Category Archive

A Profusion of Recession Indicators Despite the growing popularity of the soft-landing narrative, the current scenario presents a multitude of macro factors forewarning a major recession. The dangerous disconnect of highly inflated valuations of financial assets within a market environment substantially different from the easy money conditions of the past few decades defies logic. With the US economy teetering on …

Investors in US Treasury bonds have experienced extraordinary losses in the post-Covid stimulus era as evidenced by the iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF (Ticker: TLT) which is down 47% on a total return basis from its August 2020 high. Such a large drawdown in a supposedly safe asset class led to several bank failures in early 2023, but the …

We believe conventional investment strategies are poised to undergo a significant restructuring, placing a prominent emphasis on investments in hard assets. As illustrated in the accompanying chart, the valuation history of 60/40 portfolios unfolds through extended cycles, and we are currently experiencing another critical juncture in this dynamic. In August 2021, the combined valuation of overall equities and US Treasuries …

I am writing this personal letter to Crescat’s clients and followers ahead of our regular monthly research letter to literally pound the table on what I believe is one of the best times to deploy capital to Crescat’s strategies in our firm’s history. The set-up is the most exciting macro and value combination play on both the long and short …

There is a high probability of a recession in the next twelve months according to the NY Fed’s statistically significant yield-curve inversion model. One wouldn’t know it by looking at risk premia across equity and credit markets. Sub-investment-grade corporate bonds are just one area where there is a glaring imbalance. As one can see in our model below, in the …

Monetary and fiscal authorities are currently running what we believe are unsustainably divergent policies. The simultaneous rise in the cost of debt by central banks and their deliberate reduction of balance sheet assets is entirely incongruous with the exponential growth in government debt. Following the COVID era, we have entered a period of fiscal dominance among major developed economies. Hence, …

Dear Investors: At Crescat, we have three overriding, high-conviction macro themes supported by our independent research and proprietary models that we believe are poised to unfold in rapid succession over the short and medium term: We see highly overvalued long-duration financial assets as ripe for a second major leg down due to the rising cost of capital and the imminent …

The US debt ceiling issues likely present a much greater risk to financial markets than currently perceived by investors. Although prior concerns related to this matter have proven to be mostly peripheral, today’s set of circumstances is different. The possibility of a technical default looms once again, however, our main concern is the potential macroeconomic consequences following a resolution between …

The last 12 months have marked one of the steepest Fed rate-hiking cycles in history. Meanwhile, financial conditions remain too loose for secular inflationary forces but too tight for financial assets near record valuations. If this is the beginning of another multi-year period of higher-than-average cost of capital, overall equity markets are yet to reflect these changes in fundamental multiples. …

In our view, inflation is the most mispriced macro variable in markets today. CPI growth is 5.1% higher over the last two years, but five-year forward inflation expectations are essentially unchanged. Based on our analysis, structural forces are likely to keep the annual growth rate in consumer prices elevated for much longer and substantially higher than currently priced into markets. …

We believe we are at a key inflection point for the precious metals industry today. The overwhelming social pressure to adopt the green revolution, renewable energy technologies, and electrification has forced the gold mining industry to shift its capital and attention to so-called “critical” metals. Consequently, there has been a declining interest from major mining companies in deploying capital to …

The wheels are coming off the global economy. The painful increase in cost of debt in combination with the relentless appreciation of the US dollar and tightening of monetary conditions have exposed long-standing macro imbalances. These forces are interconnected, self-reinforcing, and in our opinion completely unsustainable over the long run. Ultimately, policy makers must restore a financially repressive environment. Allowing …

In Crescat’s analysis, it is still way too risky to buy the dip in mega-cap tech stocks. Valuations are still higher than the PEAK of the dotcom bubble as we show in the two charts below. There is substantial downside ahead based on the comparison to the early 2000’s tech bust at its washout point. Our first chart shows the …

The Crescat Global Macro Fund was up 2.9% net in August and 38.8% net year to date. Mega Cap Growth shorts were the best performing theme overall generating a 2.3% absolute return to the fund while the S&P 500 was down 4.1%. The Long/Short and Precious Metals Funds were also up in August. All Crescat strategies have outperformed their benchmarks …