As we approach 2025, here are some questions to consider about markets, policy shifts and technological progress:   Will Milei continue his win streak? I was a bit concerned to read this article by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in the Telegraph about Javier Milei’s currency strategy in Argentina. Ambrose points out that for Milei to be a genuinely free market actor, he…

Deflationary Forces   Diamonds Despite being identical, there is still a significant price difference between natural and lab-grown diamonds. Lab-grown diamond supplies are so high that the average 1-carat round diamond is just $679 vs. $3728 for an identical natural diamond. How cheap can a 1-carat round diamond get? Probably cheaper than $679. Eventually, the price will trend to the…

Weather Google’s DeepMind had two major releases this week. The first focuses on weather predictions. I wrote recently that I don’t think we are close to running out of data to train AI models, and the weather is a perfect example. This latest model was trained on 40 years of wind speed, temperature and pressure at various altitudes. Weather is…

DOGE and GDP Changes in liquidity at the government level significantly impact market returns. It’s challenging and often nearly impossible to predict those liquidity changes unless they are clearly announced and followed through. In 2020, an emergency $10T in stimulus added to US liquidity set off a massive and rapid bull market followed by an inflationary period. In 2022, rate…

Regulation and Markets Markets respond well to the resolution of uncertainty, especially in the face of a potentially delayed or contested result. Consistent with previous Republican outcomes, US equity markets responded positively to the Trump Vance outcome. The deregulation wave is likely the most potent positive factor for the majority of the stock market over the next year. The business…

I recently read “Superabundance” at the recommendation of a friend who shares my optimism and enthusiasm for technology. Co-author Marian Tupy was generous enough to take some time to discuss the book with me. “Superabundance” explores how human innovation leads to increased resources and better living standards, challenging the traditional views on scarcity and global population growth. Simon-Ehrlich wager The…

It’s hard to believe the election is less than two weeks away. I’ve been watching the betting market on Polymarket which now has Trump at 62% vs Harris at 38% based on $2.3 billion in bets placed. Historically the most quoted political betting market has been PredictIt, which has never really been representative because it caps the size of the…

More Quantum I became interested in quantum computing earlier this year when it became clear that AI was reaching its physical limits. You can read past posts on quantum here and here. AI growth today is constrained by total NVidia chip supply and total electrical grid capacity, not to mention the tens of billions of dollars needed to build and…

ETF Loophole My primary focus in writing these articles is to document emergent trends and share my perspective about their implications. Emergent trends cannot be systematically predicted. They are spontaneous evolutions based on changes in the underlying foundational rules that precede something flourishing into an entirely new field. In this case, I see a massive upcoming emergent opportunity created by…