What'd You Miss This Week

This week, Emily Weis, emerging market strategist at State Street, went through the implications of Brazilian President Bolsonaro firing the CEO of the state-run oil company Petrobras and the outlook for emerging markets. Scott Irwin, the Laurence J. Norton Chair of Agricultural Marketing at the University of Illinois, who is an expert in futures and commodity markets, discussed the surge in commodity prices and whether a new supercycle has arrived. KR Sridhar, the founder and CEO of Bloom Energy, spoke about how their technology like hydrogen fuel cells could make a power grid more robust and prevent disasters like the mass blackouts in Texas. Then Rod Alzmann, co-proprietor of GMEDD.com and a long-time Gamestop bull, returned to talk about the resurgence of the meme trade and what changes have happened at Gamestop since its initial surge.

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This week, Josiah Neeley, the Texas director and resident senior fellow for energy at the R Street institute, spoke about some reforms that could prevent the energy crisis in Texas from happening again. Jason Bordoff, a Columbia Unversity professor and the founding director of the Center on Global Energy Policy, talked about whether the blackouts will impact President Biden's green energy plan. Brett Winton, the director of research at ARK Invest, joined to discuss how the failure of Texas's electrical grid will push people to look more at batteries for storing renewable energy. Then Noah Davis, a post-War and contemporary art specialist at Christie's, outlined the auction house's decision to start accepting cryptocurrencies as payment.

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This week, Michael Saylor, the MicroStrategy CEO-turned-king of bitcoin treasuries, called upon fellow business executives to avoid the path of financial “serfdom” and outlined a strategy for corporate bitcoin adoption. Nic Carter, the founding partner at Castle Island Ventures, joined to discuss what get people get wrong about bitcoin's climate footprint. Matt Bruenig, founder of the People's Policy Project, came on to talk about Senator Mitt Romney's plan to fight child poverty and the problems he sees with using tax credits to alleviate poverty. Then Claudia Sahm, a former Federal Reserve economist and Bloomberg Opinion columnist, made the case for going as broad as possible with stimulus checks.

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This week, Ken Lewis, the CEO of ApMex, often called the Walmart of precious metals, came on to talk about the record demand he saw for silver as the hoard of Reddit-fueled retail traders discovered the commodity market and drove silver to its highest price in nearly eight years. Adrian Ash, the director of research at BullionVault, a physical gold and silver market for private investors online, also discussed how unprecedented silver's run this week was. Jill Carlson, the co-founder of the Open Money Initiative and principal at the VC firm Slow Ventures, came back on to talk about the future of fintech amid the retail frenzy and the industry's adoption of crypto. Then Samuel Hammond, the director of poverty and welfare policy at the Niskanen Center joined to make the case for Sen. Mitt Romeny's ambitious plan to tackle child poverty by giving direct payments to families and how government checks can be conservative policy.

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This week was one like no other with GameStop taking over the markets, internet and zeitgeist and What'd You Miss covered the story from all sides. Benn Eifert, principal and chief investment officer at QVR Advisors, explained the gamma squeeze phenomenon at play. Gabriel Grego, managing partner at Quintessential Capital Management, made the case for short-selling and discussed whether advertising a short position is now a career risk. Howard Lindzon, the co-founder of StockTwits, went thought the online nature of this Reddit-fueled retail frenzy. One of the original GameStop bulls Rod Alzmann, the proprietor of GMEDD.com, made the bullish case for the company and talked about how his theory took off.

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Liz Pancotti, a senior advisor at Employ America, joined to discuss President Biden's stimulus plan and the economic challenges ahead for the new administration. Nobel Prize-winning economist and Columbia professor Joe Stiglitz explained why he thinks the White House stimulus package is sufficient enough to ensure that we get back to pre-pandemic levels of output. Conference Board chief economist Dana Peterson went through the biggest issues weighing on the minds of CEOs for the year ahead. Then Corey Hoffstein, the Co-founder and CIO of Newfound Research, joined on the changing market dynamic for quants amid the influx of retail investors.

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This week, Jill Carlson, Slow Venture principal and Open Money Initiative co-founder, joined to discuss bitcoin's record start to the year and the influx of institutional money into the space. Julia Coronado, Macropolicy Perspectives president and founder, came on to talk about why some Fed officials fanned talk of tapering bond buying and investor flashbacks to the 2013 taper tantrum. Willy Shih, professor of management practice at Harvard Business School, joined to go through the global chip stock rally triggered by Taiwan Semi's $28 billion spending blitz and the executive shakeup at Intel. Sharyn O'Halloran, Columbia professor of political economy and international and public affairs, joined to talk about whether the Trump administration has created a lasting new normal for the U.S.-China relationship.

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This week, Caroline puts the CEO Spotlight on Chevron chairman and chief executive Mike Wirth, who has been with the company since 1982 and at its helm since the beginning of 2018. Wirth discusses his outlook for energy demand and oil prices in the year ahead amid the ongoing pandemic, climate change, balancing their responsibilities to shareholders and the environment, and what the incoming Biden administration means for Chevron.

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This week, Exante Data founder and CEO, Jens Nordvig, joined to discuss what he calls "the big myth about money and inflation." Jon Turek, author of Cheap Convexity, offered his maco outlook for markets amid the simultaneous risk-on rally in stocks and breakevens. Zach Maril, the founder of the Knuckleheads Club, who has spent years researching Google's search engine, explained why Google's webcrawler is a natural monopoly and should be regulated as one. Then Seth Ginns, managing partner and head of liquid investments at Coinfund, discussed the increasing institutional interest in bitcoin as the cryptocurrency continues to surge.

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This week, Catherine Mealor, an analyst at KBW, came on to talk about what KBW's restoration index says about the road to economic recovery and how dependent it is on further fiscal stimulus. Mark Palmer, a fintech analyst at BTIG, joined to discuss how fintech companies like the Cash App are trying to ride the cryptocurrency wave. Win Thin, the global head of currency strategy at Brown Brothers Harriman, offered his outlook for global FX as emerging markets near record highs. Then Leigh Drogen, the founder and CEO of Estimize, goes through the week of eye-watering IPOs with DoorDash and Airbnb and the impact of such high retail interest in the IPOs.

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