Episode Details

James Davolos, VP and portfolio manager at Horizon Kinetics, joins the show to make the case for inflation and to explain their Inflation Beneficiaries ETF, ticker $INFL. In this episode: 

• How Horizon and Murray Stahl were one of the earliest asset managers to put client assets in GBTC
• How Horizon's value approach landed them at a Bitcoin allocation
  James' reaction when Horizon first made the Bitcoin allocation
• Whether Bitcoin is a growth or a value asset, and how to reason about it from either perspective
• James' reaction to Jerome Powell's announcement on rates
• The genesis of the idea to create an inflation beneficiaries ETF
• James' case for inflation
• Should the disinflationists be taking victory laps?
• Why the Fed is calling inflation 'transitory'
• Why we didn't get inflation from 2010-20
• What crystallized the case for inflation for Horizon Kinetics?
• The importance of the 'taper tantrum'
• Why historical parallels are so hard to find – and why we have no historical precedent for our current moment
• How the dollar is the 'least rotten apple'
• The prospects for a non-dollar monetary system
• The effect of ESG on commodity cycles
• How fiscal spending and the political anti-capital movement represents a structural shift
• The constant battle between capital and labor
• Why equities may suffer from higher labor costs
• Why Horizon focuses on asset light companies
• James' answer to the equity-inflation return puzzle
• Horizon's specific allocations to benefit from inflation
• The early success of the Inflation Beneficiaries ETF
• Why the inflation beneficiaries ETF does not contain Bitcoin
• How this ETF sets itself apart from other ways to play inflation – and why TIPS aren't the best bet
• Is the thesis playing out so far?
• Why the Fed has to remain subtle with their debasement
• James' pitch to Bitcoiners