All Epsilon Theory Content

All Epsilon Theory Content

 

Everything we have published at Epsilon Theory since 2013, an archive of more than 1,000 evergreen notes.

Bitcoin Market Profile

By Brent Donnelly | April 28, 2021 | 4 Comments

ET contributor Brent Donnelly gives a crash course in Market Profile analysis and applies it to Bitcoin since the Coinbase IPO.

The Last Capitalist

By Harper Hunt | April 28, 2021 | 0 Comments

Jonathan Plotkin is a longtime ET reader and brilliant cartoonist. For years he’s been sending Ben illustrations inspired by our notes and we’ve been dying…

Eye

By Harper Hunt | April 27, 2021 | 0 Comments

Jonathan Plotkin is a longtime ET reader and brilliant cartoonist. For years he’s been sending Ben illustrations inspired by our notes and we’ve been dying…

Manheim Steamroller

By Rusty Guinn | April 26, 2021 | 16 Comments
Image of Wormwood, the father and slick car salesman from Matilda

When we talk about and plan for inflation in our businesses and portfolios, we are usually focused on direction and magnitude. We also usually abstract away from price volatility.

We shouldn’t.

ET Podcast #9 – Make, Protect, Teach

By Ben Hunt | April 22, 2021 | 3 Comments

How do we change the world? Not through corporations and political parties from the top-down, but through free-thinking citizens from the bottom-up. Not as an alienated flock, but as a cooperative pack. Not with abstractions and transactions, but with making, protecting and teaching.

Let’s gooooooo!

The Zeitgeist – April 19, 2021

By Ben Hunt | April 19, 2021 | 6 Comments

Here’s what we’re reading and working on this week at Epsilon Theory.

Mailbag: ET Forum Edition

By Ben Hunt | April 16, 2021 | 10 Comments

We are now more than 900 Pack members strong on the ET Forum, with more than 1,000 posts contributed by smart, clear-eyed, full-hearted people from all over the world and all walks of life. Like you.

Here, I’ll show you. Here is some of the best and most thoughtful content on the internet today.

Here is the Mailbag that we need.

Here is the Mailbag that we deserve.

What Do We Need To Be True?

By Rusty Guinn | April 6, 2021 | 44 Comments

Modeling Common Knowledge by analyzing Missionary statements and their reverberations works. Except when it doesn’t.

ET Podcast #8 – Leverage and Its Discontents

By Ben Hunt | April 2, 2021 | 3 Comments

Three blow-ups in three months: Archegos, Greensill, and Melvin Capital.

What do they have in common? Insane leverage employed to maximize private gain while socializing potential losses.

A Tiger Can’t Change Its Stripes

By Ben Hunt | March 30, 2021 | 32 Comments

What do you get when you give a Raccoon billions of dollars AND invisibility from regulators? Collusion and insider trading.

Hot and Cold

By Rusty Guinn | March 23, 2021 | 26 Comments

Most of us are under the impression that a protracted conflict within China will increase national unity. Not this time.

Office Hours 3.16.2021

By Harper Hunt | March 18, 2021 | 0 Comments

Our March 2021 Office Hours. Talking about our latest notes and podcasts.

A Conversation with Howard Marks

By Brent Donnelly | March 17, 2021 | 5 Comments

ET contributor Brent Donnelly talks with Howard Marks about why traditional value investing is likely permanently impaired as a strategy and why Growth vs. Value is a false dichotomy. Boomshakalaka!

ET Podcast #7 – Inflation Investing

By Ben Hunt | March 11, 2021 | 3 Comments

We’re going to Pack-source a slate of investment strategies for an inflationary world. Here are five tentpoles to organize and support that effort.

The Best Way to Rob a Bank

By Ben Hunt | March 9, 2021 | 12 Comments

I think that the collapse of Greensill Capital has a lot of systemic risk embedded within it, particularly as the fraudulent deals between Greensill and its major sponsors – Softbank and Credit Suisse – come to light.

This is the first Big Fraud I’ve seen in 13 years with the sheer heft and star power to ripple through markets in a systemic way. Not since Madoff.

A Freaky Circle

By Rusty Guinn | March 9, 2021 | 3 Comments

Excessive complexity in a deal or structure isn’t necessarily nefarious, but it also isn’t a good sign. The distraction and confusion you and I feel reading about these deals is usually not the problem.

It is the point.

The Fed’s Kryptonite

By Peter Cecchini | March 4, 2021 | 4 Comments

An in-depth look at the interdependence of inflation, Treasury supply, and the Fed reaction function.

Bottom line: inflation is the Fed’s kryptonite.

A Change in the Water

By Ben Hunt | March 3, 2021 | 3 Comments

Increasingly, the common knowledge of our investment world – what everyone knows that everyone knows – is that inflation is a problem and you should be focused on it.

The Opposite of 2008

By Ben Hunt | March 2, 2021 | 27 Comments

In 2008, the US housing market – together with a Fed that thought the subprime crisis was “contained” – delivered the mother of all deflationary shocks to the global economy.

In 2021, the US housing market – together with a Fed that thinks inflationary pressures are “transitory” – risks delivering the mother of all inflationary shocks.

The ET Pack is going to figure this out … together.

ET Podcast #6 – The Business of Wall Street

By Ben Hunt | February 25, 2021 | 0 Comments

Very little investing today is buying and selling shares of common stock in individual companies. Instead, we buy and sell what Wall Street calls “products” – mutual funds, ETFs, options, REITs, SPACs, etc.

Dave Nadig, who literally wrote the book on ETFs, helps us understand the history and future of the business of Wall Street.