Podcast: Be Greedy When Others are Fearful

Risk off sell everything, payrolls preview, equity volatility is the only escape valve and fasten your seat beltThis week’s report Be Greedy When Others are FearfulFigure 1: SPX risk is the S&P 500 Volatility, the Volatility of Volatility, correlation and skew indices as well as the term structure of VIX futures (6 month less 1 month) in a z-score format. Wednesday it expanded to 2.43 standard deviations, it remained above 2 on Thursday and Friday. We consider these readings high relative to underlying economic conditions. The election and latest surge in Covid-19 cases appear reasonably discounted.Please consider becoming a paid subscriber, or if you are an institutional client, on boarding us to your research platform to read our full note and gain access to our client presentation, measures of risk and valuation, recommended reading list and additional products. If you would like a 30-day free trial or would like to discuss our research with me directly, please email [email protected]. Click below for details, for individual subscriptions the price is $89/month.Lehman Veterans Knapp, Curnutt Reunite at Macro Risk Advisors2020-10-30 16:14:49.326 GMTBy Sonali Basak(Bloomberg) -- Barry Knapp is reuniting with former LehmanBrothers Holdings Inc. colleague Dean Curnutt as the duo seek toexpand their work advising large investors.Knapp, who previously worked at Guggenheim Securities andBlackRock Inc., is keeping his own research firm, IronsidesMacroeconomics, while also working as a senior adviser toCurnutt’s Macro Risk Advisors. The two worked together in the1990s at Lehman during what Knapp calls the “glory days ofequity derivatives.”“We were doing ETF-like transactions with macro hedge fundsbefore there were ETFs,” Knapp said in a phone interview,referring to exchange-traded funds. “I did a Russell 2000 swapbefore there were Russell 2000 futures.”Curnutt founded his company in 2008 to advise institutionalinvestors on market risks. He previously was head of equitysales and trading at Bank of America Corp. and, before that,worked in the equity derivatives unit at Lehman in the fouryears through 1999, according to his LinkedIn profile.Knapp joined BlackRock’s fixed-income investment-managementdivision in 2014, after almost two decades at Lehman and thenfive years at Barclays Plc. He joined Guggenheim in 2017 andleft about a year later.Knapp’s “macro expertise will be a welcome addition to theset of tools we bring to clients to help navigate markets andrisk at a time of great uncertainty,” Curnutt said by phone.“Having known Barry for 25 years and worked with him before, Ihave a strong appreciation for his talents and expertise.”If there are any questions about the above Bloomberg story please contact meBarry C. KnappManaging PartnerDirector of ResearchIronsides Macroeconomics [email protected]://ironsidesmacro.substack.comhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/barry-c-knapp/@barryknappReading ListLatest Book: “A History of the Federal Reserve, Volume 2, Book 1, 1951-1969”, Allan H. MeltzerNext Book: “Human Action, The Scholar’s Edition”, Ludwig von Mises“Trade Wars Are Class Wars”, Matthew C. Klein & Michael Pettis“Showdown at Gucci Gulch, Lawmakers, Lobbyists, and the Unlikely Triumph of Tax Reform”, Jeffrey H. Birnbaum and Alan S. Murray“A Great Leap Forward, 1930s Depression and US Economic Growth”, Alexander J. Field“1493, Uncovering the New World Columbus Created”, Charles C. Mann“Great Society, A New History”, Amity Shlaes“The Second Machine Age”, Erik Brynjolofsson, Andrew McAfee“Grand Pursuit, the Story of Economic Genius”, Sylvia Nasar“The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers”, Paul Kennedy“Capitalism in America, A History”, Alan Greenspan & Adrian Woolridge“Diversity Explosion, How New Racial Demographics are Remaking America”, William H. Frey“Clashing Over Commerce, A History of US Trade Policy”, Douglas A. Irwin“Destined for War, Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap”, Graham Allison“The Constitution of Liberty”, F.A. Hayek“Judgement in Moscow, Soviet Crimes and Western Complicity”, Vladimir Bukovsky“1931, Debt, Crisis and the Rise of Hitler”, Tobias StraumannThis institutional communication has been prepared by Ironsides Macroeconomics LLC (“Ironsides Macroeconomics”) for your informational purposes only. This material is for illustration and discussion purposes only and are not intended to be, nor should they be construed as financial, legal, tax or investment advice and do not constitute an opinion or recommendation by Ironsides Macroeconomics. You should consult appropriate advisors concerning such matters. This material presents information through the date indicated, is only a guide to the author’s current expectations and is subject to revision by the author, though the author is under no obligation to do so. 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