recap/history/1775223278105-ovih9Xotmxg.json

{"id":"1775223278105-ovih9Xotmxg","videoId":"ovih9Xotmxg","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovih9Xotmxg","title":"Escalating Energy Shock Exposing Central Bank Limits | Weekly Roundup","type":"youtube","topicCount":13,"segmentCount":67,"createdAt":"2026-04-03T13:34:38.105Z","uploadDate":"20260320","chunks":[{"title":"Episode Teaser & Sponsor Disclaimers","summary":"A teaser snippet sets the tone for the episode's discussion on energy market disruptions. This is followed by a promo for the upcoming Digital Asset Summit and standard disclaimers.","entries":[{"text":"Host: I think there’s a lot of downplaying like how serious this is. The problems are here to stay and basically it’s sort of escalation mode until it’s not. Everybody was looking for a taco and you can’t taco reverse out of Qatar’s LNG facility being destroyed. The market’s screaming growth problem here. Let’s say everything goes hunky-dory and oil goes to 80. That’s still not good. The Fed’s still not cutting, liquidity picture’s still bad, foreign investors still need to pull their funds from these assets, like I just see a pretty strong ceiling on the S&P 500 for from that perspective. It’s just a disaster.","offset":0,"duration":33},{"text":"Host: Before we get started, a quick reminder that Blockwork's premiere institutional conference, the Digital Asset Summit, is returning to New York City this March 24th through 26th. This year represents more than $4.2 trillion dollars in assets under management with 150 speakers and 750 institutions attending.","offset":33,"duration":18},{"text":"Host: Speakers include SEC Chair Paul Atkins, CFTC Chair Michael Sellick, Fed Governor Steven Moran, and Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino, alongside countless other executives, asset managers, regulators, and the core crypto infrastructure builders shaping the industry. If you want serious institutional-grade view of digital assets in 2026, Digital Asset Summit is where it happens. Use code FORWARD200 for $200 off and head to blockworks.co/events for more details.","offset":51,"duration":30},{"text":"Host: Nothing said on Forward Guidance is a recommendation to buy or sell any investments or products. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and the views expressed by anyone on the show are solely their opinions, not financial advice, or necessarily the views of Blockworks. Our hosts, guests, and the Blockworks team may hold positions in the companies, funds, or projects discussed. As always, investments and blockchain technology involve risk. Terms and conditions apply. Do your own risk.","offset":81,"duration":29}],"startTime":0},{"title":"Host Catch-Up and Conference Preview","summary":"The hosts catch up on their missing co-host Tyler's absence and preview the macro track at the Digital Asset Summit in New York, highlighting the growing intersection of crypto and TradFi.","entries":[{"text":"Host: All right everybody, welcome back to another edition of Forward Guidance and, uh, for the second week in a row, sadly, we are missing our compatriot Tyler. He’s- he’s in better health, it’s not a virus this week, but, uh, he had some work stuff come up and had to go attend to it. So it’s back to just us two again, the duo. Um, what’s up Quinn?","offset":110,"duration":23},{"text":"Quinn: How you doing, man? Yeah, we need this vault to cool down so we can get our boy back. He’s just- he’s just in the trenches right now.","offset":133,"duration":6},{"text":"Host: Dude, he is heavily in the trenches. And- and Muddy Waters is putting out some big short reports, too, at the same time.","offset":139,"duration":7},{"text":"Quinn: Yeah, yeah, they, um- what was that, SoFi?","offset":146,"duration":2},{"text":"Host: SoFi, yeah, they put out a short report on SoFi, which is- I wanted- I wanted him to be on so I could just, like, pepper him with it so he could just be like, I can’t talk about it.","offset":148,"duration":9},{"text":"Quinn: I can’t say anything. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Anyway. Big boy things to attend to, but, uh, he’ll be back. Um, not next week though, because next week is the Digital Asset Summit in New York. Very, very hyped about it. Um, going to be a ton of fun next Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Get your tickets if you haven’t already. I would be very surprised if you haven’t already because now prices are going up. We’re almost sold out, but you can use FORWARD200 for 200 bucks off. It’s going to be a great time. Wednesday afternoon we have an entire Forward Guidance track dedicated to macro, the intersection with everything that’s going on. I was actually just on a- on a prep call this morning with Governor Steven Moran, which was super cool. We- we were prepping for next week, so that’s going to be an awesome one. Like, I- I’m super excited to ask him about- he dissented in the recent Fed meeting which we’ll get into. But, uh, yeah, it’s just, you know, we- we have a- a sitting Fed governor, we’ve got the head of the SEC, the head of the CFTC, like, it’s just- it’s going to be awesome. Um, really looking forward to it.","offset":157,"duration":56},{"text":"Quinn: Yeah, that’s going to be fun, man. The- the macro day, like, this is- this is top-tier stuff for, especially people who are thinking, oh, it’s a crypto conference, but there’s going to be, uh, a lot- a lot to talk about there.","offset":213,"duration":13},{"text":"Host: Crypto and TradFi are coming together. It’s- you know, whether people like it or not, it’s, you know, we still got to figure out what- what it actually looks like when it comes together, whether it’s just tokenized everything, but it’s happening. Uh, yeah, I mean, pretty soon we can just tokenize oil to bypass the strait.","offset":226,"duration":9}],"startTime":110},{"title":"FOMC Meeting and Economic Projections","summary":"Analysis of the latest Fed meeting and the updated Summary of Economic Projections (SEP). The hosts discuss why the market interpreted the meeting as dovish despite upward revisions to growth and inflation forecasts.","entries":[{"text":"Quinn: Yeah, exactly. Send it over internet rails instead. Yeah, that’s all you need to do. Um, anyway, with that out of the way, let’s get into the swing of things. I want to start to talk about, it was a Fed meeting yesterday. We got- it was also an SEP day. So no surprise, no rate cuts involved there, and we got their updated summary of economic projections. So just looking through a few of the key changes here.","offset":235,"duration":36},{"text":"Host: The- the FOMC updated their GDP forecast actually upwards for 2026 from 2.3 to 2.4%, which is quite interesting. Held the unemployment rate steady at 4.4. PCE inflation from their December projection of 2.4 up to 2.7, and core PCE from 2.5 to 2.7. Their projections for rate cuts are pretty much unchanged across the board, however. This is an interesting one. I mean, obviously the- the baseline reaction is- is, if you just look at the numbers, hawkish of- of PCE going from 2.4 to 2.7, but I feel like a lot of people expected even more of a hawkish function, um, which is interesting. What- what was your read on this, Quinn?","offset":271,"duration":41},{"text":"Quinn: Yeah, I- I thought it was dovish. Every meeting, uh, I put- or at least the quarterly ones where we get the SEP, I put together my own estimates, uh, of what I think they will be based on, you know, changes in data and rhetoric, etc. And I had a more hawkish dot plot, but there’s been a lot of moving pieces so I- I wasn’t putting too much signal or like, you know, emphasis on it. What- what stood out to me is that if you just, you know, let’s say you don't know anything about what’s going on and there’s no Iran war etc. and you see them raise inflation expectations and growth expectations, GDP and PCE, you would say it would be a hawkish interest rate policy path, and it wasn’t. So, like, you still had two governors that weren't Moran expecting three cuts this year, two more expecting two cuts, and then obviously the split- split between none and one.","offset":312,"duration":65},{"text":"Quinn: But to me, it was hawkish or- really dovish, and I think also like, the- the increased PCE expectations make sense, but um, I- I would have- I would have thought there would be a little bit more consideration of the impacts of demand destruction from- from the oil price shock because that, you know, there will be inflation if there’s government response that fuels the fire, it will be more long-lasting, but if there’s not easing or fiscal stimulus that responds, it will be more transitory to some extent and it will hit demand harder, so um, I would have expected- I didn’t think growth would get brought up. But overall, dovish because I think, you know, what Powell says is one thing and, you know, at the end of the day he’s not going to be around for that much longer, so I- I was really trying to think about what the committee and the votes and their projections would signal where consensus was for when Warsh takes- takes chairmanship, and dovish to me. Like, if- if five people already think, you know, two cuts or more, like-","offset":377,"duration":73},{"text":"Host: Dude, there’s not a lot of, like, convince- like, as much sway as I would have expected that would be needed to cut, especially if labor market starts falling apart. So I- I sort of feel like on balance it’s somewhat neutral because I think for sure, like this- this SEP and the press statement that came out and everything, that was quite dovish and- and you saw that initially. Like if you’re just tracking the 2-year throughout this whole thing, 2-year treasury. Initially, yeah, it was- it’s pretty calm and then it seemed like he- it got a little bit more hawkish in the press conference because Powell was really kind of mentioning that this SEP is- is pretty stale in- like it’s not fully considering the Middle Eastern shocks, the oil shock, and I think that’s pretty valid. Like, do you really think that we can have them, like, predict what the 2026 growth outlook is going to be? Like, no, no chance. So I mean, to me it’s just- it just kind of on balance feels somewhat neutral, maybe slightly dovish because they’re not trying to front-run this reaction function. But yeah, to me it just feels like, you know, Powell’s just trying to get to the finish line in one piece.","offset":450,"duration":61},{"text":"Quinn: Yeah, they- I mean, also to be fair, he’s like- he said a couple times almost like point-blank, like we don't have any confidence in these projections because there’s so much ungo- he like, and even if consensus is around zero-one cut, that cut’s going to come late in the year, so, which is many, many months out and this will change a bunch before so. Yeah, it’s definitely not one that everything hinges off of like you sometimes get, but it was interesting. Like, yeah, whatever.","offset":511,"duration":28},{"text":"Host: I- I do think what is interesting though is how markets are reacting right now since that’s a lot more coincidental and you can see Fed funds futures. We- we went from just a couple weeks ago, we had over two cuts priced for 2026 and now we’re- we’re basically at none. So even though the Fed is still on board for maybe- maybe one cut in- in 2026, the market’s like no, it’s- it’s not happening. And that’s where the story is, right? Because, you know, real-time market data might be a bit better at trying to forecast where we’re going here. I guess my question is like, how in the world, given, you know, the private credit issues, given the now commodity price spike stuff, even if the war ends tomorrow, there’s some lasting effects, given waning liquidity broadly and slowing momentum of asset prices. Like, how does- how- how possibly could equity prices stay elevated without- without liquidity help? So when I think in that frame, it’s like, okay, well then what’s the- okay, then the forcing function is probably the equity market for cuts and then what’s that level? I don’t know. I was sort of looking at December SOFR futures as like a potential. I don't know what’s better risk-reward, shorting equities or longing those, but it’s definitely, like, push comes to shove, like, Trump’s getting cuts if- if stuff starts hitting the fan. So I think it’s getting to levels that’s sort of interesting. I haven’t pulled the trigger yet though.","offset":539,"duration":92}],"startTime":235},{"title":"Central Banks' Rigid Response to Oil Shocks","summary":"A look at how single-mandate central banks like the ECB and Bank of England are forced to hold or unexpectedly hike rates in response to inflation driven by energy supply shocks.","entries":[{"text":"Host: Yeah, it’s- it just seems like this whole thing of how difficult it is for- for how central banks are set up to react when oil supply shock, it’s- it’s just so difficult. And this is even like a- a dual mandate central bank. You know, some of these other- and this is a big topic I want to get into here, is if you- where am I looking? When you get to looking at the other central banks and how they’re reacting to the situation, it’s- a lot of these are single-mandate central banks. So all they care about is inflation. They don’t have a mandate for unemployment. So when they see inflation go up, their- their framework are basically forced towards them with a hiking bias.","offset":631,"duration":32},{"text":"Host: