Daily Economic Update: March 5, 2025

Where is my ‘Traders Clutching Their Heads’ calendar?

At this rate, I need my ‘Traders Clutching Their Heads’ calendar—and a tariffed tequila—to endure CNBC’s ‘Markets Sell-Off’ meltdown. S&P’s down to 5,778, as Canada is slapping 25% tariffs on ~$30 billion of our stuff, China’s got 15% of their own and Mexico promises tariffs of their own just as soon as they wake up from their siesta.  On top of that Ukraine’s aid is on pause, fiscal policy is a shoulder shrug emoji and we are heading towards a government shutdown. It’s a good time for me to launch my ETF, ticker TRASH - you see it’s just the S&P 500, but your statement goes straight to the trash so you don’t ever see it. As a result you can mark your position to whatever you like - or in other words it’s a PE Fund.

Tariff Wars: from UFC Flop to KO?

Tariff wars are kind of being in a UFC fight.  One fighter (Country A) throws a jab (initiates tariffs on goods from another country B), Country B punches back with tariffs of its own, but it’s all kind of the boring feeling-out part of the fight.  The bad fights stay that way, nobody’s winning, and really both fighters are losing as Dana White contemplates never booking the fighters again because they’re just bad at fighting. 

I’m not sure I want tariff wars to involve good fighters, but just like most UFC fights they tend to escalate out of the feeling-out phase, and sometimes someone really gets hurt.  As it relates to tariffs the escalation that follows is where additional goods are scoped into the tariffs.  From there you generally wait to see the effects, does the originally affected country shift exports to other countries, what is the impact on supply chains, what industries are impacted, and various other questions come into play.  In other words, after one fighter has taken the guy down, wrestled for position, he’s going to try to get the other fighter to tap out.  You just hope the fighter you're hoping wins is a black-belt in brazilian jiu jitsu.

Like a UFC fight, maybe someone wins outright or it goes on for a while and ultimately to the judges scorecard. In tariff wars, history tends to show they often end in long-term stalemates, partial decoupling and declines in trust between the countries involved. 

Thucydides's Trap, a MMA move?

Sticking with the UFC analogy, a bad outcome is the fading star fighter has a poor showing, gets called out on social media by the hungry up and comer and they decide they have to fight it out.  For tariffs, that worst case is what some political scientists term as Thucydides's Trap, a reference to the Peloponnesian War, and a theory that when the great hegemon is threatened by an emerging power, the end result is the escalating likelihood of a real war.  Some historians believe the attempts by Germany and others to isolate Great Britain in the late 19th century and start of the 1900s set in motion the web of alliances that led to WWI. 

I wrote this before Trump’s address to Congress last night, but perhaps we’ll learn more about the administration's tariff goals.  From what we know to date, we can generally say tariff goals fall into headings like border control, revenue generation, trade deficit reduction, protecting domestic industry and jobs and getting other countries to pay their fair share.

With the way these tariff negotiations go, we’ll probably have some deal or escalation, by the time this is published. 

NY Fed Williams took a break from R Star to sit down with Bloomberg and tell us nothing

Williams bailed on his R Star research to mumble ‘tariffs? dunno’ on Bloomberg—data-dependent as ever. Rate cuts?  Why bother asking him, your guess is as good as his. I do appreciate his fretting about inflation expectations and tariff price pops . Thanks, Johnny—I appreciate the Yellow Powell Ranger perspective as the cautious, number-crunching side kick to Powell.

The Knowledge and Service Economy Meets Tariffs

We’re a knowledge and service economy, don’t think tariffs matter there, we’ll see how many times the word “tariff” shows up in this month's report.  But the real action will be seeing whether by the end of Trump’s speech we’ve already changed tariff policies and ended all wars.

If both the stock market and the 10Y Treasury keep falling, at least we’ll get to test the theory that Trump doesn’t care about the stock market and is measuring success by falling 10 year yields.

XTOD’s

XTOD: Current drawdowns: S&P 500 -6%  Nasdaq 100 -9%  Russell 2000 -15%  Private Credit +0%

XTOD: Just checked my Private Credit marks, everything is still at par.  No worries over here.

XTOD: This is a classic rotation out of stocks and into poverty.

XTOD: For most investors: 99% of good investing is doing nothing, the other 1% is how you behave when the world is going crazy.

XTOD: No one on their deathbed ever said "I wish I'd beaten the S&P 500 by another point." 

