Hedgeye Podcasts

We’re at a critical market juncture. The U.S. economy is heading for a slowdown in the back half of 2018. Investors who fail to understand what this market regime change means for their portfolio are vulnerable.In a replay of this special Hedgeye webcast, CEO Keith McCullough opens up his investing playbook for navigating a slowing U.S. economy and explains how to profit during this market shift.

The “synchronized recovery” narrative is falling apart as Chinese and European growth begins to slow… (This largely explains the spike in volatility this year!)What comes next?In this special edition of Real Conversations, renowned economist, portfolio manager and author Daniel Lacalle dissects Wall Street’s “synchronized global recovery” narrative in an in-depth discussion with Hedgeye CEO Keith McCullough.

In this Real Conversation, hedge fund manager and MacroVoices podcast host Erik Townsend joins Hedgeye CEO Keith McCullough for an in-depth discussion of the future of Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies and why blockchain is “one of the most-important breakthroughs of all time.” Critically, Townsend also thinks governments will ultimately co-opt cryptocurrency technologies for their own benefit.

Listen to this special Real Conversation with Hedgeye CEO Keith McCullough and legendary investor Mario Gabelli. Mario discusses his top stock ideas for 2018 with Hedgeye CEO Keith McCullough. Following this deep-dive discussion, Keith and Mario take viewer questions.

1. ARE INVESTORS GETTING AHEAD OF THEMSELVES?

The cumulative proceeds from Initial Coin Offerings (ICO) – the cryptocurrency equivalent of a stock’s Initial Public Offering – have reached $3.8 billion, according to Coindesk. Are investors getting ahead of themselves in all these new ICOs?

“Probably,” Crumb says. “Just like the dot-com bubble, most of them will return to their intrinsic value, which is 0.”

But that’s the point. Bitcoin is “one of the most perfect medium of exchanges we’ve ever had,” Crumb says.

“Just like we had no idea what the Internet was going to do, but we knew it was important, this wave of cryptocurrency capital is pushing all of these things to crazy multiples.” In other words, some will win. Some will lose. But cryptocurrencies are here to stay.

Another thing to note about the nearly $4 billion in ICO proceeds: There’s no transparency.

“I think that number is totally fraudulent,” Crumb says. “There are so many wash trades of financing these things. So we see this big number, but it may just be shifting back and forth between different ICOs.”

That says nothing about the “revolutionary” nature of cryptocurrencies more broadly, Crumb says. “I think that we have another period of rounding up and taking a lot of these ICO people to jail,” Crumb says. That’s what has happened in transformative markets throughout history.

2. ISN'T BITCOIN A BUBBLE?

“The annual production of bitcoin is now larger than the silver market, larger than the lead market, and we’re approaching zinc,” Crumb says. “It’s still probably only 10% of the gold market. But it’s getting into the levels of value where people are going to have to start to trade this asset class.”

This is important.

The total market cap of all cryptocurrencies recently hit $600 billion. That’s larger than the market cap of massive companies like Amazon (AMZN), Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A) and Exxon Mobil (XOM). Mr. Market is advising investors to take cryptocurrencies seriously.

Still, a lot of investors believe bitcoin is a bubble. Crumb turns this argument on its head. He says to consider the “bubbly” nature of more traditional asset classes. “Look at the size of the fiat government bond bubble,” he says. Crumb asks whether you are more confident you’ll be able to send your son or daughter to college in 10 years with money invested in bitcoin or European government bonds?

“If I was going to buy a European bond with a negative interest rate, nominally we already know it won’t get to par. In real terms, I absolutely think there’s no way 10 years from now. So as a store of value I think that’s a massive bubble,” he says. As for bitcoin, “It could pay for your son’s college in the next 2 months. That’s what people are buying it for right now.”

Short-term, say in the next three months, Crumb says he’s unsure of the price of bitcoin. But, in three years, he thinks the price of bitcoin is higher. After the fallout from the wave of questionable ICOs that sends some to jail, Crumb thinks there will be these “adaptive peaks, where more and more people are coming in and getting comfortable with bitcoin.”

3. CAN THE ESTABLISHMENT CONTROL CRYPTOCURRENCIES?

Many are speculating about the launch of fedcoin, a national cryptocurrency controlled by the Federal Reserve. These people think, as cryptocurrencies are more broadly adopted, the government won’t let them usurp the U.S. dollar and overtake the Fed’s control of the money supply.

Might the establishment (governments or Wall Street types) attempt to undermine bitcoin?

“I don’t think they can,” says Crumb.

“You have to remember, central banks created this. It was their control of the market that caused people to say, ‘I don’t like you controlling it. I’m going to figure out a way to create a currency no one could control.’” In other words, Pandora’s Box has been opened. And there’s no turning back now.

ABOUT JOSH CRUMB:

Mr. Crumb is a co-founder of Goldmoney

You’re going to want to listen our exclusive discussion with best-selling author John Mauldin.

How will risky Fed policies impact the U.S. economy?

When will America’s pension crisis reach it’s tipping point?

Will driverless cars lead to massive job loss?

The answer to these questions will shape what happens in financial markets for years to come.