So you can see the Fed is, yes, it’s- it’s come back a lot in terms of the number of cuts, but we’re still on net- like we’re- we’re not pricing any hikes anywhere right now on the Fed side of things. But then you look at the ECB, we have- we have gone from pretty much flat towards almost two hikes over the next little while here. Bank of England today had their meeting and it was a huge surprise and this isn’t updated in this data yet, but they were- they were priced to pause, or sorry, they were priced to cut at this recent meeting today and they surprised by holding flat. And this really just shows how difficult and how frozen these central banks are where they- they’re at the whim of inflation. They can’t think in those second orders and, you know, us as market prognosticators can be like, oh, they should be doing this. But the fact of the matter is like, they’re mandated by- by laws and frameworks to be reacting in a certain way.","offset":663,"duration":49},{"text":"Host: So you can see this in the Bank of England, like the Gilts market just went absolutely bananas today. The 2-year just sold off like mad because it was fully priced for a cut and we didn't get that and we got this pretty hawkish retort. The entire board, um, voted to pause as well and not cut. So it was like a consensus hawkish pivot out of nowhere. And what’s- what’s so crazy to me is that most of these central banks are in economies that are also the most exposed to the oil shock. It’s just like this double-whammy situation where Europe is the most exposed and they have the least flexible central bank. It’s just- it’s just a disaster.","offset":712,"duration":42}],"startTime":631},{"title":"Currency Markets and US Export Ban Rumors","summary":"Discussion on the dollar's recent weakness and the potential market impact of rumored US export controls on refined energy products, noting the significant price moves in crack spreads.","entries":[{"text":"Quinn: Yeah, I guess this must be the catalyst for the move today in- in- in the dollar versus especially like the pound and the Yen, you know, dollar weakened really- really massively today. Also weird that the dollar weakened massively on a day gold was down huge. So it sort of says that, um, the run-at-hot trade has been stymied here where fiat actually looks all right if central banks are going to be hiking into- into this and actually attempting to get inflation down. I think, I mean, where I stand is it’s like show- I don't really have any bets on it because I want to- I want to see the proof in the pudding because it’s all talk until your equity market starts getting, you know, pummeled. And, uh, you know, everything’s pulled back, but nothing dramatically or- that signals real panic. So I- I’ll be curious to see how these rate hike expectations hold up once stocks start taking it on the chin, which I would expect soon.","offset":754,"duration":68},{"text":"Quinn: But yeah, man, it’s a- it’s a weird- like the- yeah, the energy situation is just so dire if- if the strait doesn’t open. I mean, maybe- maybe there’s some things too around these headlines where um, you know, the- the allies were saying, okay, we- we will help open the strait because like at the end of the day, you know, Trump’s definitely dangling this threat of export controls that that would really- really just really- really affect the rest of world super negatively, um, and also be bad for us and use the dollar etc. So maybe that’s also something to do with with the dollar’s fall today.","offset":822,"duration":40},{"text":"Host: Yeah, definitely an interesting one when you mentioned about, uh, the export ban situation because the- the energy secretary came out today and said we don’t plan export ban on WTI Crude, but they didn’t say anything about, uh, any sort of refined products and that’s where the meat of the situation is. There’s this good, uh, you can see the chart here, like refined products versus oil. The real move has been in those refined products, like yeah, diesel’s up way more than WTI, and so refinery margins are- are up a ton. You know, this is- this- you can see this in like the- in the crack spreads. But this is what really matters in terms of like an export ban, in terms of like protecting consumers from affordability at the pump and that sort of thing. So that’s still on the table.","offset":862,"duration":45},{"text":"Host: We- we did see this, you know, the WTI Brent spread went like absolutely nuts over the past couple days, um, and it- it seemed like a lot of that was speculation around this export ban and then as soon as you got that- that news hit the tape, you saw that start to come together. WTI started to rally and then it seemed like everything started to sell off in- in quick succession, too. So um, yeah, weird stuff afoot. How- how are you thinking about the energy situation? Like last week we were kind of in a everything’s fucked, um, and it’s just- it’s just a time thing. I’m still of that mind, I’m curious how you’re thinking about it.","offset":907,"duration":39}],"startTime":754},{"title":"Energy Infrastructure Damage & Asian Exposure","summary":"The hosts highlight the severe, long-lasting damage to Qatar's LNG facility and analyze how Asian markets are exceptionally vulnerable, evidenced by the surging prices of Dubai and Oman crude.","entries":[{"text":"Quinn: Yeah, I- I- I mean, like today, I- I had that- BB’s press conference was- I- I mean, I got to imagine that was Trump saying, you know, US saying, dude, you got to show face, where you been, go out there and- because right, that helped calm the markets today. But I mean, are you really going to believe this guy? Like they just- they just, who knows what to believe. But you know, maybe they went rogue on this natural gas facility that caused, but um, you know, the- they had to do it too because there’s- there’s reports that they’re- their big Haifa refinery got hit, which as we know is potentially what um slowed Israel’s aggression in- in the previous skirmish because they don't- I mean, they’re just like similar to other Middle Eastern countries, they don’t produce any oil and they don't have, you know, tremendous access outside of a few main key assets like that. So um, yeah, there’s- I just- this- like peo- I just don’t- like, I think there’s a lot of downplaying like how serious this is because it’s like, this isn’t playing like, you know, soldiers, you know, with your friends outside where it’s like, oh, I’m sorry I just socked you in the nose and gave you a black eye, like I promise I won’t do it again.","offset":946,"duration":75},{"text":"Quinn: And let me backtrack. And then, you know, your parents get involved and say, okay guys, cut it out. Like, we just tried to end their whole country and leadership. Like, and then now we’re going for their energy infrastructure assets. Like, oopsies don't really get a lot of, you know, you know, sympathy in- in war. And- and so I just- I just think this is- the problems are here to stay and basically it’s sort of escalation mode until it’s not and until there’s sort of a climax and regardless, even if not, every day that goes by that something like this stuff happens, it makes, you know, other energy assets globally more valuable and- and takes supply off more structurally like this, you know, Qatar gas field, like was like $70 billion over 10 years or something. This isn’t like a band-aid fix out of so. I’m still really long the natural gas torque equities in the US, long the coal equities. Those- those really had a day today, um, and then my big- big trade is the agricultural stuff. But um, I just- like I don’t- I just think people are still under-positioned. Like this- it kind of reminds me when gold first broke out like three years ago or two years ago and it was like oh wow, just- and you just doubting- doubting- doubting- doubting that it can keep going, but it just does.","offset":1021,"duration":79},{"text":"Host: Yeah, I mean the fact of the matter is everybody was looking for a taco and you can’t- you can’t taco reverse out of- out of Qatar’s LNG facility being destroyed and like they said, yeah, like three to four years to fix what’s been broken. I saw a headline, it was like it took us 26 billion to build this and this is 20 billion dollars in damage. Like if- if we end this tomorrow, the world’s largest LNG export facility is still under significant duress. Like shit’s getting real now. Um, yeah, I’m still really focused on where- where these- where these impacts start to lie. You know, I think- I think a lot of people have been really focused on- on the US and, you know, it’s like okay, if- if you’re bearish people keep going to short like Nasdaq or for example. And I think there’s just a lot more nuanced ways to look at it in terms of the rest of the world and um just want to start with this chart just looking at where do- where is the destination for the Hormuz LNG exports? And it’s, you know, South Korea, it’s- it’s China, it’s- it’s Asian markets predominantly.","offset":1100,"duration":64},{"text":"Host: And then you- you take that and let me get at slide 31 here. You take that and you look also at, okay, what are the economies that are most energy self-sufficient? So looking at oil consumption less production as a percentage of GDP versus share of oil in energy consumption mix. Uh, and again you can see in the top right there South Korea again. Like Asian markets that are highly-highly dependent on- on the Strait of Hormuz operating, they’re the most at risk here. You pair that too with the fact what we looked at earlier is a lot of these- these currencies are- are weakening relative to the dollar. The US is largely- they yes they, you know, they do import still, but- but largely they’re energy independent with reserve currency. They’re- they’re going to be the least bad of everybody I think. Um, maybe Russia and shout out Canada too on the left side of there. Hell yeah. If we can actually get- get out of the way of ourselves and actually start to- to pump some oil out of the oil sands in Alberta, that’s a different story.","offset":1164,"duration":61},{"text":"Host: But overall, it’s really important to drill down I think into these hyper-specifics of- of where the impact lies and then bring it all together is this chart’s been going somewhat viral the last few days because you know people ask what the price of oil is and it’s like well, what oil? You know, you got to be looking at Crude WTI Crudes at 95 bucks, Brent’s breaking above a hundred, but Dubai Crude and Oman Crude, like Oman is the vector to look at acute demand need for oil from Asian markets. That’s- that’s largely where it’s gone and that stuff is earlier today broke above 170 bucks. And that’s just unheard of. So you have to, you can see the dislocation here, like for months these things traded in a pretty tight range together. Um, but you really have to- you really have to drill down now and think about where the second-order effects, what- what even contract of oil am I talking about here? And really try to understand how does that impact the currencies, how does that impact their economy and therefore their- their equities? So it’s like, I don't know, if- if you want to express the short here, um, yeah Nasdaq will probably work, but there’s probably a lot more effective plays like shorting, I don't know, South Korea equities and that sort of thing.","offset":1225,"duration":67}],"startTime":946},{"title":"Agricultural Commodities Inflation Trade","summary":"Quinn details his bullish thesis on agricultural commodities, arguing that base crops like corn and wheat encapsulate the rising costs of fuel and fertilizer while farming profit margins remain deeply depressed.","entries":[{"text":"Quinn: Yeah, yeah, I’m- I’m- I’m in uh short Japan, short South Korea, short Europe, still smaller than some of my other ones, but um, I’m starting in. Because I- I’m like medium on the dollar, I don’t- I- I think there’s like we were talking about in previous shows like these- these capital flows and- and asset allocation headwinds that- that the dollar has, but you know for all these energy independence reasons it’s got some tailwinds in times of- of madness too so. Um, but I do like having some of that on. I think the other not to overly uh harp on the agriculture stuff, but I’ve- I’m seeing more people talk about it and- and people are going straight to the fertilizer tra- aspect of the trade. Um, and I looked into that as well and follow it. The thing I like better about the- the base commodities, which I think are being slept on, is the fact that what is corn, uh sugar or- or wheat? It’s just the combination of seeds, fuel, fertilizer, labor, farming profit margins, planned costs, all into one.","offset":1292,"duration":77},{"text":"Quinn: And, you know, we’re seeing the fertilizer and the fuel cost to- to plant, harvest, and grow spike, but the other side of the trade is that farming profit margins have never been worse, they’ve been in recession for three years, supply as these farms shut- shut in is falling, so there’s not a good- not a good um response effect there. And- and so it kind of encapsulates all of these things into one where the- the cure is just simply higher prices of these assets, particularly if this it’s spring planting season and so you need- need the fertilizer more acutely during this time. And you don’t have to worry about buying like equities in a fertilizer agriculture company which have already