The ACID Capitalist Podcast

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A faster lap by going blind sounds reckless until you hear Lando Norris say he drives better with the delta display switched off. That’s the spark for a bigger idea we explore: acid capitalism, where imagination and shared beliefs move markets more than the neatest spreadsheet ever can.

We start with the critique that more frequent shows dilute intrigue and use it to sharpen the mission: reduce noise, focus on d...

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Markets have a habit of choosing the path that hurts the most people, and this week they proved it. We open with a jolt: CarMax plunges 24%, the CEO is shown the door, and used‑car demand looks like a classic pull‑forward that left a hole in today’s sales. From there, we follow the thread across the macro tapestry: consumer sentiment hovering near crisis lows, layoffs announced at a pace that clashes with payroll prints,...

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What if the cleanest read on market risk isn’t a sentiment index but the dollar itself? We connect the dots from DXY’s slide and rebound to the invisible gears of Eurodollar credit, showing how collateral breathes through trade invoices, repos, and leverage, and how that breath has begun to shorten. From port softness and a reported 17% drop in trucking volumes to tighter haircuts and slower factoring, we map the quiet c...

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When logic fails, hedges break, and the models panic.

Markets rarely behave. In this episode, Hugh Hendry unpacks why. 

Exploring what happens when models flash red and logic collapses in real time. From George Gammon’s CarMax hedge to the intricacies of dating, calculating sexual market value and the Fed’s confused dance with Treasury policy, Hugh dissects how a “Z-score of 3” moment becomes a one-in-a-thousand event that...

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The Ricardian Equivalence, Treasury Debt, and the Modernity of Money

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Do Deficits Make You Rich?

The uncomfortable truth: fiscal stimulus creates wealth, not consumer inflation.

Sat pondering in a Caribbean bar, thinking about intelligence, the Fed, deficits, and why inflation lives in Wall Street not in your supermarket basket. When the government runs a deficit, it injects reserves into the system, an automatic overdraft with the banking system. Later it issues Treasuries that drain those ...

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In this acid breath of mine, I drift between the sublime and the sardonic. 

I trace how America, once the debtor, became the empire, how quantitative easing rewired the flow of wealth from the cautious creditor to the restless entrepreneur. 

China hoarded savings, America dis-saved, and the machine rolled on until an  American administration was bold enough to call time. Gold gleams like a reflexive meme, Bitcoin hums like...

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I began with CPI, but as usual, I ended up somewhere between Beethoven and gold. The headline CPI 3%, core the same. The whisper was higher. The market calls it “Goldilocks.” Not too hot, not too cold. I call it “Never be a dick for a tick.”

That’s how you survive this racket. Everyone obsesses over decimals while the system quietly breaks and remakes itself. The models are wrong, the Fed’s neutral rate misplaced, and she...

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Perhaps the best, most revealing of this daily series. This is macro analysis as cabaret. 

The Japanese call it, rakugoka (落語家), a man in kimono, I have no kimono, seated on a cushion performing poignant financial monologues. The entire performance relies on market imagination.

If in a hurry, skip the first 15 to 30 mins. You can't miss what follows. 

American housing flickers, Kansas manufacturing hums, and in Asia th...

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ʏᴇꜱᴛᴇʀᴅᴀʏ’ꜱ ᴛʀᴀᴅɪɴɢ ꜰᴇʟᴛ ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴀ ᴍɪʀᴀɢᴇ. ᴛʜᴇ ᴍᴀʀᴋᴇᴛ ʟᴏᴏᴋᴇᴅ ᴄᴀʟᴍ, ʏᴇᴛ ᴜɴᴅᴇʀ ᴛʜᴇ ꜱᴜʀꜰᴀᴄᴇ ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ ᴡᴀꜱ ꜱʜᴀᴋᴇꜱᴘᴇᴀʀᴇᴀɴ ᴅʀᴀᴍᴀ.

ꜱᴛᴏᴄᴋꜱ ᴅɪᴇᴅ ɪɴ ᴘʟᴀɪɴ ꜱɪɢʜᴛ ᴡʜɪʟᴇ ᴛʜᴇ ɪɴᴅᴇx ʙᴀʀᴇʟʏ ʙʟɪɴᴋᴇᴅ. ɢᴏʟᴅ ᴛʀᴇᴍᴏʀꜱ ᴄᴏɴᴛɪɴᴜᴇᴅ ꜰᴏʟʟᴏᴡɪɴɢ ɪᴛꜱ ᴛʜʀᴇᴇ ꜱɪɢᴍᴀ ᴅᴀʏ,ᴛʜᴇ ᴋɪɴᴅ ᴏꜰ ᴍᴏᴠᴇ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ᴏɴʟʏ ᴠɪꜱɪᴛꜱ ᴏɴᴄᴇ ᴇᴠᴇʀʏ ꜰᴇᴡ ʏᴇᴀʀꜱ.

