Macro Hive Conversations With Bilal Hafeez

Randy is co-head of senior lending and oversees senior lending origination and capital markets for Churchill Asset Management, which has $40bn of committed capital. Randy is widely credited with developing loan syndications for middle market companies. Prior to joining the firm, Randy served as a senior managing director and head of capital markets and indirect origination at Churchill Financial. Before that, he worked as managing director and head of leveraged finance syndication for BNP Paribas. He spent 15 years at JP Morgan Chase in corporate banking and loan syndications, where he originated, structured and syndicated leveraged loans. In this podcast we discuss: 1) Evolution of private credit markets. 2) Comparison to high-yield bonds and syndicated loans. 3) Why banks want to off-load loans. 4) Types of loans that make up private credit. 5) How buyers of private credit monitor loans. 6) Typical size of loans. 7) How to protect against recession risks. 8) How Fed hikes have affected private credit. 9) Role of private equity. 10) Are private markets a bubble? 11)Books that Randy mentioned: The Waste Land (TS Eliot), Eliot After The Waste Land (Crawford) , O Jerusalem! (Collins).

Howard Davies is the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Natwest Group. Previously, he was the Director of the London School of Economics (LSE) from 2003 until 2011. Prior to this appointment he was chairman of the UK Financial Services Authority from 1997 to 2003. From 1995 to 1997 he was Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, after three years as the Director General of the Confederation of British Industry. Earlier in his career he worked in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Treasury, McKinsey and Co, and as Controller of the Audit Commission. In this podcast we discuss: 1) Whether the UK should separate finance and economy minister roles. 2) The competition between the Chancellor and Prime Minister. 3) Why UK productivity has been low. 4) The impact of Bank of England independence for role of Chancellor. 5) How Gordon Brown reduced poverty. 6) Why taxes are so hard to change in the UK. 7) Why Alistair Darling was under-rated as Chancellor. 8) The problem with George Osbourne's austerity drive. 9) The role of Chancellor in Scottish and EU referendums. 10) The challenge for the current Chancellor in targeting growth. 11) Whether the UK Treasury attracts the right talent.

Sam is a tutor of politics and international relations at the University of Oxford, and an Associate Fellow at the British defence think tank, the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI). He contributes regularly to media outlets, such as Foreign Policy, the Washington Post, Newsweek, and Al-Monitor, and think tanks, such as the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Middle East Institute. In this podcast we discuss: 1) What was behind Ukraine's recent counter-offensive win. 2) Why the Russian army is weaker than expected. 3) Why the counter-offensive started in September. 4) How the West is supporting Ukraine. 5) How internal dissent within the West could reduce support. 6) Whether Russia has any gas leverage left with Europe. 7) Status of the new war front between Armenia and Azerbaijan. 8) Whether Putin's popularity suffered. 9) How the main players around Putin are faring. 10) Whether Ukraine aims to recapture the Donbas and Crimea. 11) Whether there are peace talks. 12) Points of escalation from Russia. 12) Lessons from Russia-Chechnya wars.

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).