been bid up, like the um, you know, the multiples on- on a lot of these Ag companies are now much more elevated.","offset":1369,"duration":55},{"text":"Quinn: But yeah, there’s no strategic corn reserve. Um, so there’s and demand doesn’t get hit, right? If- if oil goes to 100-150 bucks, people stop driving, people stop flying, people stop vacationing, all that you hit demand. But like if your food goes up 30 percent-","offset":1424,"duration":14},{"text":"Host: South Korea’s in some ways.","offset":1438,"duration":1},{"text":"Quinn: Yeah, if your food goes up 30 percent, I mean you need food, like you can’t just- you can eat less, but you know, unfortunately, it’s the countries that are you know the- the developing and underserved parts of the world that probably get hit the hardest from this. So, um, I just don't think it- I- I don’t- I hate to use like these analogies that, you know, say that- that kind of point to it being like so similar and going to play out the same way as like Covid and- and that’s kind of become quite talked about now, but you just don’t know the second-order effects and- and you know we’re three weeks into the strait closure. This- that- and we’ve been saying every single week, two weeks. And now there’s no way to do it. Like it might be mined, the only boats getting through are going right close to Iran and sort of like ally ships. Um, it- it- it clearly shown it doesn’t take much to keep it closed.","offset":1439,"duration":52},{"text":"Quinn: So it’s- it’s seeming more and more like you need some boots-on-the-ground operation and it’s just constant fog of war propaganda to- to try and keep the markets afloat. Because at the end of the day, why would they- if- if they can just jawbone and say like send people on TV and say it’s the war’s over, it’s going to end soon, all this stuff, and the market buys it, they will never stop. That’s kind of the- the- that’s like the dichotomy of this- like paradox. It’s like, if- if they can keep the market elevated but continue to wreak havoc, they’re not going to stop. It’s until there’s a forcing function in the market. And- and you see it in oil, right? Like the jawboning works and then it gets bid up the next day, right? Like until the next attack gets televised. So I don't know, man, it’s- it’s weird how everything one has become so markets-focused and also too, how everything just moves on the whim of- of like narratives and tweets, but uh it’s- it’s driving people crazy, I know that.","offset":1491,"duration":63},{"text":"Host: Yeah, I mean it’s nuts. Like then the next impact of that too is that, like we talked about last week, now that Iran knows where Trump’s, you know, liquidation level is, markets, like that’s going to incentivize them to go after energy infrastra- infrastructure more than they would have if he wasn’t as, you know, if he didn’t care as much about markets. So, like they-","offset":1554,"duration":23},{"text":"Quinn: Yeah, you have their foreign minister tweeting like this exact stuff. It’s- it’s such a weird, I mean, it’s so- I guess that’s a part of the new- new type of fighting wars is like it’s less people on the ground and it’s more like economic and financial warfare. But you know, it’s not a- we luckily the world in general is like a positive sum, right? Like over time people get lifted out of poverty, you get more efficient productivity, um, so when we talk about like Europe and Japan being less you know disadvantaged more relatively to the US, it’s unfortunate that it’s still like you know we’re- we’re decreasing the pie with all these things instead of increasing.","offset":1577,"duration":41}],"startTime":1292},{"title":"Arkham Intelligence Sponsorship","summary":"An ad read for Arkham Intelligence, an on-chain crypto intelligence platform and exchange.","entries":[{"text":"Host: Before you place a trade, you should know who is actually moving the market. That’s where Arkham comes in. Arkham is a crypto intelligence platform and exchange that lets you see real on-chain data. Which wallets are buying, selling, and moving funds. And then trade directly on that information. Arkham was built to make blockchains human-readable. Instead of raw transaction data, you get clear profiles, visualizers, and custom dashboards that show what’s really happening beneath the surface. Tracking wallets and fund flows is becoming just as important as technical or fundamental analysis. On-chain intelligence is also one of the best tools traders have to protect themselves against hacks, rug pulls, and scams. With Arkham Exchange, you can go from insight to execution in one place. The world’s first exchange powered by crypto intelligence. Check out Arkham and start trading with real on-chain insight at arkham.com.","offset":1618,"duration":48}],"startTime":1618},{"title":"Geopolitical Winners and Secular Isolationism","summary":"A brief look at who benefits from the ongoing geopolitical conflict, including Russia. The hosts also touch on Jerome Powell's recent comments regarding the growing trend of secular isolationism.","entries":[{"text":"Host: I think what’s tough, like, I don't know, it’s just, you know, there’s a lot of stuff where it’s like reaping what you sow right now too in terms of like- this was a great actually chart and tweet from Andreas Steno Larsen looking at who’s been the big winner so far and it’s been Putin. Um, the- disc- like all- all- all you know, you have this- there’s a mention this morning from- from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent talking about how they might lift sanctions off- off Iranian oil that’s on sea right now. And it’s like, who’s winning here? It’s- it’s that, um, it’s- it’s Russian oil that’s, uh, you know, you’re seeing the discount close here because, you know, you got India, you got these other countries that are starting to be able to buy it again. Um, you know, we’re just these tail risks that have been avoided for decades by world leaders, Western world leaders, in terms of where does our energy come from? You know, we’ve been too focused on- on ESG mandates to think about okay, well what would happen if the Strait of Hormuz closed or what would happen if we sanctioned Russian oil and these sort of things, and now a lot of these- these chickens are starting to come to roost.","offset":1666,"duration":68},{"text":"Quinn: Yeah, it was interesting and Powell, he got asked that question about like some of these longer-term things and- and one of them was, he- he gave like a- a nod or tip of the hat to these like bigger geopolitical theories that- that isolationism and- and secular conflict is increasing on a secular basis, um, which I thought was interesting. Like, it’s definitely everybody’s thinking about it. And yeah, it’s, you know, we’re still in this, I guess people, the market structure elements that are keeping the equities pinned and- and hasn’t really gotten people panicked, but it’s just so- it’s- one it’s like, you know, my portfolio is positioned in a way that benefits when the world goes to shit, which is not fun, like but I’m not going to like just sit there and like be long Nvidia amidst this. So, but you know, no one wants to root for that. That sucks. Um, but at the same time, it’s like you’re just waiting for the shoe to drop and there’s these market structure things ongoing that to me seems inevitable. I put some charts in there that- yeah I was going to say you got some charts, let’s see- let’s see what-","offset":1734,"duration":68}],"startTime":1666},{"title":"Equity Vulnerabilities and Volatility Suppression","summary":"A deep dive into market structure issues, highlighting top-heavy index concentration, record quant leverage, and the impending options expiry. The hosts also discuss how suppressing front-month oil volatility transfers risk to other markets.","entries":[{"text":"Quinn: Well start with the first one, um, I think 35. Um, yeah this- this just shows that- there’s all this talk about how you know Mag 7 and etc. is under-owned, but they’re such a large part of the S&P 500, um, and the Nifty Nifty 50, you know the top 50 stocks. Like it’s still very overweight relative to the rest of S&P 500. So you know, if you look in like 21 when we got down in 22, 23 when- when relative outperformance of large-cap mega-cap bottomed, like there’s- there’s plenty of room to go. And if you look at the next one, this- this hawkish rate move in- in yields up, like similar to what we saw BoE, has also coincided with defensives massively outperforming cyclicals and- and forward equity growth and earnings are kind of slipping. So like, the- the market’s screaming growth problem here. The market is very much- and bonds have repriced lower, yields higher to some extent, but- but big parts of market are saying growth issue.","offset":1802,"duration":69},{"text":"Quinn: And then the next slide is just- this was an interesting one from RenMac that showed that yesterday’s PPI readings pushed in the 90th percentile historically and this is before the Iran effect. Um, so this is really problematic and like we were kind of talking earlier is like whether this is transitory inflation or not is going to matter if, you know, what the- the policy response is. And it’s hard not to see it being inflationary, um, especially given we’re still working through tariff impacts and everything. I mean, it just feels like the classic scenario where they- they’re forced to hike into slowing growth and that kind of puts an end to the global cycle.","offset":1871,"duration":43},{"text":"Host: Yeah, like the best case from here obviously is war ending and we stop losing lives and- and tons of- you know, waste of money and all you know, conflict. But if- if it does end quickly, you know, maybe there’s this way that they can cadence rate cuts to soft- sort of soft-land the inflation effect, but like keep the economy afloat, but it’s going to be really hard. Um, and it’s so reflexive with- with the markets and equities. Uh, I thought it was interesting on this next slide, you know, we’ve been talking you- you walked us through the options expiry dynamics tomorrow, um, and there was a- someone sent me this on Robinhood, uh, article writing to their retail audience about the Triple Witching and, you know, how the median is down.","offset":1914,"duration":44},{"text":"Host: Yeah, they’re like stocks sometimes go down, but don’t worry about it. Moves can be exaggerated because of this. And then, um, I- the next slide is just the from Goldman, the CTA estimates. So they show in a- in a flat market and flat and down markets, they show a pretty big CTA unwind. Obviously, if the market’s up CTAs relever, but given where Vol is, it’s probably, you know, you- you’d need a really big- big event for that to kind of turn. So the- the direction of travel is- is the same lower- lower place we’ve been going.","offset":1958,"duration":33},{"text":"Quinn: On the next slide, this was an interesting chart from JPM just showing the Quant equity degrossing drawdowns and the long-short degrossing, which this is um total leverage, so this is like if you’re long a hundred and short a hundred and you’re net neutral but your- your gross is 200. We’re still at record gross, you know, leverage levels. Like people have just been sort of- people haven’t been deleveraging, they’ve been adding puts and shorts. So um, it’s usually not over until you get a proper degrossing event and we haven’t seen it yet. Like if you compare this to- to um all these historical events, it’s- it’s not even recognizable on this chart.","offset":1991,"duration":46},{"text":"Quinn: And then you have the next one, today actually kind of kicks off earnings blackout into, you know, the next six weeks and through April so you have less market support there. The options expiry passes and then top-of-book S&P futures liquidity is horrendous. Like this is rivaling some all-time low levels like last Q1 or 2022 levels. Um, and we’re seeing that, right? Like stocks are whipping around one percent a day up down up down and everyone’s losing their minds. But when you zoom out and look at like a one-day- or three-day chart, like the trend is very much down and we’re like just peaking- peaking below the 200.","offset":2037,"duration":38},{"text":"Quinn: Um, and then the last thing I would show is- is everybody’s been talking about this hedging, right? So everybody’s loaded up with puts to- to hedge upside- downside instead of selling because no one wants to sell their winners and you know recognize taxes and gains so they just buy puts. But we all know that the puts haven’t been working because the market’s been stairstepping down and theta’s burnt and now we’re to options expiration. But a- a not great sign for the market is when skew comes off this much, which it has been. So skew has fallen um dramatically, but volatility hasn’t, which basically means that the- there you know this skew referring to put skew, so when it’s elevated you know puts are in demand more- more so than calls and there’s a huge pre- there’s a- a premium paid to buy the protection to the downside.","offset":2075,"duration":53},{"text":"Quinn: So when that falls it basically just means there’s less- the market is less protected in terms of options demand and if volatility is still elevated, you know you’re still in sort of a risk-off period, um, you know the market’s more vulnerable. So everything is lining up aside from like Robinhood talking about the options expry. So that- that- I don't