Five lenses I keep coming back to
These are the thinkers and frameworks that most influence how I read markets. This is my interpretation of publicly available ideas, written in my own voice. I am not affiliated with, endorsed by, or speaking for any of them.
Global Liquidity as the Tide
Influenced by the work of Michael Howell (CrossBorder Capital)
The core thesis is that global liquidity, the aggregate balance-sheet capacity of the world’s central banks and commercial banks to extend credit, is the single most important driver of risk-asset prices across cycles. It is not the only driver, but it is the tide: when liquidity expands, most risk assets rise regardless of their individual fundamentals, and when it contracts, most fall regardless of how good the story is.
I use this framework as the starting point for every macro view on this site. The Desk Status dashboard tracks the liquidity cycle position because everything else, equity multiples, credit spreads, crypto, commodities, makes more sense when you know which way the tide is running.
Generational Turnings and Long Cycles
Influenced by the work of Neil Howe (The Fourth Turning)
The Fourth Turning framework proposes that history moves in roughly eighty-year cycles divided into four turnings, each lasting about twenty years, driven by the interaction between generational archetypes and the institutional mood of the era. The current period, a crisis era, is characterised by institutional rebuilding, rising state intervention, and the unwinding of the individualist consensus that defined the previous forty years.
I use this framework as a background lens for understanding why fiscal policy is expanding, why regulation is increasing, and why the political centre of gravity is shifting toward intervention across every major economy simultaneously. It explains the direction of policy and institutional change over decades.
Convexity as a Portfolio Design Principle
Influenced by the work of David Dredge (Convex Strategies)
Most portfolios are structurally short convexity: they collect steady, small returns in calm regimes and take their losses all at once in stressed ones. The convexity framework argues that a deliberate allocation to instruments with convex payoff profiles transforms the portfolio’s overall risk shape from fragile to antifragile.
I use this framework to evaluate whether a portfolio is genuinely hedged or merely diversified in the calm-regime sense. The premium deep dive on convexity inside the Members Desk explores the mechanics in full, including sizing, timing, and the specific instruments that deliver genuine convexity versus those that only appear to.
Dealer Positioning and the Volatility Surface
Influenced by the work of Cem Karsan (Kai Volatility)
Markets are commonly described as driven by fundamentals or sentiment. The dealer-positioning framework adds a third driver: the mechanical hedging flows of options market makers, whose aggregate gamma exposure determines whether they dampen or amplify price moves on any given day. This is not a market view, it is plumbing.
I use this framework to interpret the volatility surface, the VIX term structure, and the short-term flow dynamics around large options expirations. It pairs with the liquidity framework: liquidity sets the tide over months, dealer positioning sets the chop within days.
Money as Evolving Technology
Influenced by the work of Lyn Alden (Lyn Alden Investment Strategy)
The conventional framing of money as a simple medium of exchange obscures a more useful lens: money is a technology that solves the trust problem at a given scale, and every major monetary transition in history has been a technology upgrade that expanded the scale at which strangers could transact without knowing or trusting each other.
I use this framework to position digital assets within the longer arc of monetary technology rather than as a speculative asset class. It also provides the lens through which I evaluate stablecoins, CBDCs, and the interaction between private and sovereign digital money.
These frameworks are tools for understanding, not predictions or advice. Each has limits I have tried to name honestly. The research on this site applies them as lenses, never as doctrine.