#025 Alex Gurevich On Why Deflation — Not Inflation — Is The Real Concern

Alex Gurevich is the founder and Chief Investment Officer of HonTe Investments, a Bay Area-based investment management firm, and the author of two books — The Next Perfect Trade and Wall Street Journal bestseller The Trades of March 2020.

Gurevich led HonTe’s macro strategy in 2020 to rank second by net return according to BarclayHedge—and in the top ten of emerging managers in all strategies by Eurekahedge.

Gurevich has over twenty years of trading experience and was hailed by the Wall Street Journal in 2003 as the star trader of JPMorgan, where he served as Managing Director responsible for global macro trading.

In this episode, Gurevich shares his divergent views, which are that rates are most likely going to zero, and deflation — not inflation — is the concern.

0:00 Intro

0:31 St. Petersburg to America

1:38 Early interest in Wall Street

2:53 Poker and investing

4:39 Psychology of trading

8:37 Turning HonTe’s 2020 trading success into a book

12:33 Extreme side of the deflation camp

13:33 Two words: Policy lag

17:04 Outlook for rates

20:22 Implications of deflation

24:15 Why is there a shortage of dollars?

27:10 Scenario for deeper a longer recession, global depression

30:59 Oil and energy pivotal to the deflation story

33:14 Why Japan might be in the best position

34:34 What the inflation camp is missing

37:58 Focus on the Fed

42:11 Thesis of deflationary depression and implications for a portfolio

44:50 Why bonds will have more upside

46:00 What would alter or reinforce the thesis on deflation?

48:12 Final thoughts