know what to believe anymore. I just like believe in my- my case and so I’m short the things I’m short and I’m long the things I’m long, and we’ll see. Like but it doesn’t feel like- everybody I talk to is still waiting for the taco, doesn’t want to miss the bounce, like cannot imagine sitting- like a good example is my Substack chat. Like Monday and Tuesday when we didn’t even like, you know, we just did the same exact price action of last three weeks. Everybody was losing their minds. They’re like, oh my god was this it? Yeah- yeah they’re just- and it was like one day of a bounce. Like literally three days red, one day bounce, three days red, one day bounce, and on like the one day bounce people are like it’s- I knew I should have closed. Like and so that just shows you where sentiment is whereas when you’re at a bottom people are puking, right? Like people aren't saying like it’s- it’s- so I just feel to me like we still have ways to go and that this options thing could be a catalyst. But let’s see, you know the- the admin probably knows about it too and they’re probably going to try and roll out the red carpet to try and keep- keep things afloat.","offset":2128,"duration":85},{"text":"Host: This is just my favorite chart because last week we showed this exact chart people remember talking about how, you know, it was before this reversal and it was just like put skew was like at yeah like above 1.2 is ridiculous and it’s just like we said, nobody can make money on the downside if everybody’s that bought into puts. Um, we’re just going to burn them. And then you know those- those three days down, one day up, that is just the perfect way to- to just burn through theta. Like you just- I can’t even imagine the amount of theta that’s just being burned right now with- with elevated implied vol. Like everybody bought these at- at elevated levels. I do think, yeah, like either you just you know keep your risk limits tight if you’re buying puts and know what you’re getting yourself into or you- you just go out and outright short and avoid the whole situation. Um, but people- like the fact that Robinhood is talking about this means the game is known. Um, and then you have to think through the third-order effect of that which is probably you’re right, which is that- that Scott Bessent’s probably briefing- briefing the boys about hey look you know Triple Witching’s happening this week, window of weakness is coming up and- yeah send Netanyahu out there to like try and calm, say the war’s ending- like yeah, it’s all- it’s all- it’s all on the table, man, like because they- they need the- they need the space to operate and they’re trying to keep markets elevated.","offset":2213,"duration":85},{"text":"Quinn: Like, ultimately though, you know, these are physical commodities we’re dealing with. These are like, you- you can only- there’s some- there’s some level where just kicking the can and sort of lying to save face eventually backfires because then when you actually- when there actually is good news, people won't believe you because they’re like I’m not falling for that. So I don’t know if it’s the best strategy, like um- but it’s not our- it just remind- it reminds me of what we’ve talked about before in terms of how volatility can’t be suppressed, only transferred. And you know people are- they’re trying to suppress the volatility of- of CL front-month futures, but then you look at what’s going on in- in Oman and Dubai oil and that’s above 160 bucks and, you know, I’m- I’m not smart enough to make a- a certain decision about this, but I imagine by suppressing front-month CL, you creating- you creating volatility where you can’t control it. It’s being transferred. Like you know even over the past few days you’ve seen many days where the front-month contracts have been actually coming down but the- the back months, like the 2027s and stuff, have been rising further, and I’m sure you can make the argument that look, it’s like if- if you think that your counterparty in the books is- is Scott Bessent on front-month futures, you’re going to go speculate on the back ones and that could have a whole bunch of unintended consequences. Like you can’t, yeah, you can’t suppress the volatility, you’re only transferring it to more esoteric ways.","offset":2298,"duration":84}],"startTime":1802},{"title":"Unintended Consequences for US AI Infrastructure","summary":"The hosts theorize a potential bear case for the US dollar if energy export bans are enacted. They also discuss how the Middle East conflict could derail US AI data center build-outs due to resource shortages and lost regional funding.","entries":[{"text":"Quinn: So here’s one I was just thinking through. Go to slide 45. And- and I’m kind of- I was literally just thinking through it before this so um, this might be a little green. But um, so this is the- the trade balance data which we’ve been talking about for a while. Ex-gold in the in the red there and the blue is just regular. Um, the lines there show the increasing on the left side means that the trade deficit is shrinking. So it was running on an average you know well north of 80 billion, kind of 80 to 100 billion pre- uh pre-tariff changes and some of those were front-running. But um, post that and as we kind of normalized, it’s- it’s dropped a good 30 to 40 billion, which is- is super significant from- from the levels, which we’ve talked about means, you know, if you can see on the right chart there, um, it means, you know, more exports relative to imports, um, versus the baseline levels. And um, less dollars in- in rotation globally, um, and in- and so that kind of puts a- a headwind on the dollar and you know that’s some of the probably bid behind gold.","offset":2382,"duration":71},{"text":"Quinn: But if you think about this, like if they were to put an export ban on our commodities, which are- which are sizable, so you decrease exports, so the trade balance would go further negative, meaning like our deficit would increase, which on the surface you know when your deficit- if- if trade is expanding and your deficit increases, goes further negative, you know that’s more dollars in existence globally because it’s saying imports are rising faster than exports. But in- if everything’s decreasing, meaning the trade- total trade is going down because you’re slowing growth and your exports are- are coming down as well, um, that means people need less dollars to buy. So I don- you know, that- that’s probably a negative side effect that people I haven’t heard anyone talk about. I haven’t thought this through completely, but if you did ban exports of oil and gas, people need less dollars and presumably the dollar would fall on that, um, which would have ramifications for inflation and the things other things you import as well as like capital flows because if the dollar starts falling and kicks off you know people having to kind of hedge and- and sell other US assets or something. So like you said, you can transfer the vol, but you can’t completely eliminate it, and I think that’s where people are at is like a little too much complacency around policymakers’ ability to control things that ultimately in the long run they can’t control.","offset":2453,"duration":88},{"text":"Host: That’s a great, um, yeah this first time thinking about this too, so you know we both might be missing something here, who knows what, but that to me sounds like what could be the bear case for- for US assets specifically and the dollar. Because everything else we- we’ve talked about ad nauseam about the risk for the rest of the world, Asia, Europe, etc. But what is the risk here for the US if they’re energy independent? And yeah, I do think it’s- it’s that, less dollars going out to the world, less um, and yeah, so then I add that towards what’s also going on when we look at the AI data center build-out and- and what’s financing it as well is you have okay, a lot of the capital investment has been coming from the Middle East. Um, they’re, you know, I imagine they’re marginally less interested in- in buying the next big AI data center when they’re fighting for their lives right now. Um, and then also you have key inputs into that AI data center build-out. Like helium market is, you know, everybody was all focused on oil but I think- I think we should be also equally focused on things like the helium market because that is just a one-to-one input into compute build-out.","offset":2541,"duration":69},{"text":"Host: And so if you have further shortages on those key inputs um and either the price rises or there’s shortages, both of those equal less AI data center build-out. And also at the same time, you know these- these Middle Eastern countries that have been financing a lot of this are probably going to be hoarding money because they don’t know what the hell’s about to happen to their economy. Um, you know Dubai is like- I’m sure I don’t know the numbers but I’m sure the vast majority of their revenue comes from rich people living there and spending a bunch of money and if- if they all bailed, like I’m sure their- their revenue situation is not looking too hot right now. Um, you know I’ve- I’ve even seen some people speculate that some of the- the gold price action of- has been the Middle Eastern countries selling just to hoard some cash and you know try to survive where we’re going next. Uh, there’s a, yeah, there’s just- we could- we could probably spend another 20 minutes here thinking through these unintended consequences, but there’s just- there’s so many.","offset":2610,"duration":56}],"startTime":2382},{"title":"Sovereign Wealth Liquidation & Defense Budgets","summary":"Exploring the risk of Middle Eastern nations liquidating their US assets to fund wartime economies and domestic defense. The hosts argue this creates a strong macro ceiling for the S&P 500.","entries":[{"text":"Quinn: Yeah, if you’re these countries, you know, they’re preparing for war to go start fighting against Iran as well and they’re looking at like they all own a ton of US stocks, right? And you’re seeing the S&P down 5% and your country is, you know, economically in a crisis event. You have to be liquidating these assets. You have to be and repatriating it. So, um, you know if for nothing else maybe to support your currency or you know your economy. Like it definitely creates massive isolationist deglobalization vibes that are just large moving ice cubes and glaciers, they’re not- they’re not just one-time events. Because when I think about, okay, you know, every- this war’s in everybody knows about it, it’s in plain sight, you know asset markets have responded to some extent, oil’s you know at 100 bucks. Like where- where is this wrong? Where am I wrong? Where are the holes in this? And to me, it’s like I don't really see a world given the damage done, you know, etc. to infrastructure. I don’t see oil going back to 60. Like I- my best case is like, okay, we- we lose 20% and we’re back down to 80, 80 bucks a barrel, which- which to me, yes, it takes the sting out of- of doomsday tomorrow, but it doesn’t- it still fuel to an already not great situation for risk assets.","offset":2666,"duration":92},{"text":"Quinn: And oh, by the way, like is Qatar going to want to commit $25 billion to the next OpenAI or whatever AI round or data center in the US if they have to pay 20, you know, whatever it is to rebuild these gas fields and their infrastructure? And also overnight, the other thing all these countries, they’re going to need to double-triple-quadruple their security budgets because no longer, you know, they’re going to have to start investing in Strait of Hormuz security, their own security, weapons, defense. So this is like, this is a pretty big like crowding-out effect as well from- from private investment to like sort of like public infrastructure, security, defense, safety goods um, which is not- it’s super negative for like overall productivity because you’re basically needing to finance more and more of these things from the government side. You know, they- like Congress I think is going or- admins going for a $200 billion like you know extra defense thing, you know soon.","offset":2758,"duration":55},{"text":"Host: The war’s ending soon but we need 200 billion dollars.","offset":2813,"duration":3},{"text":"Quinn: Yeah, and we need to send another warship and- and all these like. So, um, yeah, like you said man, like when I think about like where is this wrong? Like I- I don't really see how you put Humpty Dumpty back together here. It’s just like you can just slo- like you can just slo- like you can just like use glue to like make him fall apart less quickly and- and make the stairs more gradual, um, which is seemingly what they’re trying to do. But I just don't understand when I- when I zoom out, it’s like okay, let’s say everything goes hunky-dory and oil goes to 80. That’s still not good. The Fed’s still not cutting. Liquidity picture’s still bad. Foreign investors still need to pull their funds from these assets. Like I just see a pretty strong ceiling on the S&P 500 for- from that perspective.","offset":2816,"duration":55},{"text":"Host: Yeah, yeah, I think the best case right now is flat.","offset":2871,"duration":5},{"text":"Quinn: Yeah, and then you lose in real terms because there’s 4 or 5% inflation.","offset":2876,"duration":5}],"startTime":2666},{"title":"Closing Thoughts and Live Show Preview","summary":"Final reflections on the hyper-financialization of global conflicts