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Category: Season 5

Yes, the Fed Can Still Engineer a ‘Soft Landing’: Callie Cox, eToro (Szn 5, Ep. 5)

Published February 21, 2023

A short clip of actionable highlights from this podcast episode was distributed to premium subscribers on Feb. 9 — almost one week ago at the time of this writing. The full podcast episode followed a day after that. To become a premium subscriber and take advantage of this and a host of other benefits (and avoid annoying ads and announcements), visit our Supercast or Substack and sign up!

Callie Cox of eToro joins the podcast to discuss her view that the Federal Reserve can engineer a ‘soft landing’ — defeating inflation while not tipping the US economy into a recession.

Content Highlights

  • It’s hard to see how the Fed will be able to combat inflation without breaking things in the economy, but this is the guest’s view (3:00);
  • This view is partly based on the job market (4:06);
  • Inflation is the major risk to the ‘soft landing’ thesis. But there are encouraging signs (6:00);
  • Still, there is a chance investors are underestimating the chances of higher interest rates from the Fed (8:08);
  • Ultimately, investors are discounting the global economy’s strength (9:21);
  • Technology has been harder hit than other sectors of the economy, which may bring second-order effects especially locally. But nationally, initial jobless claims are still low (13:57);
  • The US consumer has been a particular strong point. No reason for that to stop (15:53);
  • Background on the guest (20:12);
  • Views on cryptocurrency (24:48);
  • The concept of decentralized finance, or DeFi: not just a fool’s errand (26:43);
  • Does the VIX still matter? Maybe, but there are better options to gauge volatility (31:14).

More on Callie Cox

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The Future of Technology Investing is Hardware, not Software (Szn 5, Ep. 4)

Published February 14, 2023

With Robert Cote, Cote Capital

Robert Cote, principal at Cote Capital Management, joins the podcast to discuss his model of technology investing, how it’s different than venture capital, and which areas of new technology that he is most excited about.

Content Highlights

  • The last 20 years have seen venture capital focus on software companies, almost to the exclusion of anything else. Therein lies the opportunity (1:09);
  • Hardware has been overlooked and can become the focus of technology investors again. One example is manufacturing (6:39);
  • Use of nanocarbon has created one specific advancement in the area of solar technology (8:50);
  • Unfortunately, this technology is not investable through public markets (12:22);
  • Another example: textiles, specifically textile recycling (17:08);
  • Background on the guest and his investment process (22:56);
  • There is transportation-related innovation as well. No, not self-driving cars (36:31);
  • Something from the realm of augmented reality: X-ray technology for surgery (38:57):
  • Finally, what about crypto currencies? (43:18).

More on Robert Cote

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A Global Economy Beset by Discrepancies, With Joseph Politano (Szn 5, Ep. 3)

Published February 2, 2023

Joseph Politano of Apricitas Economics joins the podcast to discuss his views on the various discrepancies in the global economy — and how the whole thing may play out.

Content Highlights

  • US home prices could be due for more declines, based on how housing starts and interest rates have been trending (2:15);
  • How much of the strength of the labor market is due to interest rate hikes not having taken full effect yet? (4:09);
  • Expecting a ‘mild recession’ may be as naive as anticipating a ‘soft landing’ (8:44);
  • Traditional leading indicators are out of synch, with manufacturing employment dropping precipitously but the services sector going from strength to strength (13:30);
  • The Fed may have already overdone it with interest rate hikes (14:57);
  • The ‘best case’ scenario may be akin to what happened in 1995-96 (18:15);
  • Background on the guest (22:23);
  • What to (possibly) expect from Fed policy the rest of 2023 (27:29);
  • Watch Japan’s monetary policy as well (34:17);
  • What about cryptocurrencies as a systemic risk? (39:08);

More on Joseph Politano

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