Precious few PhD-trained economists understand the inner-workings of financial markets. Then again, very few economists have actually worked as a portfolio manager for such investment shops as PIMCO, the Ecofin Global Oil & Gas Fund and Citadel. Economist Daniel Lacalle holds this market pedigree and then some.

In the latest edition of our Real Conversations video series, Lacalle joins Hedgeye CEO Keith McCullough for a dynamic discussion about the divergence between the strengthening U.S. economic outlook and Europe’s slow slide into stagnation.

No punches pulled here. Lacalle draws a sharp contrast between the two.

“The problem with analyzing the U.S. economy is that if you base it on your political views, you forget that this is an economy that relies less on the government than in Europe,” Lacalle says in the video above.

“A lot of economists said the only solution for the U.S. economy was the government would have to start borrowing massively to drive the economy. But what has proven to be the success of this economy is that it is driven by families and companies. A profit led economy is a lot more sustainable than a spending led economy.”

Think of the big battle being waged between Wal-Mart and Amazon.

“Wal-Mart is a stronger company today because of Amazon,” Lacalle says. “The economy isn’t going to get stronger by poor capital allocation directed by the government.” Lacalle lays out a scenario in which U.S. growth heads back to 3.5% versus 3% reported most recently for 3Q 2017.

Europe faces an entirely different problem.

“The problem of the European Union is that every single economic position is based on the pillar of not touching the welfare state,” Lacalle says. Consider the numbers. Europe is about 3.5% of the world’s population, 24% of its GDP but 55% of its public spending, he says. “One of those numbers is at risk and it’s big.”

Most investors see newly-elected leaders, like France’s President Emmanuel Macron, and hope Europe is changing its ways. Lacalle is emphatically skeptical.

“In the EU we live in varying degrees of socialism. France is the epicenter of this. We have seen these reformists before. Sarkozy promised big reforms but it didn’t happen. You have to remember that the first serious economic position Macron took was to nationalize a shipyard. Yea, that’s going to definitely make the economy stronger.”

Another prime example: Think back to the European Union’s post-recession “austerity” measures. “The European Union took government spending to almost 50% of GDP, then it lowered it by 5% and they called it austerity,” Lacalle says. “It’s like you spent three years eating donuts, then you have an orange juice and say you’re in detox."

Lacalle shares some equally compelling thoughts on Catalonia, calling it “bad for Spain and bad for Catalonia.” He calls it “absurd” that economists “don’t pay attention to demographics.”

He rails against socialism: “Socialism doesn’t fix anything.”

You won’t hear another economist speak quite as eloquently about markets as Lacalle.

Iconoclastic, best-selling author Jim Rickards joined Hedgeye CEO Keith McCullough one-on-one in the studio to discuss their divergent market and economic outlook. Don’t miss this “Real Conversation” between two of the sharpest minds in finance.

The omnipotent PhDs leading the world’s central banks equate economics to physics. Like Newton’s laws of motion, an economy at rest will remain at rest unless compelled to grow by some outside force. Enter the Fed, European Central Bank and Bank of Japan, which have collectively added more than $20,000,000,000,000 worth of asset purchases globally since the onset of the Great Recession. This endeavor has been fundamentally misguided from the start says economist, author and Tressis CIO Daniel Lacalle. In his latest book “Escape from the Central Bank Trap,” he dissects what central bankers can and can’t do, while providing some healthy advice toward finding a better way. In this latest edition of our Real Conversations video series, Lacalle joins Hedgeye CEO Keith McCullough for a frank discussion about central bankers and the growth setup for U.S. and European economies. Lacalle offers some particularly interest insights about France and Italy. As a European-based economist, Lacalle is extremely skeptical of France’s newly-elected President Emmanuel Macron. In particular, whether the self-described reformist will drastically alter France’s love affair with Socialism: “The first position Mr. Macron has taken was to nationalize a French port because the Italians were going to buy it. Is that the reform that we’re thinking about? There’s been no labor market reform. There’s been no public sector reform. Their public sector is one of the largest in the world (about 22% of the workforce). It’s a very directed economy. If the first decision of an allegedly free-market oriented leader is to nationalize a port, I think that we should be a little bit skeptical about saying it’s going to be different this time.” In his book, Lacalle is equally pithy. Here are two quotes from the book (bolded) along with his additional commentary (italicized) from the video above: 1. “Central Bankers cannot print growth.” “What central bankers can do is provide liquidity and generate a level of backstop in the markets in an environment of panic. But what they cannot do is make people decide to invest or force consumers to be more confident. The first thing people are not is amnesiac and the second thing they’re not is stupid. Everybody perceives reality and interest rates so low are an anomaly … They also see extreme liquidity and it’s not changing the perception of overcapacity and companies instead of investing they buy back shares and use that extra liquidity to increase dividends. It makes absolute sense.” 2. “Cheap money becomes very expensive in the long run.” “With all this massive liquidity, what happens is that all that money is going somewhere, and we don’t pay attention to it because it’s not making prices rise. However, it is creating very perverse incentives. We’ve seen in the latest Bank of international settlements report that zombie companies are going through the roof and how excess capacity and excess debt are perpetuated. Instead of helping deleverage, low interest rates incentivizes more debt and more risk taking. Imbalance between risk and price signals.” This is a must-see interview from an economist who is also a market practitioner, a skillset combination sorely absent from the résumés of our illustrious central bankers.