and the anticipation of Monday's market open. The episode wraps up with a preview of next week's live show in New York.","entries":[{"text":"Host: Yeah, 100%. Yeah, well, probably leave it at that, but I think yeah the main takeaways are stuff’s still happening. You know, you can try to suppress it for so long, but things will emerge where you don’t expect them to. And you know, there’s market structure games, like we’ve hyper-financialized the world to the point where geopolitical war game theory stuff is all related to markets, which is absolutely insane. But um, that’s the world we’re in.","offset":2881,"duration":29},{"text":"Quinn: Yeah, I mean, like, uh, we’ll- we’ll each watch this Triple Witching in- in anticipation and see- see what Monday brings us.","offset":2910,"duration":12},{"text":"Host: I’m excited to see what happens. Yeah, like you know there’s obviously some people and I would say I’m in the camp that it leads to a window of weakness, but I can also be dead wrong and maybe too many people are think about that now including the Trump admin, so who knows what’ll happen when we wake up on Monday. Could be dead vol.","offset":2922,"duration":15},{"text":"Quinn: Yeah, like you said, lower your risk limits and just be able to weather anything because no one knows anything and it’s dicey. So in most of these situations, if you’re active, like you always get another crack at the apple. Like you know even the world was ending last week and then you got a chance to re-short the same level again this week and cover right now and it’s just- it’s like Trump says, like bing-bong-boom-bing. High-level chess.","offset":2937,"duration":26},{"text":"Host: All right, man, sounds good. Well listeners, we’ll see you- yeah we’ll see you in New York next week. Yeah, we’ll have Joseph Wang joining us for their live round. Sweet, that was awesome. We’ll run it back from our one last summer. Yeah, exactly. Sweet. All right. See you then. Later, bud. [49:46]","offset":2963,"duration":15}],"startTime":2881}],"entries":[{"text":"Host: I think there’s a lot of downplaying like how serious this is. The problems are here to stay and basically it’s sort of escalation mode until it’s not. Everybody was looking for a taco and you can’t taco reverse out of Qatar’s LNG facility being destroyed. The market’s screaming growth problem here. Let’s say everything goes hunky-dory and oil goes to 80. That’s still not good. The Fed’s still not cutting, liquidity picture’s still bad, foreign investors still need to pull their funds from these assets, like I just see a pretty strong ceiling on the S&P 500 for from that perspective. It’s just a disaster.","offset":0,"duration":33},{"text":"Host: Before we get started, a quick reminder that Blockwork's premiere institutional conference, the Digital Asset Summit, is returning to New York City this March 24th through 26th. This year represents more than $4.2 trillion dollars in assets under management with 150 speakers and 750 institutions attending.","offset":33,"duration":18},{"text":"Host: Speakers include SEC Chair Paul Atkins, CFTC Chair Michael Sellick, Fed Governor Steven Moran, and Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino, alongside countless other executives, asset managers, regulators, and the core crypto infrastructure builders shaping the industry. If you want serious institutional-grade view of digital assets in 2026, Digital Asset Summit is where it happens. Use code FORWARD200 for $200 off and head to blockworks.co/events for more details.","offset":51,"duration":30},{"text":"Host: Nothing said on Forward Guidance is a recommendation to buy or sell any investments or products. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and the views expressed by anyone on the show are solely their opinions, not financial advice, or necessarily the views of Blockworks. Our hosts, guests, and the Blockworks team may hold positions in the companies, funds, or projects discussed. As always, investments and blockchain technology involve risk. Terms and conditions apply. Do your own risk.","offset":81,"duration":29},{"text":"Host: All right everybody, welcome back to another edition of Forward Guidance and, uh, for the second week in a row, sadly, we are missing our compatriot Tyler. He’s- he’s in better health, it’s not a virus this week, but, uh, he had some work stuff come up and had to go attend to it. So it’s back to just us two again, the duo. Um, what’s up Quinn?","offset":110,"duration":23},{"text":"Quinn: How you doing, man? Yeah, we need this vault to cool down so we can get our boy back. He’s just- he’s just in the trenches right now.","offset":133,"duration":6},{"text":"Host: Dude, he is heavily in the trenches. And- and Muddy Waters is putting out some big short reports, too, at the same time.","offset":139,"duration":7},{"text":"Quinn: Yeah, yeah, they, um- what was that, SoFi?","offset":146,"duration":2},{"text":"Host: SoFi, yeah, they put out a short report on SoFi, which is- I wanted- I wanted him to be on so I could just, like, pepper him with it so he could just be like, I can’t talk about it.","offset":148,"duration":9},{"text":"Quinn: I can’t say anything. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Anyway. Big boy things to attend to, but, uh, he’ll be back. Um, not next week though, because next week is the Digital Asset Summit in New York. Very, very hyped about it. Um, going to be a ton of fun next Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Get your tickets if you haven’t already. I would be very surprised if you haven’t already because now prices are going up. We’re almost sold out, but you can use FORWARD200 for 200 bucks off. It’s going to be a great time. Wednesday afternoon we have an entire Forward Guidance track dedicated to macro, the intersection with everything that’s going on. I was actually just on a- on a prep call this morning with Governor Steven Moran, which was super cool. We- we were prepping for next week, so that’s going to be an awesome one. Like, I- I’m super excited to ask him about- he dissented in the recent Fed meeting which we’ll get into. But, uh, yeah, it’s just, you know, we- we have a- a sitting Fed governor, we’ve got the head of the SEC, the head of the CFTC, like, it’s just- it’s going to be awesome. Um, really looking forward to it.","offset":157,"duration":56},{"text":"Quinn: Yeah, that’s going to be fun, man. The- the macro day, like, this is- this is top-tier stuff for, especially people who are thinking, oh, it’s a crypto conference, but there’s going to be, uh, a lot- a lot to talk about there.","offset":213,"duration":13},{"text":"Host: Crypto and TradFi are coming together. It’s- you know, whether people like it or not, it’s, you know, we still got to figure out what- what it actually looks like when it comes together, whether it’s just tokenized everything, but it’s happening. Uh, yeah, I mean, pretty soon we can just tokenize oil to bypass the strait.","offset":226,"duration":9},{"text":"Quinn: Yeah, exactly. Send it over internet rails instead. Yeah, that’s all you need to do. Um, anyway, with that out of the way, let’s get into the swing of things. I want to start to talk about, it was a Fed meeting yesterday. We got- it was also an SEP day. So no surprise, no rate cuts involved there, and we got their updated summary of economic projections. So just looking through a few of the key changes here.","offset":235,"duration":36},{"text":"Host: The- the FOMC updated their GDP forecast actually upwards for 2026 from 2.3 to 2.4%, which is quite interesting. Held the unemployment rate steady at 4.4. PCE inflation from their December projection of 2.4 up to 2.7, and core PCE from 2.5 to 2.7. Their projections for rate cuts are pretty much unchanged across the board, however. This is an interesting one. I mean, obviously the- the baseline reaction is- is, if you just look at the numbers, hawkish of- of PCE going from 2.4 to 2.7, but I feel like a lot of people expected even more of a hawkish function, um, which is interesting. What- what was your read on this, Quinn?","offset":271,"duration":41},{"text":"Quinn: Yeah, I- I thought it was dovish. Every meeting, uh, I put- or at least the quarterly ones where we get the SEP, I put together my own estimates, uh, of what I think they will be based on, you know, changes in data and rhetoric, etc. And I had a more hawkish dot plot, but there’s been a lot of moving pieces so I- I wasn’t putting too much signal or like, you know, emphasis on it. What- what stood out to me is that if you just, you know, let’s say you don't know anything about what’s going on and there’s no Iran war etc. and you see them raise inflation expectations and growth expectations, GDP and PCE, you would say it would be a hawkish interest rate policy path, and it wasn’t. So, like, you still had two governors that weren't Moran expecting three cuts this year, two more expecting two cuts, and then obviously the split- split between none and one.","offset":312,"duration":65},{"text":"Quinn: But to me, it was hawkish or- really dovish, and I think also like, the- the increased PCE expectations make sense, but um, I- I would have- I would have thought there would be a little bit more consideration of the impacts of demand destruction from- from the oil price shock because that, you know, there will be inflation if there’s government response that fuels the fire, it will be more long-lasting, but if there’s not easing or fiscal stimulus that responds, it will be more transitory to some extent and it will hit demand harder, so um, I would have expected- I didn’t think growth would get brought up. But overall, dovish because I think, you know, what Powell says is one thing and, you know, at the end of the day he’s not going to be around for that much longer, so I- I was really trying to think about what the committee and the votes and their projections would signal where consensus was for when Warsh takes- takes chairmanship, and dovish to me. Like, if- if five people already think, you know, two cuts or more, like-","offset":377,"duration":73},{"text":"Host: Dude, there’s not a lot of, like, convince- like, as much sway as I would have expected that would be needed to cut, especially if labor market starts falling apart. So I- I sort of feel like on balance it’s somewhat neutral because I think for sure, like this- this SEP and the press statement that came out and everything, that was quite dovish and- and you saw that initially. Like if you’re just tracking the 2-year throughout this whole thing, 2-year treasury. Initially, yeah, it was- it’s pretty calm and then it seemed like he- it got a little bit more hawkish in the press conference because Powell was really kind of mentioning that this SEP is- is pretty stale in- like it’s not fully considering the Middle Eastern shocks, the oil shock, and I think that’s pretty valid. Like, do you really think that we can have them, like, predict what the 2026 growth outlook is going to be? Like, no, no chance. So I mean, to me it’s just- it just kind of on balance feels somewhat neutral, maybe slightly dovish because they’re not trying to front-run this reaction function. But yeah, to me it just feels like, you know, Powell’s just trying to get to the finish line in one piece.","offset":450,"duration":61},{"text":"Quinn: Yeah, they- I mean, also to be fair, he’s like- he said a couple times almost like point-blank, like we don't have any confidence in these projections because there’s so much ungo- he like, and even if consensus is around zero-one cut, that cut’s going to come late in the year, so, which is many, many months out and this will change a bunch before so. Yeah, it’s definitely not one that everything hinges off of like you sometimes get, but it was interesting. Like, yeah, whatever.","offset":511,"duration":28},{"text":"Host: I- I do think what is interesting though is how markets are reacting right now since that’s a lot more coincidental and you can see Fed funds futures. We- we went from just a couple weeks ago, we had over two cuts priced for 2026 and now we’re- we’re basically at none. So even though the Fed is still on board for maybe- maybe one cut in- in 2026, the market’s like no, it’s- it’s not happening. And that’s where the story is, right? Because, you know, real-time market data might be a bit better at trying to forecast where we’re going here. I guess my question is like, how in the world, given, you know, the private credit issues, given the now commodity price spike stuff, even if the war ends tomorrow, there’s some lasting effects, given waning liquidity broadly and slowing momentum of asset prices. Like, how does- how- how possibly could equity prices stay elevated without- without liquidity help? So when I think in that frame, it’s like, okay, well then what’s the- okay, then the forcing function is probably the equity market for cuts and then what’s that level? I don’t know. I was sort of looking at December SOFR futures as like a potential. I don't know what’s better risk-reward, shorting equities or longing those, but it’s definitely, like, push comes to shove, like, Trump’s getting cuts if- if stuff starts hitting the fan. So I think it’s getting to levels that’s sort of interesting. I haven’t pulled the trigger yet though.","offset":539,"duration":92},{"text":"Host: Yeah, it’s- it just seems like this whole thing of how difficult it is for- for how central banks are set up to react when oil supply shock, it’s- it’s just