Morning

I just stumbled on The Cow Guy. Crazy suit, crazy guy, but he talked a lot of sense on corn. The news was bad, but the price rallied. As he explained, this is what happens. How long it continues, nobody knows, though, so be careful!

August VIX future ticks higher: 23.6.

Yields

Listen to The End Game, episode 4, with Jim Grant. Jim Grant is excellent, as always. I picked out this yield history from the FRED, so you can understand why Grant has been crying in the wilderness for so long.

This episode is only one of several excellent ones. There is a surge in supply of podcasts, because all you need to produce one is a computer with Skype and an internet connection and (preferably) a decent microphone for you and your guest. I guess that’s why so many podcasts now end with a plea from the presenter to rate the series on Apple Podcasts like an incantation. This, from David Beckworth’s Macro Musings, is typical:

If you haven’t already, please subscribe via iTunes or your favorite podcast app. And while you’re there, please consider rating us and leaving a review. This helps other thoughtful people like you find the podcast. Thanks for listening.

I desperately hope that the evolution of podcasts will not follow the same path as that of websites. Back in the golden era of the World Wide Web, everyone crafted their own website, often running on their own server, creating both the content and the platform. Now big business (Facebook, Twitter) has purged that cottage industry inserted itself between reader and writer and corrupted the process for commercial gain.

Reads

Inflation is coming!, because people are going to drive cars rather than take the train, which will push up the price of oil. $XLE is a way of getting exposure to this.

Close

Silver down quite a bit, as with miners, gold less so but still negative. Surprisingly (given the weakness of these metals), the dollar was moderately down too. Equities pretty flat, so pretty much a risk-neutral day.