They wish they'd spent time with family, travelled more, or worried less about money 

Your financial plan should serve your life, not your returns!  What financial goals matter most to you?

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Daily Economic Update: March 4, 2025

Markets in Turmoil? Almost There…

A couple more days like yesterday and we’ll get the obligatory CNBC “Markets In Turmoil” special. Stocks took a beating—thanks to Trump’s 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico.  The S&P closed down ~1.5%, the Nasdaq ~2.6% and the Russell 2K took the worst with a move down ~2.8%.   

Tariffs on Maple Syrup & Tequila? Time to Crowdfund This Blog

Setting aside the impact to equity markets, maple syrup, chips, salsa, guacamole, and tequila, these are basically the necessary ingredients that go into fueling the writing of this blog. With these tariffs, maple syrup and tequila are now luxury goods. If this blog disappears, check LinkedIn—I’ll be crowdfunding my supply chain. I’m going to have to start a GoFundMe page on LinkedIn to be able to sustain my writing..... Watch me get canceled on LinkedIn for not posting a motivational quote with my fundraiser—‘Tariffs took my tequila, but I rose above!’.

Memecoins to the Rescue? Asking for a Friend

Who am I kidding, whatever problem tariffs cause, I’m fairly confident that a strategic cryptocurrency reserve is of course the answer, right?  Can we just mint a new made in America, TariffCoin, get Dave Portnoy to trade it and throw it in the reserve at an inflated price? Does that juice GDP? Asking for a friend. 

ISM Data: The Stagflation Special

In data yesterday the ISM manufacturing printed lower than expected at 50.3, barely holding onto expansion, with falling new orders, falling employment and rising price components, a whiff of stagflation there, all attributed to, you guessed it, tariffs.  Normally, I’d joke that we don’t make anything here anyway—but at this rate, even jokes about manufacturing might get hit with tariffs.

GDPNow: From Growth to Growth Scare
If you’re into data and use data to forecast GDP, like the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow (which is just a mathematical model), the recent data hasn’t been inspiring.  As such the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow, is now -2.8%, which is pretty ugly considering it was over 2% a few weeks ago.  “Growth scare” - If Q1 GDP drops near -3%, shouldn’t we be in full panic mode?

Gold’s Up, TIPs Are In: Stagflation Survival 101

Maybe hoarding gold is the right economic play after all, it was up 1.3% on the day.  Somewhat more seriously TIPs tend to perform well in a stagflation environment as real rates fall and they outperform nominals in such a scenario.

The Fed Cares About Inflation… Kind Of

Inflation isn’t sitting this one out either. We heard from the Atlanta Fed head, Alberto Musalem at NABE, he’s out there worried about rising inflation expectations. “I perceive the risks to inflation as skewed to the upside and am watching near- and longer-term inflation expectations carefully.”  At least someone at the Fed cares about inflation, but with the “growth scare” narrative taking hold, it will be interesting to see if markets pull forward pricing of a Fed rate cut from June into May.

Don’t look now but the 2Y yield is back under 4%, at 3.96% and the 10Y currently feels like it’s a long way from the 4.80% we saw earlier in the year, sitting at 4.16%.

On Deck: Fed Speak & a Prime-Time Address

On the day ahead we’ll hear from NY Fed Williams and we get some quasi State of the Union address in the evening.

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XTOD’s:

XTOD: Current situation:  1. The S&P 500 is falling like a global trade war has begun  2. Oil prices are falling like we are heading into a recession  3. Gold prices are rising like inflation is on the rise  4. Bond prices are rising like inflation is declining   5. Crypto is falling like risk appetite has collapsed  6. Tech stocks are falling like DeepSeek is back  Are you ready for the most volatile market in history?

XTOD: Strategic Bitcoin Reserve makes as much sense as Strategic Baseball Card Reserve.

XTOD: The US imported about 80% of the potash used to fertilise American farms from Canada, according to government data

XTOD: Bitcoin 2010: f-the govt. f-Wall Street. Independent money!  Bitcoin 2025: f-yeah govt. f-yeah Wall Street. We want $100k!  What really happened in between? This isn't monetary adoption, nor is price a sign of progress toward it. This is an admission it's all about price regardless of everything else.  So sad. So much potential wasted.