so difficult. And this is even like a- a dual mandate central bank. You know, some of these other- and this is a big topic I want to get into here, is if you- where am I looking? When you get to looking at the other central banks and how they’re reacting to the situation, it’s- a lot of these are single-mandate central banks. So all they care about is inflation. They don’t have a mandate for unemployment. So when they see inflation go up, their- their framework are basically forced towards them with a hiking bias.","offset":631,"duration":32},{"text":"Host: So you can see the Fed is, yes, it’s- it’s come back a lot in terms of the number of cuts, but we’re still on net- like we’re- we’re not pricing any hikes anywhere right now on the Fed side of things. But then you look at the ECB, we have- we have gone from pretty much flat towards almost two hikes over the next little while here. Bank of England today had their meeting and it was a huge surprise and this isn’t updated in this data yet, but they were- they were priced to pause, or sorry, they were priced to cut at this recent meeting today and they surprised by holding flat. And this really just shows how difficult and how frozen these central banks are where they- they’re at the whim of inflation. They can’t think in those second orders and, you know, us as market prognosticators can be like, oh, they should be doing this. But the fact of the matter is like, they’re mandated by- by laws and frameworks to be reacting in a certain way.","offset":663,"duration":49},{"text":"Host: So you can see this in the Bank of England, like the Gilts market just went absolutely bananas today. The 2-year just sold off like mad because it was fully priced for a cut and we didn't get that and we got this pretty hawkish retort. The entire board, um, voted to pause as well and not cut. So it was like a consensus hawkish pivot out of nowhere. And what’s- what’s so crazy to me is that most of these central banks are in economies that are also the most exposed to the oil shock. It’s just like this double-whammy situation where Europe is the most exposed and they have the least flexible central bank. It’s just- it’s just a disaster.","offset":712,"duration":42},{"text":"Quinn: Yeah, I guess this must be the catalyst for the move today in- in- in the dollar versus especially like the pound and the Yen, you know, dollar weakened really- really massively today. Also weird that the dollar weakened massively on a day gold was down huge. So it sort of says that, um, the run-at-hot trade has been stymied here where fiat actually looks all right if central banks are going to be hiking into- into this and actually attempting to get inflation down. I think, I mean, where I stand is it’s like show- I don't really have any bets on it because I want to- I want to see the proof in the pudding because it’s all talk until your equity market starts getting, you know, pummeled. And, uh, you know, everything’s pulled back, but nothing dramatically or- that signals real panic. So I- I’ll be curious to see how these rate hike expectations hold up once stocks start taking it on the chin, which I would expect soon.","offset":754,"duration":68},{"text":"Quinn: But yeah, man, it’s a- it’s a weird- like the- yeah, the energy situation is just so dire if- if the strait doesn’t open. I mean, maybe- maybe there’s some things too around these headlines where um, you know, the- the allies were saying, okay, we- we will help open the strait because like at the end of the day, you know, Trump’s definitely dangling this threat of export controls that that would really- really just really- really affect the rest of world super negatively, um, and also be bad for us and use the dollar etc. So maybe that’s also something to do with with the dollar’s fall today.","offset":822,"duration":40},{"text":"Host: Yeah, definitely an interesting one when you mentioned about, uh, the export ban situation because the- the energy secretary came out today and said we don’t plan export ban on WTI Crude, but they didn’t say anything about, uh, any sort of refined products and that’s where the meat of the situation is. There’s this good, uh, you can see the chart here, like refined products versus oil. The real move has been in those refined products, like yeah, diesel’s up way more than WTI, and so refinery margins are- are up a ton. You know, this is- this- you can see this in like the- in the crack spreads. But this is what really matters in terms of like an export ban, in terms of like protecting consumers from affordability at the pump and that sort of thing. So that’s still on the table.","offset":862,"duration":45},{"text":"Host: We- we did see this, you know, the WTI Brent spread went like absolutely nuts over the past couple days, um, and it- it seemed like a lot of that was speculation around this export ban and then as soon as you got that- that news hit the tape, you saw that start to come together. WTI started to rally and then it seemed like everything started to sell off in- in quick succession, too. So um, yeah, weird stuff afoot. How- how are you thinking about the energy situation? Like last week we were kind of in a everything’s fucked, um, and it’s just- it’s just a time thing. I’m still of that mind, I’m curious how you’re thinking about it.","offset":907,"duration":39},{"text":"Quinn: Yeah, I- I- I mean, like today, I- I had that- BB’s press conference was- I- I mean, I got to imagine that was Trump saying, you know, US saying, dude, you got to show face, where you been, go out there and- because right, that helped calm the markets today. But I mean, are you really going to believe this guy? Like they just- they just, who knows what to believe. But you know, maybe they went rogue on this natural gas facility that caused, but um, you know, the- they had to do it too because there’s- there’s reports that they’re- their big Haifa refinery got hit, which as we know is potentially what um slowed Israel’s aggression in- in the previous skirmish because they don't- I mean, they’re just like similar to other Middle Eastern countries, they don’t produce any oil and they don't have, you know, tremendous access outside of a few main key assets like that. So um, yeah, there’s- I just- this- like peo- I just don’t- like, I think there’s a lot of downplaying like how serious this is because it’s like, this isn’t playing like, you know, soldiers, you know, with your friends outside where it’s like, oh, I’m sorry I just socked you in the nose and gave you a black eye, like I promise I won’t do it again.","offset":946,"duration":75},{"text":"Quinn: And let me backtrack. And then, you know, your parents get involved and say, okay guys, cut it out. Like, we just tried to end their whole country and leadership. Like, and then now we’re going for their energy infrastructure assets. Like, oopsies don't really get a lot of, you know, you know, sympathy in- in war. And- and so I just- I just think this is- the problems are here to stay and basically it’s sort of escalation mode until it’s not and until there’s sort of a climax and regardless, even if not, every day that goes by that something like this stuff happens, it makes, you know, other energy assets globally more valuable and- and takes supply off more structurally like this, you know, Qatar gas field, like was like $70 billion over 10 years or something. This isn’t like a band-aid fix out of so. I’m still really long the natural gas torque equities in the US, long the coal equities. Those- those really had a day today, um, and then my big- big trade is the agricultural stuff. But um, I just- like I don’t- I just think people are still under-positioned. Like this- it kind of reminds me when gold first broke out like three years ago or two years ago and it was like oh wow, just- and you just doubting- doubting- doubting- doubting that it can keep going, but it just does.","offset":1021,"duration":79},{"text":"Host: Yeah, I mean the fact of the matter is everybody was looking for a taco and you can’t- you can’t taco reverse out of- out of Qatar’s LNG facility being destroyed and like they said, yeah, like three to four years to fix what’s been broken. I saw a headline, it was like it took us 26 billion to build this and this is 20 billion dollars in damage. Like if- if we end this tomorrow, the world’s largest LNG export facility is still under significant duress. Like shit’s getting real now. Um, yeah, I’m still really focused on where- where these- where these impacts start to lie. You know, I think- I think a lot of people have been really focused on- on the US and, you know, it’s like okay, if- if you’re bearish people keep going to short like Nasdaq or for example. And I think there’s just a lot more nuanced ways to look at it in terms of the rest of the world and um just want to start with this chart just looking at where do- where is the destination for the Hormuz LNG exports? And it’s, you know, South Korea, it’s- it’s China, it’s- it’s Asian markets predominantly.","offset":1100,"duration":64},{"text":"Host: And then you- you take that and let me get at slide 31 here. You take that and you look also at, okay, what are the economies that are most energy self-sufficient? So looking at oil consumption less production as a percentage of GDP versus share of oil in energy consumption mix. Uh, and again you can see in the top right there South Korea again. Like Asian markets that are highly-highly dependent on- on the Strait of Hormuz operating, they’re the most at risk here. You pair that too with the fact what we looked at earlier is a lot of these- these currencies are- are weakening relative to the dollar. The US is largely- they yes they, you know, they do import still, but- but largely they’re energy independent with reserve currency. They’re- they’re going to be the least bad of everybody I think. Um, maybe Russia and shout out Canada too on the left side of there. Hell yeah. If we can actually get- get out of the way of ourselves and actually start to- to pump some oil out of the oil sands in Alberta, that’s a different story.","offset":1164,"duration":61},{"text":"Host: But overall, it’s really important to drill down I think into these hyper-specifics of- of where the impact lies and then bring it all together is this chart’s been going somewhat viral the last few days because you know people ask what the price of oil is and it’s like well, what oil? You know, you got to be looking at Crude WTI Crudes at 95 bucks, Brent’s breaking above a hundred, but Dubai Crude and Oman Crude, like Oman is the vector to look at acute demand need for oil from Asian markets. That’s- that’s largely where it’s gone and that stuff is earlier today broke above 170 bucks. And that’s just unheard of. So you have to, you can see the dislocation here, like for months these things traded in a pretty tight range together. Um, but you really have to- you really have to drill down now and think about where the second-order effects, what- what even contract of oil am I talking about here? And really try to understand how does that impact the currencies, how does that impact their economy and therefore their- their equities? So it’s like, I don't know, if- if you want to express the short here, um, yeah Nasdaq will probably work, but there’s probably a lot more effective plays like shorting, I don't know, South Korea equities and that sort of thing.","offset":1225,"duration":67},{"text":"Quinn: Yeah, yeah, I’m- I’m- I’m in uh short Japan, short South Korea, short Europe, still smaller than some of my other ones, but um, I’m starting in. Because I- I’m like medium on the dollar, I don’t- I- I think there’s like we were talking about in previous shows like these- these capital flows and- and asset allocation headwinds that- that the dollar has, but you know for all these energy independence reasons it’s got some tailwinds in times of- of madness too so. Um, but I do like having some of that on. I think the other not to overly uh harp on the agriculture stuff, but I’ve- I’m seeing more people talk about it and- and people are going straight to the fertilizer tra- aspect of the trade. Um, and I looked into that as well and follow it. The thing I like better about the- the base commodities, which I think are being slept on, is the fact that what is corn, uh sugar or- or wheat? It’s just the combination of seeds, fuel, fertilizer, labor, farming profit margins, planned costs, all into one.","offset":1292,"duration":77},{"text":"Quinn: And, you know, we’re seeing the fertilizer and the fuel cost to- to plant, harvest, and grow spike, but the other side of the trade is that farming profit margins have never been worse, they’ve been in recession for three years, supply as these farms shut- shut in is falling, so there’s not a good- not a good um response effect there. And- and so it kind of encapsulates all of these things into one where the- the cure is just simply higher prices of these assets, particularly if this it’s spring planting season and so you need- need the fertilizer more acutely during this time. And you don’t have to worry about buying like equities in a fertilizer agriculture company which have already been bid up, like the um, you know, the multiples on- on a lot of these Ag companies are now much more elevated.","offset":1369,"duration":55},{"text":"Quinn: But yeah, there’s no strategic corn reserve. Um, so there’s and demand doesn’t get hit, right? If- if oil goes to 100-150 bucks, people stop driving, people