Capital Flows and Asset Markets

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.russell-clark.com Its been a long time since we have had a real bear market in the US. For me, its looks like more of slope of hope, where rallies are there to be sold.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.russell-clark.com Let be clear - I am not a “gold bug”. In fact I used to make fund of gold bugs all the time. Fred Hickey, who apparently was a “technology strategist” used to devote most of his newsletter to gold, and gold mining stocks, while missing the greatest bull run in tech stocks ever seen. Long gold miners, while recommen...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.russell-clark.com For the first time in many years, currency is making a big difference to my portfolio. I have always had a heavy currency focus, and even in my current portfolio I have a big currency position - but I have never had any reason to to talk about it - until today.

Ronnie O’Sullivan may or may not be the greatest snooker player of all time - but he is probably the most naturally gifted. Snooker is a very slow game - and achieving a perfect score is vanishingly rare. Ronnie has the distinction of the fastest ever perfect score . If you wanted to carry on the Ronnie analogy, like Ronnie, I burst on to the scene, did great things, then suffered a form slump, re...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.russell-clark.com It has been a tumultuous couple of weeks. I will make some general observations to start, and then some market observations behind the paywall at the end. * American First politics in practice, particular in regards to Ukraine, but with the application of tariffs as well, has probably ended the various independence...

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I did a market update with Maggie Lake yesterday. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.russell-clark.com/subscribe

President Trump has said he wants two things - lower energy prices and lower interest rates. I suspect that he assumed causing the stock market to crash with his “Liberation Day” tariffs would help get both. Together with a surprise increase in OPEC production, he definitely got lower oil prices. WTI is down USD20 a barrel from January highs. With market down nearly 20% from all time highs in Febr...

Just a quick post. I have been bearish on Treasuries for a while. Why? I see investor mindset has completed changed on fixed income from 10 years ago. Back then, no one thought buying a 30 year Treasury at 4% was a sensible trade, but when yields moved to 1% during Covid, everyone became convinced of their ability to rally when thing are bad. But for me bonds reflect politics - and politics is no...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.russell-clark.com Wondering whether it is time to change strategy might seem like a very odd thing to say. If I had to estimate year to date performance as of close Friday, it would be up as much as MSCI world is down, but with a net pretty close to neutral. Pretty good. So what is the problem?

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.russell-clark.com Some surprisingly big moves in the core theme of the portfolio. What do they mean?

We are living in times of profound change. What I am trying to do with Brumby Capital is capture the opportunity of those changes. I have set up a website - www.brumbycapital.com - that includes a beta version of AI Persona for the fund. You can speak to it, and it answers in an Australian accent. Please give it a go and give me feedback on where we can improve it. At some point I hope to train it...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.russell-clark.com It has been a busy month. Not only were markets volatile, I combined this with a trip to New York. While the performance was very good, more than anything it was a validation of the analysis. This gives me more clarity on where we are going, and how we are going to get there. As I now realise the importance of poli...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.russell-clark.com As part of my launch of Brumby Capital - I spent two days in NYC meeting a selection of subscribers and ex-investors. Now you would think that these trips would be all about raising capital. And they are - but I take a longer view on these things. If I tell people what I think is going to happen - and how I plan to...

In my school days, the constant criticism I used to get was not showing my working - to which I would reply, but its so obvious why would anyone need to see that? I have learnt, that showing your working is a good way to avoid mistakes - so I do try and show my working these days. Below is my effort to explain my view of why we are moving to an era of capital scarcity. There are three interconnect...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.russell-clark.com I have written a series of post on how “ Short Selling Sucks ” and generally speaking, I make fun of short sellers as the biggest bunch of losers in financial history. So you may be wondering, why do people make a big song and dance about short selling? Well, when it works it is like magic.

Back when I first started writing this substack, one of my first questions I was asking myself, was why had JGB yield stopped falling? During the Covid crisis - a huge potential deflationary bust - JGB yields starting rising very early on and have kept going. My view remains Japanese investors are very clued on on inflation vs deflation trends. I wondered what they saw. One of the first things I f...

There are two aspects to fund management - managing money and raising money. Of the two, the second part is the hardest. I have met many managers with fantastic numbers, who have never raised any money at all. Why? Typically they just assume if their numbers are good enough, the money will come. Sometimes that is true - but rarely. For me, raising money is more a trust game. Do people trust you wi...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.russell-clark.com I am thinking of being in NY on 25 and 26th March. If you would like a meeting, drop me a line and I can see what I can do. In case you have been under a rock this month, US markets have finally sold off, while “emerging market” assets have done alright. Aggressive traders who took on the long China tech, short US...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.russell-clark.com Note this was written morning of 11/3/25 so market pricing below is at that time. Short selling is not taught at university or in the CFA syllabus. Short selling also only tends to be profitable for brief periods, so finding someone who does it for a living is hard. And generally speaking, only idiots try and make...

All the talk is of recession and in particular the long awaited recession in the US. The most obvious catalyst for all this recession talk is the weakness in equities. Weakness is a strong word in this case - as we are still above the 200MDA. On a more realistic level, lead indicators in the US, such as the Quits Rate has been pointing to a slow down since 2022, as higher interest rates has slowed...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.russell-clark.com You spend ages waiting for a good short theme to come along, and two turn up at the same time. I really think markets are not fully appreciating the significance of the sell off in German bunds, and the likely continued weakness in the bunds. We have also quietly seen 30 year JGBs sell off to reach new cycle highs....

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.russell-clark.com The performance of listed franchisees and franchisors had attracted my interest some time ago. Can big listed franchisors continue to endlessly grow even as their franchisees are suffering financially? Surely pain for franchisees should eventually pass up the food chain.

Back in the free market era (circa pre 2016) autocallables (structured products in Europe) were guaranteed time bombs in financial markets. Essentially, they sold volatility to create yield products. In calm markets, they artificially reduced market volatility, but in crisis markets they amplified market volatility. Originally invented in Japan, they cost retail investors so much market, they even...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.russell-clark.com At the heart of what I am trying to do is capture a shift away from the current economic and political system, that is a system that favours capital over labour. There are a lot of reasons for this, but the key trade at the heart of this view is a long gold/short treasury trade. Over the long term, we are still ear...