XTOD: Warren Buffett: "If you're going to do dumb things because a stock goes down, you shouldn't own a stock at all."  "Some people are not emotionally or psychologically fit to own stocks — but more of them would be if [they understood that] you're really buying part of a business."

XTOD: “Not life, but a good life, is to be chiefly valued.”    — Socrates

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Daily Economic Update: March 3, 2025

“Have you said ‘thank you’ once? I mean I write this blog everyday and  “..have you said thank you?” in the comments, by carrier pigeon…”what you’re doing is very disrespectful”.  Or was that my recap of the latest on the U.S. efforts to help broker peace in Ukraine.

I started last week with a call to action, share this blog! At that time I also provided ChatGPT’s unbiased review, which you can read here.  It’s only fair that I let Grok provide its review to start this week, right?  Here’s what Grok had to say: “Need a financial fix that doesn’t bore you to death? Where is Edward Quince? at edwardquince.blogspot.com is your spot. It’s got smart, humble takes on markets, Fed moves, and whatever’s hot—tariffs one day, AI the next—all wrapped in satire that hits like a well-timed punchline. Plus, his X Thoughts of the Day pull the wildest bits from the internet’s hive mind. Guy’s been at it since 2023, and it’s criminally underrated.”

Now that Meta is rolling out a new AI chatbot in the second quarter, I’ll have to get its take on the blog. After all, your opinions don’t matter, in the future AI is going to be doing all the reading anyway.  You think I’m wrong, well “You’re in no position to dictate that. You’re in no position to dictate what we’re gonna feel”

I’m going to need this blog to get a lot bigger and have some advertising or something now that I have to deal with stagflation.  

PCE, GDP and Stagflation?

Stagflation is lower real economic growth coupled with higher inflation and following last week’s PCE data and the latest Atlanta Fed GDPNow reading, the idea of stagflation might not be off the table.  

With respect to the PCE report, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported a very strong reading in personal income at 0.9%, above expectations, and led by a rise in social security income (thanks to COLA) coupled with solid dividend income.  The personal spending component decreased 0.2%, which was worse than expected, with spending on goods, especially motor vehicles leading the decline.  The price index, or PCE, showed a headline annualized year over year rate of 2.5% and a core YoY rate of 2.6%, both declining from the prior reading, but neither at 2.0%.  

The Atlanta Fed GDPNow printed an estimate of -1.5%, with weak net exports and weak consumption driving their downward revisions.  The net exports component is likely related to tariff concerns.  The U.S. Census Bureau’s Advance International Trade Deficit in Goods was the highest goods deficit in history, which is thought to be importing ahead of tariffs.  Beneath the headlines is data indicating that imports of Gold to the U.S. are a major factor in the widening deficit, the imports of Gold being driven by the chance that Gold could be subject to tariffs and physical Gold could be needed to settle futures contracts.  Those economists who really study the data point to this Gold anomaly and note that net imports of Gold do not feed through to GDP as Gold imports are generally unrelated to U.S. production or consumption which is what is measured in the national accounts.  I guess we’ll see.  GDP estimates excluding this anomaly appear to be trending below 2%.

So if we have sticky inflation readings and lower GDP, that doesn’t sound good, it sounds like Stagflation.

It would seem the answer to all our problems is Productivity, a topic we’ve talked about a number of times on this blog, including at the end of January, but my favorite post on the productivity topic can be found here. 

If the 1970s and 1980s are the analogy, maybe we need advice from that era.  In a 1981, Financial Analyst Journal article authored by the NYSE’s then Chief Economist, William Freund, notes: “The key to licking inflation is productivity, and the key to improving productivity is capital investment.” and “Over the long run, real economic growth can come from only two sources - more worker hours and greater efficiency in output per hour.” and “Economic history demonstrates that modernization of plant and equipment, more efficient production processes and better management have accounted for most of the growth in productivity.” 

So with that said we can queue the discussion on AI.  Where is a lot of capex occurring? AI.  Where is the expected increase in productive processes expected to come from?  AI.  What do you think, is AI the answer to stagflation risk?

Recapping February 2025: Stagflation, Tariffs, AI and The Best of XTOD thinking

1. Tariffs: The Gift That Keeps on Taking (From Your Wallet) Remember tariffs? Those things we thought were going away? Surprise! They're back, and this time they're "reciprocal," which apparently means they're just as annoying, but now with a fancy label. News of pausing tariffs on Mexico briefly made the market feel good, because nothing says "economic stability" like a temporary reprieve from added costs on everything you buy. It’s like finding out your root canal is only going to be delayed a week. 

