In this conversation, Vineer Bhansali—Ph.D. in theoretical physics from Harvard, former PIMCO portfolio manager, and founder of LongTail Alpha—and I explore why the tails of the distribution are where both some of the most misunderstood risks and opportunities reside. We connect the mechanics of options pricing, market structure changes, and risk management to the decisions that actually restore clarity and control for sophisticated investors.

You'll hear us cover:

Why this matters now: We're potentially exiting a 30-year regime of falling rates, low volatility, and credible central banking. In that new world, the strategies that worked—passive diversification, stocks-and-bonds—may not be enough. Bhansali offers a physicist's lens on probability distributions, market microstructure, and the practical tools for building portfolios that survive and compound through regime change.

Disclaimer: The content of "Treussard Talks" is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered financial advice. The views expressed are those of the host and guests and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Treussard Capital Management or its affiliates. Listeners should consult with their own financial advisor before making any investment decisions. For full disclosures, visit treussard.com.

This podcast is for entertainment and education only. Nothing here is financial advice. Treussard Capital Management is a registered investment advisor. Please visit our website www.treussard.com for additional information and disclaimers.

In this episode, I sit down with Mike Green—Chief Strategist at Simplify Asset Management and one of the most rigorous thinkers on market structure today.

We start with Mike's journey from Wharton to small-cap value, through Canyon Partners during 2008, to correctly predicting the XIV collapse in 2018, and eventually co-founding Simplify where the firm now manages $12 billion across 30 strategies.

From there, we dig into two slow-burning crises that most people are getting wrong: how passive investing is reshaping market mechanics in ways that can't be sustained, and how we've systematically mismeasured economic precarity over the last 60 years.

These aren't separate stories—they're symptoms of the same problem: asking systems to do things they weren't designed to do.

You'll hear us cover:

ON PASSIVE INVESTING AND MARKET STRUCTURE:

ON AMERICA'S HIDDEN PRECARITY CRISIS:

ON INTELLECTUAL HONESTY:

THE BOTTOM LINE:

Markets weren't designed to provide retirement security—they were designed to price capital. We've grafted a social insurance system onto a capital allocation mechanism, and both are breaking under the strain.

Mike's work matters because he's doing what few others will: following the math wherever it leads, even when it's uncomfortable. This conversation is about understanding the actual rules of the game—not the ones we wish existed, but the ones that actually govern outcomes.

If you want to understand why markets feel unstable and why economic anxiety persists despite "strong" headline numbers, this episode explains the mechanics.

Disclaimer: The content of "Treussard Talks" is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered financial advice. The views expressed are those of the host and guests and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Treussard Capital Management or its affiliates. Listeners should consult with their own financial advisor before making any investment decisions. For full disclosures, visit treussard.com.

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In this episode, I sit down with Devin Shanthikumar—faculty at the UC Irvine Merage School of Business and Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies—to talk about how real-world market outcomes are shaped.

We start with Devin’s path from UC Berkeley (engineering and computer science) to a PhD in finance at Stanford, and how the early-2000s dot-com boom and bust shaped the questions that became the foundation of their research.

From there, we dig into what happens when smart people make painful investing mistakes—not because they lack intelligence, but because they don’t understand the incentives embedded in the financial system.

We also zoom out to what AI means for the future of work and learning, and what that might imply for the next generation.

You’ll hear us cover:

Disclaimer: The content of “Treussard Talks” is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered financial advice. The views expressed are those of the host and guests and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Treussard Capital Management or its affiliates. Listeners should consult with their own financial advisor before making any investment decisions. For full disclosures, visit treussard.com.

Fifty years explaining economics to America with Paul Solman | Treussard Talks (E16)

Paul Solman (PBS NewsHour, eight Emmys, five Peabodys) has spent half a century translating markets and economics for millions. But this conversation isn't about predictions or portfolios. It's about how to think when you can't know what's coming.