ᴛʜᴇ ʙᴜꜱʜ ʙᴜʀɴᴇᴅ, ᴛʜᴇ ꜱᴏ-ᴄᴀʟʟᴇᴅ “2-ɪɴ-ᴛʜᴇ-ʙᴜꜱʜ” ꜰᴀɴᴛᴀꜱʏ ɢʀᴏᴡᴛʜ ꜱᴛᴏᴄᴋꜱ ᴡᴇʀᴇ ᴛᴏʀᴄʜᴇᴅ, ᴀɴᴅ ɪ ꜱᴀᴛ ʜᴇʀᴇ ᴡᴏɴᴅᴇʀɪɴɢ, ɪꜱ ᴛʜᴇ ᴍᴀʀᴋᴇᴛ ᴀʟɪᴠᴇ ᴏʀ ᴅᴇᴀᴅ?

ɪ ᴋᴇ...

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October 21st, no fanfare, just me and my thoughts. I have been on X all day, and only later realized gold had fallen sharply. Some people thought I had timed my comments to take gold down, as if I could move the market. It made me laugh.

I start by questioning gold's 50 percent gain this year. If that rise is really fundamental, then there must be better trades no one is touching. That brings me to call options, far ...

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Creativity, Chaos, and the Signals That Matter

Gold's ripping, stocks are ripping, but this isn't a hedge, it's a hallucination. 

In today's episode, I break down the paradox of rising fear assets and euphoria trades moving in sync. 

We bounce off China's Q3 GDP: if the US won't provide data, the Chinese will. 

And I revisit how creativity really works, not through structure, but through a bliss...

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Any Fool Could Make Money in Gold

But Only a Lunatic Could Explain It Like This

The lights flicker but they don't go out.

Today I tracked the silence. No CPI, no jobs print, no retail sales. The government is shut. The market is not. What moved was subtle. What didn’t move, the real story.

Treasury yields dipped below 4 percent momentarily. Safety or something stranger? Bank stocks cracked again. Zions and KeyCorp lit t...

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There’s a smell in the air, that faint electric tang before a storm. The markets are choppy, the screens green and red in alternating flickers, and behind it all you can almost hear the static of something old returning.

In this episode of Acid Breath, I drive straight through the fog. The Philadelphia Fed survey just recorded its steepest drop since 2020; the factory heartbeat of America skipping hard. Across the Pacific...

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ARM Ascends, Oil Drifts, Queens Endures

I open on macro static and shutdown fog, a strange steadiness where the market beat goes on. The Beige Book whispers fractures, three Fed districts up, five flat, four softening, a recalibration more than a roar. 

The feature turns to ARM, where the data center bottleneck is power, not code. ARM sells the blueprint, cutting CPU energy use perhaps by half, and the live question is sim...

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A market meditation disguised as weather report, part Fear and Loathing, part BBC Shipping Forecast. 

Markets drift in a haze of caution and theatrical boredom. 

Bankers profit without joy, express bubble caution

Traders fears resemble yoga poses held too long. 

Everyone trembling, pretending its balance when its really strain.

This is macro as performance art: 

• wind light to variable, 
• visibility ironic
• confidence intermitt...

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The Day Silver Spoke and AI Went Industrial

The age of abundance is over: compute, energy, and silver say so.

Acid Breath Daily is Hugh Hendry’s financial freak show : a daily dive into markets where logic wrestles madness and central banks juggle chainsaws. It’s macro with a migraine, tequila spilled on spreadsheets, silver screaming at AI, and politicians pretending they can count. No safe takes, no sermons, just volatil...

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Today’s Acid Breath is a descent into the machinery behind the market’s tremor. 

Tariffs ignite, rare earths reveal their dirty chemistry, and America’s clean hands look suspiciously like Walter White’s gloves. Are we about to Break Bad?

I pack away a shadow CPI masquerading as today's real deal, a half-billion hit at Jefferies that smells of 2007 teen spirit, and a twenty-billion tango with Argentina that echoes the ...

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Shadowlight

A new inflation priesthood grabbed the pulpit. With officials offstage, a retail outfit called OpenBrand dropped a fresh CPI and the press sang hymns.

I torch the cosplay, then hold up the mirror. In markets, any number that moves price pretends to be truth. That is the joke. That is the trade.

Now the prints that matter. Jobless claims at 258,000. A soft miss, not a crisis. The cleanest weekly read on labor chi...