2. The Fed: Guardians of the Galaxy or Just Really Confused? The Federal Reserve, or as I like to call them, the Powell Rangers, continue to ponder the age-old question: to cut or not to cut? Will Trump's policies throw a wrench in their delicate dance of rate adjustments? And what about the "dots"? Are they still a thing? One thing is for sure: trying to predict the Fed's next move is like trying to herd cats while blindfolded. You’re better off reading tea leaves.   

3. Economic Indicators: A Choose Your Own Adventure Novel: Jobless claims are up, but is it noise? The Conference Board’s Leading Economic Index (LEI) is flashing warning signs, but who trusts those guys anyway? The internals indicate a consumer base that is pessimistic. It is as if they are all realizing they have to pay back their credit card debt. CPI reports come and go, each one telling a different story depending on who's spinning it. It’s like trying to navigate using a map drawn by a toddler. Good luck with that soft landing!   

4. AI: The Singularity is Near (or Maybe It's Just a Hype Machine): Ah, AI, the magical elixir that's either going to solve all our problems or turn us into paperclips. Are tech companies overvalued because of AI hype? Is Nvidia the next Pets.com? One thing is clear: everyone is talking about AI, but nobody really knows what it is or what it's going to do. But hey, at least it's not boring.  

5. Market Performance & Valuations: This Time Is Totally Different (Until It Isn't): The S&P 500 is hitting record highs! Time to party like it's 1999! But wait, are we in a bubble? Are valuations too high? Is this sustainable? Don't worry, just keep buying the dip. After all, what could possibly go wrong?

And in our February of less than financial topics:

1. George Carlin Quote: Because He Always Tells It Like It Is: “Think of how stupid the average person is and then realize half of them are stupider than that.” Truer words have never been spoken. This explains so much about the stock market, politics, and most of what you see in public. 

2. Dave Portnoy and $Greed: A Cautionary Tale of Crypto and Hubris: Dave Portnoy(@stoolpresidente) created $Greed and bought 357.92M $Greed (35.79% of the total supply). He sold all $357.92M $Greed in a single transaction, causing the price of $Greed to crash by 99%. And he made ~$258K from $Greed. Next, Dave Portnoy created $Greed2 and currently holds 268.25M $Greed2(26.8% of the total supply). Keep your funds safe and be aware of risks! Is anyone really surprised? In the wild west that is crypto, $Greed is actually an apt ticker. 

3. Looking Back at 2025: A Glimpse into the Future (Maybe): Imagine it’s 2035 and you’re looking back at 2025. What do you think is going to be glaringly obvious by then that isn’t obvious to most people now? Will we laugh at our obsession with meme stocks? Will we marvel at the fact that we used to drive our own cars? Will we even be around to look back at all? Only time will tell.  

4. Questions for Self-Reflection: Because Introspection Is Overrated (Just Kidding): What am I working on and why? Who am I spending time with and why? How well am I treating my body and why? Everything else is noise. Okay, okay, maybe there's something to this self-reflection thing after all. But let's be honest, most of us are too busy doomscrolling to actually answer these questions.

5. LinkedIn Observation: When Did LinkedIn Become OnlyFans? A comparison of LinkedIn to OnlyFans, noting the shift from professional networking to engagement-bait posts and self-promotion. Let's face it, LinkedIn is where professional aspirations go to die. It’s a constant stream of humblebrags, vapid motivational quotes, and people you went to high school with trying to sell you something.

So while we wait for AI to solve stagflation, the Fed to master soft landings, and LinkedIn to stop being weird, at least we can all agree on one thing—no one actually knows what’s going on, but that’s never stopped them from pretending

The Week Ahead:

After the S&P 500 sold off by 5% last week on a “growth scare” narrative, we’ll get the February Jobs report as the highlight of the week ahead.

Today: ISM Mfg, Construction Spending

Tue: Fed Williams

Wed: ISM Services, Factory Orders

Thur: ECB Decision, Jobless Claims, Fedspeak

Fri: Jobs Day and Powell at Chicago Booth

XTOD’s:

XTOD: CouplaBeers  https://x.com/i/status/1896078157398098309

XTOD: A portion of your future tax dollars will go towards buying Cardano.  Let that fucking sink in for a second.