The Three-Body Problem of Everything

Paul frames it plainly: the U.S. economy is 330 million moving parts changing their minds constantly. Financial markets multiply that complexity exponentially. Trying to predict any of it with certainty? Impossible. But that's not surrender — it's realism.

The alternative to prediction isn't paralysis. It's strategy. Paul walks through his framework: costs versus benefits, current and prospective, with full acknowledgment of uncertainty and unintended consequences.

The Conversation

Economics as decision-making. Why the transaction costs of worry matter as much as the financial costs of preparation. How Russian immigrant parents, family tragedy, and being a "pathological explainer" converged when nobody understood economics in 1973.

Paul shares four practices he actually follows for staying sane when the world feels overwhelming — including why he doesn't watch TV news despite working in television for 50 years. We discuss the non-profit American Exchange Project, sending high school seniors to entirely different American communities. Why small acts of human kindness compound. Why there's more good in the world than bad.

Why It Matters

Financial media trains you to want certainty. But nobody actually knows what happens next. The sophistication isn't pretending otherwise — it's building strategies that work across multiple scenarios while maximizing what you get from every moment you're alive. The framework scales. The humility matters. The human connection isn't soft — it's foundational.

This conversation won't forecast where markets end 2025 or 2026. It will show you how a legendary journalist thinks about life, decision-making, and what matters after 50 years explaining the inexplicable.

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This content is for informational and educational purposes only. For full disclosures, visit treussard.com.

In this conversation, Frazer Rice—author of Wealth Actually—and I cover two distinct, if related, topics. First, what H.R. 1 really changes for high earners, business owners, and wealthy households. Second, what a holistic framework for estate planning and family governance looks like for ultra-high-net-worth families.

You’ll hear us cover:

Why this matters:

We cover H.R.1's tax provisions because you need to understand the rules. But if you think tax optimization is the hard part of estate planning, you may be optimizing the wrong variable.

Frazer Rice has spent years working with ultra-high-net-worth families. His observation: wealth gets destroyed more often by family dysfunction, bad governance, and institutional knowledge gaps than by tax inefficiency.

So yes, we decode PTET, QBI, QSBS, and estate exemptions. You'll understand what changed and who benefits. But we spend equal time on what matters even more for the long run: building governance structures that work under stress, staffing roles with the right people (not just the oldest sibling), and creating disaster recovery playbooks so a family crisis doesn't become a catastrophe.

Disclaimer: The content of “Treussard Talks” is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered financial advice. The views expressed are those of the host and guests and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Treussard Capital Management or its affiliates. Listeners should consult with their own financial advisor before making any investment decisions. For full disclosures, visit treussard.com.

Tax strategies sold as "alpha" often obscure their actual mechanics — and the investment risks you're taking to get the tax benefit.

Brent Sullivan — "Tax Alpha Insider," formerly on PIMCO's trading floor and Parametric's quantitative team — decodes what's really happening beneath the marketing slides. For founders with embedded gains, executives navigating concentrated positions, and investors tired of advisors who dazzle with complexity rather than deliver clarity, this conversation cuts through the noise.

Brent establishes the hierarchy up front: tax belongs after risk, return, diversification, and cost — not before them. In other words: "Don't let the tax tail wag the investment dog."

Too many advisors lead with tax benefits because they're compelling, then reverse-engineer the investment justification. This conversation does the opposite — we start with what these strategies do, then examine whether the tax advantages justify the risks.

ETF tax efficiency demystified: How in-kind redemptions move taxable events "outside the box" — the actual mechanics, not the marketing magic.

Section 351 in-kind seeding: The path from concentrated positions to diversified portfolios without triggering capital gains, including the 25/50 diversification tests. Spoiler: if 100% of your wealth is in a single stock, this isn't your solution.

Tax-aware long/short overlays: Margin rates, borrow costs, short rebates, haircuts — why these are investment strategies first with tax benefits as byproduct. Understanding this prevents expensive surprises when financing terms change overnight.

Box spreads as synthetic borrowing: How they work, borrowing vs. lending mechanics, and the dangers of DIY'ing this unless you understand American vs. European options, collateral haircuts, and four-legged options execution.