stop flying, people stop vacationing, all that you hit demand. But like if your food goes up 30 percent-","offset":1424,"duration":14},{"text":"Host: South Korea’s in some ways.","offset":1438,"duration":1},{"text":"Quinn: Yeah, if your food goes up 30 percent, I mean you need food, like you can’t just- you can eat less, but you know, unfortunately, it’s the countries that are you know the- the developing and underserved parts of the world that probably get hit the hardest from this. So, um, I just don't think it- I- I don’t- I hate to use like these analogies that, you know, say that- that kind of point to it being like so similar and going to play out the same way as like Covid and- and that’s kind of become quite talked about now, but you just don’t know the second-order effects and- and you know we’re three weeks into the strait closure. This- that- and we’ve been saying every single week, two weeks. And now there’s no way to do it. Like it might be mined, the only boats getting through are going right close to Iran and sort of like ally ships. Um, it- it- it clearly shown it doesn’t take much to keep it closed.","offset":1439,"duration":52},{"text":"Quinn: So it’s- it’s seeming more and more like you need some boots-on-the-ground operation and it’s just constant fog of war propaganda to- to try and keep the markets afloat. Because at the end of the day, why would they- if- if they can just jawbone and say like send people on TV and say it’s the war’s over, it’s going to end soon, all this stuff, and the market buys it, they will never stop. That’s kind of the- the- that’s like the dichotomy of this- like paradox. It’s like, if- if they can keep the market elevated but continue to wreak havoc, they’re not going to stop. It’s until there’s a forcing function in the market. And- and you see it in oil, right? Like the jawboning works and then it gets bid up the next day, right? Like until the next attack gets televised. So I don't know, man, it’s- it’s weird how everything one has become so markets-focused and also too, how everything just moves on the whim of- of like narratives and tweets, but uh it’s- it’s driving people crazy, I know that.","offset":1491,"duration":63},{"text":"Host: Yeah, I mean it’s nuts. Like then the next impact of that too is that, like we talked about last week, now that Iran knows where Trump’s, you know, liquidation level is, markets, like that’s going to incentivize them to go after energy infrastra- infrastructure more than they would have if he wasn’t as, you know, if he didn’t care as much about markets. So, like they-","offset":1554,"duration":23},{"text":"Quinn: Yeah, you have their foreign minister tweeting like this exact stuff. It’s- it’s such a weird, I mean, it’s so- I guess that’s a part of the new- new type of fighting wars is like it’s less people on the ground and it’s more like economic and financial warfare. But you know, it’s not a- we luckily the world in general is like a positive sum, right? Like over time people get lifted out of poverty, you get more efficient productivity, um, so when we talk about like Europe and Japan being less you know disadvantaged more relatively to the US, it’s unfortunate that it’s still like you know we’re- we’re decreasing the pie with all these things instead of increasing.","offset":1577,"duration":41},{"text":"Host: Before you place a trade, you should know who is actually moving the market. That’s where Arkham comes in. Arkham is a crypto intelligence platform and exchange that lets you see real on-chain data. Which wallets are buying, selling, and moving funds. And then trade directly on that information. Arkham was built to make blockchains human-readable. Instead of raw transaction data, you get clear profiles, visualizers, and custom dashboards that show what’s really happening beneath the surface. Tracking wallets and fund flows is becoming just as important as technical or fundamental analysis. On-chain intelligence is also one of the best tools traders have to protect themselves against hacks, rug pulls, and scams. With Arkham Exchange, you can go from insight to execution in one place. The world’s first exchange powered by crypto intelligence. Check out Arkham and start trading with real on-chain insight at arkham.com.","offset":1618,"duration":48},{"text":"Host: I think what’s tough, like, I don't know, it’s just, you know, there’s a lot of stuff where it’s like reaping what you sow right now too in terms of like- this was a great actually chart and tweet from Andreas Steno Larsen looking at who’s been the big winner so far and it’s been Putin. Um, the- disc- like all- all- all you know, you have this- there’s a mention this morning from- from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent talking about how they might lift sanctions off- off Iranian oil that’s on sea right now. And it’s like, who’s winning here? It’s- it’s that, um, it’s- it’s Russian oil that’s, uh, you know, you’re seeing the discount close here because, you know, you got India, you got these other countries that are starting to be able to buy it again. Um, you know, we’re just these tail risks that have been avoided for decades by world leaders, Western world leaders, in terms of where does our energy come from? You know, we’ve been too focused on- on ESG mandates to think about okay, well what would happen if the Strait of Hormuz closed or what would happen if we sanctioned Russian oil and these sort of things, and now a lot of these- these chickens are starting to come to roost.","offset":1666,"duration":68},{"text":"Quinn: Yeah, it was interesting and Powell, he got asked that question about like some of these longer-term things and- and one of them was, he- he gave like a- a nod or tip of the hat to these like bigger geopolitical theories that- that isolationism and- and secular conflict is increasing on a secular basis, um, which I thought was interesting. Like, it’s definitely everybody’s thinking about it. And yeah, it’s, you know, we’re still in this, I guess people, the market structure elements that are keeping the equities pinned and- and hasn’t really gotten people panicked, but it’s just so- it’s- one it’s like, you know, my portfolio is positioned in a way that benefits when the world goes to shit, which is not fun, like but I’m not going to like just sit there and like be long Nvidia amidst this. So, but you know, no one wants to root for that. That sucks. Um, but at the same time, it’s like you’re just waiting for the shoe to drop and there’s these market structure things ongoing that to me seems inevitable. I put some charts in there that- yeah I was going to say you got some charts, let’s see- let’s see what-","offset":1734,"duration":68},{"text":"Quinn: Well start with the first one, um, I think 35. Um, yeah this- this just shows that- there’s all this talk about how you know Mag 7 and etc. is under-owned, but they’re such a large part of the S&P 500, um, and the Nifty Nifty 50, you know the top 50 stocks. Like it’s still very overweight relative to the rest of S&P 500. So you know, if you look in like 21 when we got down in 22, 23 when- when relative outperformance of large-cap mega-cap bottomed, like there’s- there’s plenty of room to go. And if you look at the next one, this- this hawkish rate move in- in yields up, like similar to what we saw BoE, has also coincided with defensives massively outperforming cyclicals and- and forward equity growth and earnings are kind of slipping. So like, the- the market’s screaming growth problem here. The market is very much- and bonds have repriced lower, yields higher to some extent, but- but big parts of market are saying growth issue.","offset":1802,"duration":69},{"text":"Quinn: And then the next slide is just- this was an interesting one from RenMac that showed that yesterday’s PPI readings pushed in the 90th percentile historically and this is before the Iran effect. Um, so this is really problematic and like we were kind of talking earlier is like whether this is transitory inflation or not is going to matter if, you know, what the- the policy response is. And it’s hard not to see it being inflationary, um, especially given we’re still working through tariff impacts and everything. I mean, it just feels like the classic scenario where they- they’re forced to hike into slowing growth and that kind of puts an end to the global cycle.","offset":1871,"duration":43},{"text":"Host: Yeah, like the best case from here obviously is war ending and we stop losing lives and- and tons of- you know, waste of money and all you know, conflict. But if- if it does end quickly, you know, maybe there’s this way that they can cadence rate cuts to soft- sort of soft-land the inflation effect, but like keep the economy afloat, but it’s going to be really hard. Um, and it’s so reflexive with- with the markets and equities. Uh, I thought it was interesting on this next slide, you know, we’ve been talking you- you walked us through the options expiry dynamics tomorrow, um, and there was a- someone sent me this on Robinhood, uh, article writing to their retail audience about the Triple Witching and, you know, how the median is down.","offset":1914,"duration":44},{"text":"Host: Yeah, they’re like stocks sometimes go down, but don’t worry about it. Moves can be exaggerated because of this. And then, um, I- the next slide is just the from Goldman, the CTA estimates. So they show in a- in a flat market and flat and down markets, they show a pretty big CTA unwind. Obviously, if the market’s up CTAs relever, but given where Vol is, it’s probably, you know, you- you’d need a really big- big event for that to kind of turn. So the- the direction of travel is- is the same lower- lower place we’ve been going.","offset":1958,"duration":33},{"text":"Quinn: On the next slide, this was an interesting chart from JPM just showing the Quant equity degrossing drawdowns and the long-short degrossing, which this is um total leverage, so this is like if you’re long a hundred and short a hundred and you’re net neutral but your- your gross is 200. We’re still at record gross, you know, leverage levels. Like people have just been sort of- people haven’t been deleveraging, they’ve been adding puts and shorts. So um, it’s usually not over until you get a proper degrossing event and we haven’t seen it yet. Like if you compare this to- to um all these historical events, it’s- it’s not even recognizable on this chart.","offset":1991,"duration":46},{"text":"Quinn: And then you have the next one, today actually kind of kicks off earnings blackout into, you know, the next six weeks and through April so you have less market support there. The options expiry passes and then top-of-book S&P futures liquidity is horrendous. Like this is rivaling some all-time low levels like last Q1 or 2022 levels. Um, and we’re seeing that, right? Like stocks are whipping around one percent a day up down up down and everyone’s losing their minds. But when you zoom out and look at like a one-day- or three-day chart, like the trend is very much down and we’re like just peaking- peaking below the 200.","offset":2037,"duration":38},{"text":"Quinn: Um, and then the last thing I would show is- is everybody’s been talking about this hedging, right? So everybody’s loaded up with puts to- to hedge upside- downside instead of selling because no one wants to sell their winners and you know recognize taxes and gains so they just buy puts. But we all know that the puts haven’t been working because the market’s been stairstepping down and theta’s burnt and now we’re to options expiration. But a- a not great sign for the market is when skew comes off this much, which it has been. So skew has fallen um dramatically, but volatility hasn’t, which basically means that the- there you know this skew referring to put skew, so when it’s elevated you know puts are in demand more- more so than calls and there’s a huge pre- there’s a- a premium paid to buy the protection to the downside.","offset":2075,"duration":53},{"text":"Quinn: So when that falls it basically just means there’s less- the market is less protected in terms of options demand and if volatility is still elevated, you know you’re still in sort of a risk-off period, um, you know the market’s more vulnerable. So everything is lining up aside from like Robinhood talking about the options expry. So that- that- I don't know what to believe anymore. I just like believe in my- my case and so I’m short the things I’m short and I’m long the things I’m long, and we’ll see. Like but it doesn’t feel like- everybody I talk to is still waiting for the taco, doesn’t want to miss the bounce, like cannot imagine sitting- like a good example is my Substack chat. Like Monday and Tuesday when we didn’t even like, you know, we just did the same exact price action of last three weeks. Everybody was losing their minds. They’re like, oh my god was this it? Yeah- yeah they’re just- and it was like one day of a bounce. Like literally three days red, one day bounce, three days red, one day bounce, and on like the one day bounce people are like it’s- I knew I should have closed. Like and so that just shows you where sentiment is whereas when you’re at a bottom people are puking, right? Like people aren't saying like it’s- it’s- so I just feel to me like we still have ways to go and that this options thing could be a catalyst. But let’s see, you know the- the admin probably knows about it too and they’re probably going to try and roll out the red