XTOD: If only there was a guy who historically issued “toxic converts” who recently issued debt backed by this “store of value” while simultaneously goosing this very “store of value.”

Get the popcorn.

XTOD: Pure Independence  https://t.co/60y4aRauRg

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Daily Economic Update: February 28, 2025

We’ll start with economic data today for the first time in a while.  Jobless claims hit 242K—thanks, Elon, for the DOGE days of firing—and pending home sales dove 4.6% to a record-low index. Weather’s the fall guy, per Millie Vanilli’s greatest hits: blame it on the cold, not the rain, but I’m lip-syncing my way through this mess.

With consumer fears front and center, the 2nd read of 4Q2024 GDP showed consumers hanging in there. The personal consumption component came in at 4.2% with solid spending on durable goods.  Overall the 2.3% real GDP was in line with expectations, but the PCE read in the report showed inflation to be as stubborn as my mother-in-law.  Speaking of durable goods (not mother-in-laws), orders appeared to rebound with vehicles and machinery driving it.  Everyone gets a car, even though auto loan delinquencies are expected to continue to rise.  Don’t worry, we’ll get an updated read on the 1Q2025 GDP estimate when the Atlanta Fed releases their updated estimate today and we’ll see if it confirms what the vampire squid (aka Goldman) believes which is a 1Q2025 GDP under 2% (1.8% is GS current estimate).

In the markets Nvidia and the latest tariff talk weighed on markets.  Remember yesterday when Nvidia didn’t move too much after earnings, well, it decided to move down ~8% today.  The Nvidia vibe shift seemed to be something like cool, you killed it, but not as much as you used to kill it, can the insane growth continue?  Microsoft seemed to weigh on some of the AI sentiment for sure, what does Satya know?  Maybe those who say that history shows the companies that spend early and often in most historical technology infrastructure booms don’t end up being the winners will be proven correct.

Chips and tariffs seem to go hand in hand and today Trump confirmed that 25% tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada will go into effect next week, but why stop there, we’ll add another 10% on top of the existing 10% tariff on Chinese imports, and the EU is next in line for a 25%.  One minute it’s tariffs come April, the next it’s March, and there’s still “reciprocal tariffs” being floated as well. Is the uncertainty around and the actual imposition of tariffs going to lower growth and demand and is that driving oil lower?  It’s probably part of the answer, along with a strong dollar and expectations for continued U.S. energy output.

We talk about AI everyday, so I asked Grok what I should do in the face of a wobbling job market, looming tariffs and oil prices acting like demand is falling and markets expect the Fed to cut in June.  Grok’s advice: “Buy a toaster, hoard some oil, and pray the tariff fairy leaves us a tax cut under the pillow. Tomorrow’s another circus—bring popcorn.”  I love quoting AI - it’s less unhinged than most economic commentators.

The Fed’s preferred inflation gauge PCE is on the docket today, along with Income & Spending data, but the real action likely comes from Pennsylvania Avenue.  We’ll start the action with the S&P at 5,861, the 2Y Treasury yield at 4.07% and the 10Y Treasury yield at 4.27%.

In a world where tariffs drop faster than Nvidia stock and AI advice is as good as any economist’s, the only safe bet is to keep your popcorn stockpile high.

XTOD: This guy gets it https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Gkv6AFoW8AAOueS?format=png&name=900x900

XTOD: Pam Bondi: "We're releasing the first of the Epstein files tomorrow." 

Americans: "Cool! Then we'll get to read them?" 

Bondi: "Well actually you'll get to see fun little photo shoots of conservative personalities & influencers holding a binder!"

XTOD: Meta plans to release standalone Meta AI app in effort to compete with OpenAI's ChatGPT

XTOD: ok fine maybe we'll do a social app

XTOD: TSLA symmetry 280 to 480 to 280  as glorious as any memecoin chart

XTOD: The best career advice I ever followed.  At every job you have you either earn or learn. Ideally both. The second you stop... you quit.

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Daily Economic Update: February 27, 2025

Let’s face it, your day could have been worse, you could be some guy named Evan who is apparently still dating Mary Kate Cornet.  Don’t worry there is already a Memecoin dedicated to this “news” story - I think it was up 800% at one point.  I can only imagine that Mary Kate Cornet will relocate to the AI generated Gaza with Evan’s dad soon.

