Thread by @tdarling1

Self assessment 🧵
1/15

New Year’s is the perfect time for some self reflection and assessment of my performance relative to my investing goal #5Real

#5Real = earning +5% AFTER inflation

So, how did I do?

2/15

I-Bonds +8.2%
Cash Accounts +3.1%
IRA Trend (long only) -2.97%
All Weather -5.76%
Trading account -6.39%
Vol HF allocation -6.54
IRA Mean Reversion -8.91%
401K -12.29%

3/15

No matter how you slice it, I came up well short of my goals

I lost money

I take absolutely zero solace in having outperformed the $SPX or $TLT

Yeh, it was a hard year. But I can do better.
Much better.

So, what did I learn this year to make me better at this game?

4/15

#Stagflation is a very challenging market environment.

Commodities work
Trend works
Shorts work
Not much else does

5/15

Believe that the Fed is telling you; they have a dual mandate and aim to honor it

Fighting inflation with blunt tools means draining liquidity and pain for long only, traditional investors

6/15

TIPs do NOT work when the Fed is raising rates

I-Bonds DO work

7/15

Short and take profits (if you time it right)

Do NOT short and hold

8/15

Even the best vol managers on the planet lost money this year, which shows you that you can be right on macro but still not earn returns for your investors

9/15

When VIX drops below 30 from above and equities are down, go long the indices. The resulting rallies - in a bear market - go much further than you think they will.

10/15

The “average” cyclical bear market lasts 27 months.

Better know where you are, but damn well better know how to position for a secular bear.

11/15

Study the JPM whale.

It has a way of pinning markets into quarterly #OPEX

12/15

Liquidity matters.

When both the Fed and the Treasury are reducing liquidity, and big money investors allocate to money markets (reverse repo), you would be wise to do the same

13/15

Take what the market will give you (e.g, short end of the curve is working for yield)

#TreasuryDirect

14/15

Cash is a position

Trust your own process; listen to the market; evaluate contrary positions, but don’t let them mess with you.

Commit to better. Commit to winning at this amazing game and consider yourself extremely fortunate to be able to play

Have a super profitable 💰 year!