carpet to try and keep- keep things afloat.","offset":2128,"duration":85},{"text":"Host: This is just my favorite chart because last week we showed this exact chart people remember talking about how, you know, it was before this reversal and it was just like put skew was like at yeah like above 1.2 is ridiculous and it’s just like we said, nobody can make money on the downside if everybody’s that bought into puts. Um, we’re just going to burn them. And then you know those- those three days down, one day up, that is just the perfect way to- to just burn through theta. Like you just- I can’t even imagine the amount of theta that’s just being burned right now with- with elevated implied vol. Like everybody bought these at- at elevated levels. I do think, yeah, like either you just you know keep your risk limits tight if you’re buying puts and know what you’re getting yourself into or you- you just go out and outright short and avoid the whole situation. Um, but people- like the fact that Robinhood is talking about this means the game is known. Um, and then you have to think through the third-order effect of that which is probably you’re right, which is that- that Scott Bessent’s probably briefing- briefing the boys about hey look you know Triple Witching’s happening this week, window of weakness is coming up and- yeah send Netanyahu out there to like try and calm, say the war’s ending- like yeah, it’s all- it’s all- it’s all on the table, man, like because they- they need the- they need the space to operate and they’re trying to keep markets elevated.","offset":2213,"duration":85},{"text":"Quinn: Like, ultimately though, you know, these are physical commodities we’re dealing with. These are like, you- you can only- there’s some- there’s some level where just kicking the can and sort of lying to save face eventually backfires because then when you actually- when there actually is good news, people won't believe you because they’re like I’m not falling for that. So I don’t know if it’s the best strategy, like um- but it’s not our- it just remind- it reminds me of what we’ve talked about before in terms of how volatility can’t be suppressed, only transferred. And you know people are- they’re trying to suppress the volatility of- of CL front-month futures, but then you look at what’s going on in- in Oman and Dubai oil and that’s above 160 bucks and, you know, I’m- I’m not smart enough to make a- a certain decision about this, but I imagine by suppressing front-month CL, you creating- you creating volatility where you can’t control it. It’s being transferred. Like you know even over the past few days you’ve seen many days where the front-month contracts have been actually coming down but the- the back months, like the 2027s and stuff, have been rising further, and I’m sure you can make the argument that look, it’s like if- if you think that your counterparty in the books is- is Scott Bessent on front-month futures, you’re going to go speculate on the back ones and that could have a whole bunch of unintended consequences. Like you can’t, yeah, you can’t suppress the volatility, you’re only transferring it to more esoteric ways.","offset":2298,"duration":84},{"text":"Quinn: So here’s one I was just thinking through. Go to slide 45. And- and I’m kind of- I was literally just thinking through it before this so um, this might be a little green. But um, so this is the- the trade balance data which we’ve been talking about for a while. Ex-gold in the in the red there and the blue is just regular. Um, the lines there show the increasing on the left side means that the trade deficit is shrinking. So it was running on an average you know well north of 80 billion, kind of 80 to 100 billion pre- uh pre-tariff changes and some of those were front-running. But um, post that and as we kind of normalized, it’s- it’s dropped a good 30 to 40 billion, which is- is super significant from- from the levels, which we’ve talked about means, you know, if you can see on the right chart there, um, it means, you know, more exports relative to imports, um, versus the baseline levels. And um, less dollars in- in rotation globally, um, and in- and so that kind of puts a- a headwind on the dollar and you know that’s some of the probably bid behind gold.","offset":2382,"duration":71},{"text":"Quinn: But if you think about this, like if they were to put an export ban on our commodities, which are- which are sizable, so you decrease exports, so the trade balance would go further negative, meaning like our deficit would increase, which on the surface you know when your deficit- if- if trade is expanding and your deficit increases, goes further negative, you know that’s more dollars in existence globally because it’s saying imports are rising faster than exports. But in- if everything’s decreasing, meaning the trade- total trade is going down because you’re slowing growth and your exports are- are coming down as well, um, that means people need less dollars to buy. So I don- you know, that- that’s probably a negative side effect that people I haven’t heard anyone talk about. I haven’t thought this through completely, but if you did ban exports of oil and gas, people need less dollars and presumably the dollar would fall on that, um, which would have ramifications for inflation and the things other things you import as well as like capital flows because if the dollar starts falling and kicks off you know people having to kind of hedge and- and sell other US assets or something. So like you said, you can transfer the vol, but you can’t completely eliminate it, and I think that’s where people are at is like a little too much complacency around policymakers’ ability to control things that ultimately in the long run they can’t control.","offset":2453,"duration":88},{"text":"Host: That’s a great, um, yeah this first time thinking about this too, so you know we both might be missing something here, who knows what, but that to me sounds like what could be the bear case for- for US assets specifically and the dollar. Because everything else we- we’ve talked about ad nauseam about the risk for the rest of the world, Asia, Europe, etc. But what is the risk here for the US if they’re energy independent? And yeah, I do think it’s- it’s that, less dollars going out to the world, less um, and yeah, so then I add that towards what’s also going on when we look at the AI data center build-out and- and what’s financing it as well is you have okay, a lot of the capital investment has been coming from the Middle East. Um, they’re, you know, I imagine they’re marginally less interested in- in buying the next big AI data center when they’re fighting for their lives right now. Um, and then also you have key inputs into that AI data center build-out. Like helium market is, you know, everybody was all focused on oil but I think- I think we should be also equally focused on things like the helium market because that is just a one-to-one input into compute build-out.","offset":2541,"duration":69},{"text":"Host: And so if you have further shortages on those key inputs um and either the price rises or there’s shortages, both of those equal less AI data center build-out. And also at the same time, you know these- these Middle Eastern countries that have been financing a lot of this are probably going to be hoarding money because they don’t know what the hell’s about to happen to their economy. Um, you know Dubai is like- I’m sure I don’t know the numbers but I’m sure the vast majority of their revenue comes from rich people living there and spending a bunch of money and if- if they all bailed, like I’m sure their- their revenue situation is not looking too hot right now. Um, you know I’ve- I’ve even seen some people speculate that some of the- the gold price action of- has been the Middle Eastern countries selling just to hoard some cash and you know try to survive where we’re going next. Uh, there’s a, yeah, there’s just- we could- we could probably spend another 20 minutes here thinking through these unintended consequences, but there’s just- there’s so many.","offset":2610,"duration":56},{"text":"Quinn: Yeah, if you’re these countries, you know, they’re preparing for war to go start fighting against Iran as well and they’re looking at like they all own a ton of US stocks, right? And you’re seeing the S&P down 5% and your country is, you know, economically in a crisis event. You have to be liquidating these assets. You have to be and repatriating it. So, um, you know if for nothing else maybe to support your currency or you know your economy. Like it definitely creates massive isolationist deglobalization vibes that are just large moving ice cubes and glaciers, they’re not- they’re not just one-time events. Because when I think about, okay, you know, every- this war’s in everybody knows about it, it’s in plain sight, you know asset markets have responded to some extent, oil’s you know at 100 bucks. Like where- where is this wrong? Where am I wrong? Where are the holes in this? And to me, it’s like I don't really see a world given the damage done, you know, etc. to infrastructure. I don’t see oil going back to 60. Like I- my best case is like, okay, we- we lose 20% and we’re back down to 80, 80 bucks a barrel, which- which to me, yes, it takes the sting out of- of doomsday tomorrow, but it doesn’t- it still fuel to an already not great situation for risk assets.","offset":2666,"duration":92},{"text":"Quinn: And oh, by the way, like is Qatar going to want to commit $25 billion to the next OpenAI or whatever AI round or data center in the US if they have to pay 20, you know, whatever it is to rebuild these gas fields and their infrastructure? And also overnight, the other thing all these countries, they’re going to need to double-triple-quadruple their security budgets because no longer, you know, they’re going to have to start investing in Strait of Hormuz security, their own security, weapons, defense. So this is like, this is a pretty big like crowding-out effect as well from- from private investment to like sort of like public infrastructure, security, defense, safety goods um, which is not- it’s super negative for like overall productivity because you’re basically needing to finance more and more of these things from the government side. You know, they- like Congress I think is going or- admins going for a $200 billion like you know extra defense thing, you know soon.","offset":2758,"duration":55},{"text":"Host: The war’s ending soon but we need 200 billion dollars.","offset":2813,"duration":3},{"text":"Quinn: Yeah, and we need to send another warship and- and all these like. So, um, yeah, like you said man, like when I think about like where is this wrong? Like I- I don't really see how you put Humpty Dumpty back together here. It’s just like you can just slo- like you can just slo- like you can just like use glue to like make him fall apart less quickly and- and make the stairs more gradual, um, which is seemingly what they’re trying to do. But I just don't understand when I- when I zoom out, it’s like okay, let’s say everything goes hunky-dory and oil goes to 80. That’s still not good. The Fed’s still not cutting. Liquidity picture’s still bad. Foreign investors still need to pull their funds from these assets. Like I just see a pretty strong ceiling on the S&P 500 for- from that perspective.","offset":2816,"duration":55},{"text":"Host: Yeah, yeah, I think the best case right now is flat.","offset":2871,"duration":5},{"text":"Quinn: Yeah, and then you lose in real terms because there’s 4 or 5% inflation.","offset":2876,"duration":5},{"text":"Host: Yeah, 100%. Yeah, well, probably leave it at that, but I think yeah the main takeaways are stuff’s still happening. You know, you can try to suppress it for so long, but things will emerge where you don’t expect them to. And you know, there’s market structure games, like we’ve hyper-financialized the world to the point where geopolitical war game theory stuff is all related to markets, which is absolutely insane. But um, that’s the world we’re in.","offset":2881,"duration":29},{"text":"Quinn: Yeah, I mean, like, uh, we’ll- we’ll each watch this Triple Witching in- in anticipation and see- see what Monday brings us.","offset":2910,"duration":12},{"text":"Host: I’m excited to see what happens. Yeah, like you know there’s obviously some people and I would say I’m in the camp that it leads to a window of weakness, but I can also be dead wrong and maybe too many people are think about that now including the Trump admin, so who knows what’ll happen when we wake up on Monday. Could be dead vol.","offset":2922,"duration":15},{"text":"Quinn: Yeah, like you said, lower your risk limits and just be able to weather anything because no one knows anything and it’s dicey. So in most of these situations, if you’re active, like you always get another crack at the apple. Like you know even the world was ending last week and then you got a chance to re-short the same level again this week and cover right now and it’s just- it’s like Trump says, like bing-bong-boom-bing. High-level chess.","offset":2937,"duration":26},{"text":"Host: All right, man, sounds good. Well listeners, we’ll see you- yeah we’ll see you in New York next week. Yeah, we’ll have Joseph Wang joining us for their live round. Sweet, that was awesome. We’ll run it back from our one last summer. Yeah, exactly. Sweet. All right. See you then. Later, bud. 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