Alex, Tyler, Chris and Mr. B talk Macro Intelligence Report, Global Macro, Value, Systems Trading and Vol.

Quick Take away from a monster 3+ hour session, Chris hosts a Macro Ops roundtable with Alex Barrow, Tyler  Kling and Mr. B. 

If you want more of this Check out what we are doing at 

https://macro-ops.com/global-macro-research/

This is a monster podcast, unedited, long form, plug in go deep with us. 

We start off right away with Alex talking a little highlight of this month’s Macro Intelligence Report. a monster rally that left everyone in the rearview mirror and now people are starting to FOMO into the market after a nearly 20% rally from the December 26 lows. 

We dig into Alex’s thinking at the end of the year of why the equity indexes had bottomed, what sentiment indicators he was looking at to feel confident. Publishing that report on Real Vision when everyone else was bearish was interesting to see the reaction from fellow market participants. 

Bottoms, what are some reliable, repeatable bottom finding (not top selling) setups, if nothing else for a tradable bottom. 

Cash was the highest returning asset in 2018

Then we get into value investing with Mr. B. 

If you think catching the bottom on equity indexes was good at 20% bounces, Mr. B found these needles in a haystack:

Garret Motion $GTX and Construction Partners $ROAD they are currently up 60% and 40% respectively. 

Difference between retail investors and managers, retail DOES NOT HAVE TO BE STYLISTIC. 

Alex calls:

-Dollar 

-Rising Interest Rate Regime

-Equity Volatility

-1960’s and 1970’s volatility

Venezuela, on the door steps of war?

Then we get into politics, but not too political. 

Mr B talks about Howard Marks latest note and anti-capitalism. You can find his note here:

https://www.oaktreecapital.com/insights/howard-marks-memos

Alex, a political scientist, goes into some depth on capitalism. 

We touch on the craziness of 5:1 leverage to purchase a home…and a flashback to the 1990’s at 16% interest rates for home mortgages. 

Risk, Risk, Risk. 

Some of the highlights of being a full time trader and traveling, nomadic systems trading. 

And here we go, it always comes back to Warren Buffett.

Alex turns the tables on Chris and we learn a bit of his time before and during the military and where he got into systems trading. As a Marine he had visited Thailand and Indonesia during their debt crisis, and seeing the effects of Russia defaulting on their currency, Pakistan and India getting nukes, having a front row seat for some of the biggest events in Global Macro in the later 1990’s. 

Key requirements of a trading system. 

Chris goes on about systems trading, his last 20 years of trading. 

And again back to Buffett and Munger. 

Humility, realizing that you suck but continuously learning from mistakes. Getting comfortable being uncomfortable, truly analyzing what you are doing wrong and getting better over time. 

Constant improvement. 

Ice baths, extreme heat, building that mental toughness and resolve. It isn’t the same as a losing streak but getting comfortable with suffering.  

Paper trading, backtesting, getting experience but more importantly you get practice taking shots, entering/exiting, practicing the basics over and over obsessively. 

It’s no different than what a professional athlete does:

https://www.businessinsider.com