Dealer Gamma

  • This chart shows the S&P 500 (green line) vs. dealer gamma exposure (yellow/purple line).
  • “The read is simple: positive dealer gamma means that dealer flow attenuates market flow (i.e. the brakes are on); negative dealer gamma means that dealer flow amplifies market flow (i.e. pedal to the metal).”
  • The level on the 4th of March is 30% more than this time last year – which ever direction the market moves it will be get an extra boost.
  • h/t Squeezemetrics and Threebodycapital.

Reddit

  • Comprehensive and fascinating look at Reddit.
  • The article covers its tumultuous founding (YC start-up) and history.
  • The undervaluation vs peers – the latest round valued the company at $6bn or $115 per daily active user (DAU) vs. $400 for Facebook and $310 for Twitter.
  • And finally possible areas of improvement and expansion.
  • All interesting to read ahead of the speculated IPO.

Commodity Supercycle

  • There is a lot of talk about a new commodity supercycle.
  • This chart suggest it might be ending before it starts – remember China is the largest consumer of most commodities.
  • After the boom decade a lot of this consumption is driven by the mini leverage and de-leverage cycles in China – summarised by a credit impulse.
  • The latest measure of this credit impulse is turning down, which leads commodity prices by 12 months.
  • h/t The Market Ear.

Andrew Lo

  • Andrew Lo is an outstanding academic who’s work uses financial engineering to solve big problems in society.
  • We previously covered one brilliant tool to emerge from his lab – Project Alpha – which tracks in real time probability of success for clinical trials.
  • This is a good article about him and how his ideas about pooling biotech research into a mega-fund has come to life with BridgeBio (IPOed in 2019).
  • He has previously proposed this same idea for Alzheimer’s research, which we critiqued.

Pershing Square

  • Pershing Square’s Holdings annual presentation for 2020 is out.
  • 2020 really stood out:
  • +70.2% annual return (the highest annual tally since inception).
  • 36.6%pts of gross return coming from their big CDS bet.
  • 13.1%pts from the IPO and appreciation of the world’s largest SPAC (slide 32).
  • PSH was also added to FTSE 100.
  • Slides cover latest views on their biggest holdings.

Lessons from Gian-Carlo Rota

  • Twelve lessons from the famous mathematician and lecturer.
  • They relate largely to teaching and writing mathematics but, with Farnam Street’s magic commentary, they transcend to much of life.
  • A nice quote from Feynman as well – “Richard Feynman was fond of giving the following advice on how to be a genius. You have to keep a dozen of your favorite problems constantly present in your mind, although by and large they will lay in a dormant state. Every time you hear or read a new trick or a new result, test it against each of your twelve problems to see whether it helps. Every once in a while there will be a hit, and people will say: ‘How did he do it? He must be a genius!’”

Twitter

  • There is a lot going on at Twitter.
  • They acquired social podcast tool Breaker, Substack competitor Revue (and cut take rates to 5%), and are developing Clubhouse competitor Twitter Spaces.
  • Financial twitter is alight with commentary on the change going on. This was a brilliant thread (liked by @Jack himself) sent to us (thanks Tom!) on the cultural change going on.
  • This is a nice (fun) write up on the stock – including the narrative change.
  • In this market, value is dead (jk sorry value folks!), obvious growth is crowded, but finding that inflection point when the narrative around a company switches from dead to very much alive is like finding a magical money printer in a market fueled by a magical money printer. brrrrrr^2” 

Space Launch Costs

  • Thanks to commercial rocket development (SpaceX) space launch costs are falling again.
  • The cost of space launch dropped from very high levels in the first decade of the space age but then remained high for decades and was especially high for the space shuttle. In the most recent decade, commercial rocket development has reduced the typical space launch cost by a factor of 20 while NASA’s launch cost to ISS has declined by a factor of 4.
  • h/t The Diff.
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