Top Reads, Listens, Follows & Takeaways of the week
Gold and Deion Sanders
Takeaways from my top two:
-Earlier this week Barry Ritholtz posted a Twitter thread questioning the role of gold in a portfolio based on its YTD performance and ability to serve as an inflation hedge. Instead of a simple inflation up = gold up mindset it’s helpful to think about gold as protection against currency debasement and easy monetary policy relative to inflationary pressures. Gold has had a positive performance this year when priced in yen, pounds, and euro. It's bold to believe that what we are observing in currencies overseas could never happen here at home. The cherry on top is that gold has been a flight to safety/tail risk asset during US equity selloffs, delivering positive returns in 9/12 selloffs 15% or worse since 1987. Since inception of the popular gold ETF, GLD, it has posted a 7.37% CAGR with a .08 correlation to the S&P500. During that time (2005-present), ETFs SPY and TIP have done 8.38% and 3.15% CAGR respectively (see performance here). It is shortsighted to not evaluate how gold can benefit your portfolio, even with a 5-10% allocation.
-What Deion Sanders has done at Jackson State is both an incredible act of service and a testament to his ability as a coach and recruiter. Agreeing to become JSU head coach in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd, Sanders has completely turned the program around by recruiting top talent like Travis Hunter, the highest-ranked prospect to ever commit to a HBCU or an FCS program, winning games on the field, and convincing WalMart to build them a new practice field. His presence has dramatically increased league revenues and led to sponsorships from Pepsi, American Airlines, and P&G. Watch the 60 Minutes episode featuring ‘Neon Deion’.
Reads:
Russell Napier on how to prepare for a world with higher inflation (here)
China’s economic prospects are darkening (here)
America's Four-Star Problem (here)
Florida coastal living in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian (here)
10-K Diver on profit being different from cash (here)
Peter Thiel and his role in financing politics (here)
The financialization of gold (here & here & here)
SPAC sponsors won while losing? (here)
The Golden Age of Black College Football (here)
Quantifying Britain’s moron risk premium (here)
Thinking About the Next Warren Buffett (here)
Predicting growth (here)
IRS Raises Estate-Tax Threshold (here)
Listens:
Perma-bear Nouriel Roubini with the global macro bear case (here)
How I Built This: Universal Hydrogen (here)
Josh Wolfe of Lux Capital on VC, Elon, BioTech, and more (here)
Barack Obama on Midterms (here)
Economic anarchy in the UK (here)
For fans of true crime, the Generation Why podcast (here)
Follow, Watch & Other great content:
Deion Sanders: The 60 Minutes Interview (here)
The Redeem Team (here)
Historical Obesity by State (here)
The origin of America’s ugly politics (here)
Mike Flynn’s Holy War (here)
Troy Polamalu (here)