Dark-case thinking throughout: What breaks when markets dislocate, counterparties prioritize self-preservation, and the "temporary pain" you need to be prepared for. Not fearmongering — the adult conversation about sizing exposure appropriately.

The industry has productized sophisticated tax strategies. But productization doesn't eliminate complexity — it just hides it.

The stakes for investors with meaningful embedded gains:

This is for investors who:

If you want reassuring generalities about tax alpha, this isn't your episode. If you want to understand the engineering behind these strategies so you can make informed decisions, this is exactly where to start.

This conversation with Brent modeled what escaping the Wealth Management Industrial Complex looks like: mechanics over magic, clarity over complexity, understanding over being sold to.

Continue the education: Subscribe to Wealth, Empowered at https://wealth-empowered.beehiiv.com/subscribe

Explore your specific situation: For concentrated positions, embedded gains, or wealth complexity requiring more than education — schedule a complimentary strategic session. We'll review your situation and determine if family office-level thinking without classic institutional conflicts makes sense for you.

Reach out: https://www.treussard.com/contact

Disclaimer: This content is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered financial advice. Listeners should consult with their own financial advisor before making any investment decisions. For full disclosures, visit treussard.com.

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In this conversation, Harbor Capital Advisors President and CIO Kristof Gleich and I dig into how to find true skill in managers, why the ETF wrapper changed the game, and how to build more resilient portfolios in an inflation‑prone world. We connect the mechanics and psychology of investing to the decisions that restore clarity and control for sophisticated investors.

You’ll hear us cover:

Why this matters now: Many investors still judge strategies by headline returns or brand names, not by process quality, alignment, and measurable sources of edge. In a world of rolling inflation shocks and fiat‑currency stress, getting structure right — manager selection, vehicle choice, fee drag, and tax handling — compounds more than hot dots.

Disclaimer: The content of “Treussard Talks” is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered financial advice. The views expressed are those of the host and guests and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Treussard Capital Management or its affiliates. Listeners should consult with their own financial advisor before making any investment decisions. For full disclosures, visit treussard.com.

In this conversation, Rob Arnott (Founder and Chairman, Research Affiliates) and Ed McQuarrie (Professor Emeritus, Santa Clara University) examine why fear—of loss and of missing out—better explains asset pricing than traditional “risk” frameworks. We connect the mechanics and psychology of investing to help sophisticated investors restore clarity and control over portfolio decisions.

You’ll hear us cover:

Why this matters now: Many investors implicitly assume an ever‑present equity premium. If fear is the true driver and premiums vary with cycles and starting yields, portfolio choices and client guidance might need to adapt, as historical patterns suggest that investor sentiment can influence market cycles and premiums.

Disclaimer: The content of “Treussard Talks” is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered financial advice. The views expressed are those of the host and guests and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Treussard Capital Management or its affiliates. Listeners should consult with their own financial advisor before making any investment decisions. All investments carry the potential for loss, including the loss of principal. For full disclosures, visit treussard.com.

In this conversation, Jane Buchan — CEO of Martlet Asset Management, co‑founder of PAAMCO (which grew to $32B AUM), former Dartmouth finance professor, and longtime CAIA leader — and I dig into what “alternatives” really are, how the space has evolved, and how disciplined due diligence restores clarity and control for sophisticated investors.

We link market mechanics with investor behavior to focus on practical choices that drive outcomes.

You’ll hear us cover:

Why this matters now: High-net-worth investors face more products and stories than ever. Clear mechanics, sober risk management, and true diversification — not magical thinking — are what preserve agency over outcomes.

Disclaimer: The content of “Treussard Talks” is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered financial advice. The views expressed are those of the host and guests and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Treussard Capital Management or its affiliates. Listeners should consult with their own financial advisor before making any investment decisions. For full disclosures, visit treussard.com.

Defining FinTech with Michael Imerman, Ph.D. | Treussard Talks (E10)

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