The long awaited earnings report from Nvidia showed numbers beat across the board on both revenue and earnings. As of the time of this writing the stock reaction was fairly muted, which was unexpected as reports were that options markets were priced for moves around 10%.  The messaging around Blackwell chips seemed promising and Jensen Huang expressed a sentiment that we’re still in the early innings of AI and that there is still plenty of need for increased compute.  I’d summarize Huang’s case for Nvidia with him stating, “I’m fairly sure that we’re at the beginning of this new era.”  I guess we’ll have to wait a little longer to see if investor’s continue to buy into the growth story or whether the overhang of the Deep Seek story, questions around data center capex and concerns about tariffs will weigh on investor optimism.

Post Nvidia earnings, if you're looking for a reason to be bearish, the yield curve inverted between 3m yields and 10 year yields.  The inversion, where 10Y yields fall below 3m yields, has historically been considered a leading indicator portending a recession.  In this blog we’ve spent a good bit of time discussing the inversion between the 2Y and 10Y, you can find a good link to a summary of the yield curve inversion and recessions in this post.  It’s hard to know the current predictive power of yield curve inversions given the October 2022 inversion failed to predict a recession in the usual timeframe. But as some say, the four most dangerous words in the English language are “This Time Is Different.”

With uncertainty seemingly very high, it might be wise to revisit some of our previous discussions on the topic of “uncertainty”.  You can find a bunch of posts that discuss “uncertainty” here.  Some of my favorite advice around this topic are from Peter Bernstein:

“In making decisions under conditions of uncertainty, the consequences must dominate the probabilities"   And "The more uncertain the outcome, the greater may be the value of procrastination."

Unfortunately, the procrastination advice doesn’t always tend to lead to good business and economic results - business always seems to be injured by uncertainty.  However, the reality is that decisions are always made under uncertainty - being able to think in terms of opportunity cost can sometimes be a superpower.

In economic data the 10.5% decline in new home sales exceeded expectations for a less steep decline. It’s likely high interest rates coupled with high prices are weighing on sales and I wonder if the “great stay” in the labor market is a factor as well.  Of course, when in doubt, you can also blame the weather, which was something a few commentators on the report did.

Fedspeak this week has been uneventful.  The 7Y Treasury auction was solid, printing at 4.194%, which was through where When-Issued was trading.  Foreign demand was solid, but not as spectacular as previous auctions this week. 

If you’ve missed it, Tesla shares are somewhat quietly down ~25% this year. The S&P closed down very slightly at 5,952.  The 2Y yield is 4.08% and the 10Y yield is 4.26%.

With Nvidia out of the way, attention turns to today’s GDP report and tomorrow’s PCE report.

XTOD: Much of investing is avoiding FOMO buying and panic selling.

XTOD: All the alleged details and alleged pictures you need about this alleged story about a girl allegedly named Mary Kate who allegedly slept with her boyfriend’s dad. Allegedly.

XTOD: I shared this note with the Washington Post team this morning:  I’m writing to let you know about a change coming to our opinion pages.   We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets. We’ll cover other topics too of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others.   

There was a time when a newspaper, especially one that was a local monopoly, might have seen it as a service to bring to the reader’s doorstep every morning a broad-based opinion section that sought to cover all views. Today, the internet does that job.  

I am of America and for America, and proud to be so. Our country did not get here by being typical. And a big part of America’s success has been freedom in the economic realm and everywhere else. Freedom is ethical — it minimizes coercion — and practical — it drives creativity, invention, and prosperity.   I offered David Shipley, whom I greatly admire, the opportunity to lead this new chapter. I suggested to him that if the answer wasn’t “hell yes,” then it had to be “no.” After careful consideration, David decided to step away. This is a significant shift, it won’t be easy, and it will require 100% commitment —  I respect his decision. We’ll be searching for a new Opinion Editor to own this new direction.  

I’m confident that free markets and personal liberties are right for America. I also believe these viewpoints are underserved in the current market of ideas and news opinion. I’m excited for us together to fill that void.     Jeff

XTOD: Imagine being max long Orange Juice futures and getting smoked -40%, getting shoulder tapped at your job, and then having to go home to your wife and explain why the kids need to move to a cheaper school district.

XTOD: Charlie Munger: "It's hardly a competence if you don't know the edge of it. If you have a misapprehension regarding your own competency, that means you lack competency. You're going to make terrible mistakes."

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