st place rankings (1999 – 2004, 2006 – 2007 and 2010 – 2013). In this podcast we discuss: 1) How COVID impacted housing. 2) Inventory trends and why they are not supportive of prices. 3) Why housing demand is falling. 4) The problem with rising mortgage rates. 5) The role of investors in US residential housing. 6) The Airbnb Effect. 7) Why house prices will fall in 2023 and 2024. 8) Changes in mortgage products since 2008. 9) The large backlog of housing supply. 10) Understanding the build to rent market. 11) Demographic issues. 12) Affordability in rental properties. 13) Regional outlook including New York. 14) Books mentioned: The Psychology of Money (Housel), The Algebra of Happiness (Galloway), Gimme Shelter (Zelman).

Matsuoka-San is the Chief Economist of SBI Securities in Japan. Before that, he was the Chief Economist for Japan at Deutsche Bank. Overall, he has been involved in macroeconomic analysis at research institutions and financial institutions for the past 30 years. He is known to be one of the leading Japan economists with unique insights on structural issues. Over the years he has been highly ranked in numerous surveys including the Institutional Investor survey. In this podcast we discuss: 1) Former Prime Minister Abe’s legacy in Japan. 2) The long-term impact of COVID on the global economy. 3) The demise of capitalism. 4) Why nominal GDP targeting is better than inflation targeting. 5) Measuring financial stress and why it is rising. 6) Which other countries are ‘Japanising’. 7) The current state of Japanese growth. 8) How high can Japanese inflation go? 9) Will the BoJ exit yield curve control (YCC)? 10) Is a weak yen a problem for Japan? 11) What drives Japanese bond yields. 12) Books that influenced Matsuoka-San: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Kuhn).

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: 1) Increased volatility in the business cycle. 2) How close are we to market crunch point. 3) Three most likely scenarios for the Fed, inflation, and recession. 4) Main street vs Wall Street liquidity. 5) How to understand money supply (M2). 6) How will bonds and equities perform? 7) Which EM markets will perform or not? 8) What typically happens to EM during recessions. 9) The chances of a China stimulus.