Daniel, how do you construct the momentum structural indicators and in which charting platform? Thanks

The structural momentum stuff in those charts is easy to construct for yourself - for any price series, take a 3yr moving average of it, then divide the price by its 3yr moving average and you have the '3yr structural momentum' you see in most of these charts - simple yet very useful at times. By changing the moving average you use, like a 1yr or 6mth moving average, you change the frequency of the tool. I'd suggest that you go watch Michael Oliver's RV presentation from earlier in the year as he explains it all really well. Those charts were all produced using www.macrobond.com, but you can do this with most charting applications or even a spreadsheet. I like Macrobond as I can also upload my own datasets that I create from spreadsheets into it also fairly simply, like some of the other tools you see in my presentation.

Thank you

Daniel , great presentation! Do have a monthly newsletter or subscription service? Much thanks for sharing your methodology and insights.

Check out www.prerequisite.com.au for some stuff we publish from time to time The subscription service to our research is not cheap unfortunately

Thanks. I will check it out.

Thanks Henning. The passive investing story is a bigger topic than can be addressed here. But simplistically, the main focus in creating these tools was to measure 'motive' and participant reach more than anything, particularly of these two participant groups, for what I'm trying to achieve with these particular tools the passive/active story really doesn't come into it that much. No 'tool' is perfect, neither are these, they are just another 'useful' way to glimpse certain aspects of reality with. Context is still key. With the passive story however, I think it's kind of interesting to note that it's actually an 'active' decision to allocate to a passive strategy, and the corollary to that decision is if the passive strategy runs into drawdown, where are the pain thresholds that will cause participants to 'actively' turn off the 'passive' strategy? Kind of like Chris Cole's point that volatility is not so much 'an asset class' as such, but is rather the 'only' asset class... the passive story has a lot of funny thinking within it, in that at its core everything is active whether you realise it or not, the only differences are time horizons and the implied nature of what you're really betting on. Most of what we call the 'passive' story is just a product of a technology induced commoditisation of certain aspects of the financial services industry in combination with an implied longer term bet on certain productivity and monetary condition regimes remaining intact and supportive... if the productivity assumptions remain valid, and the particular monetary condition regime that is implied by these passive 'bets' remain the same, then maybe the 'passive' thesis/approach might work? I strongly doubt the 'passive' narrative will serve it's adherents well in the years to come, their pain thresholds most definitely will be tested. So you can see, there are many ways of looking at these things - most of which go beyond the space of a RV comment box :) but I hope this helps nonetheless.

Hi Cyavash, glad you liked the presentation. The version of this on my website is 21mins long and quite brief (as opposed to the detailed >1hr presentation here), the reach of my blog list is laughably minuscule compared to Real Vision's reach. Real Vision were also aware that I published a summary 21min PowerPoint version on my website before the filming of this more expansive presentation (that covered much more territory) was set up. I'm aware and very respectful of RV's business model and requirements for exclusive content, they do an amazing job and I'd never want to threaten that.

Think positively, as far as I know nobody gets paid for appearing on here. To me half the value of the subscription comes from getting introduced to those interviewed. Some you would never find elsewhere and others frequently express their views on free channels, but then again you need to know who they are before you look for them... personally looking forward to the regular (and free) updates on PCM's blog

Thanks Jeremy - unfortunately my business partners and some of my clients wouldn't be too impressed if I went into much detail on the construction of these things - I was in two minds as to whether I even presented these tools publicly because I wasn't really willing just now to give up some of my more proprietary stuff - so to kind of compensate I tried to make the rest of the presentation as practical and useful as possible, helping the viewers gain a bit of an understanding of the core strategic principles that have been invaluable to me over the years, and to possibly inspire/encourage others to take powerful sets of first principles to developing their own practical tools and approaches. I also hoped that people might appreciate my basic perspectives on some of the main macro markets in the world at this point in time.

That makes perfect sense, understood completely Daniel. I have listened to many presentations that are either very polished but too high-level without many practical takeaways, or too "in the weeds" and specific to one approach without much regard to the principles. I think this format did a fantastic job of striking the right balance (without revealing too much of the "special sauce"). Kudos and best of luck.

Thanks Jeremy, most appreciated

Wow, the transcript of this interview is 70 pages! Can't imagine how much work that requires! Hopefully you guys can use AI to do this for you soon.

Might be a silly question, but, where do you get some of the data? Is it mostly the CoT data from CFTC?

Thanks Viresh. It was my frustration with COT data in the first place that caused me to venture out to figure out another way to skin that cat - so basically I created my own tools to measure similar things to what COT essentially aims to achieve. I tried to explain this somewhat in the presentation, sorry if it was not clear enough.

Just watched it again, it makes sense. Thanks for your response .

"Never let formal education get in the way of your learning." Mark Twain Formal education has a place, but ultimately there's nothing that will stop a passionate, curious and diligent mind from achieving what they set out to - most of what they learn that is useful cannot really be learned in a formal setting anyway. Great to hear you liked it.

I do most of my charts using this platform... www.macrobond.com They're not exactly 'cheap' but they have built a fantastic solution for a macro--analyst - I often tell people that Macrobond basically was created by macro-analysts for macro-analysts.

Thanks Gordon. Unfortunately I'd rather not comment on this - please see my response to Jeremy D above.

Thanks Hubert. I actually have never read a book on John Boyd as such, although there are a few out there, so I wouldn't know what to recommend. Boyd himself never wrote a book but he did write some phenomenal papers/presentations. Google "Patterns of Conflict" and "Destruction & Creation" for example and you'll find PDFs easy enough. I found it was an iterative process, you read Boyd's stuff, read other strategic writers like Sun Tzu and Musashi etc, even Machiavelli as a kind of darker counter-example, think about practical applications of their principles to whatever you're stewarding and then repeat - each cycle you'll walk away with more and more insight. I must admit, the first time I read the Art of War maybe 17 years ago, I hardly appreciated the book for what it was... the more life experiences I would gain in the years to come, especially in business and leadership etc, the more I'd re-read the Art of War and the more I would get out of it - same with Boyd and Musashi for that matter. I have a mentor & friend in William Dettmer who spent years as a pilot and then as a fairly high ranking officer in the US Air Force who wrote "Strategic Navigation" which discusses the application of some of Boyd's ideas in amongst other things, we've had some fascinating conversations over the years - but ultimately if you read the basic texts, seek to apply what you learn, then re-read, etc... it's kind of hard not to internalise and expand your capacity to operate in different environments from a strategic/stewardship perspective. Like Musashi says; "think lightly about yourself and deeply about the world"

Thanks. Getting active on Twitter has been on the 'to do' list for a little while now - I'm actually setup (@danieljwant) but just haven't got to using it yet. Will get there eventually

Thanks - but there are 'many ways to skin a cat' - if you follow what you are passionate about, being always diligent and curious, you'll eventually evolve your own way of operating in/with markets that will contain advantages that arise from your own particular personality and interests - just got to keep working away until you have your own way of approaching things that is authentic to you and in totality tilts the odds in your favour. The Peter Brandt profile series recently released on Real Vision was an awesome example of that. Even still, being a little paranoid about finding/evolving 'competitive advantages' I think is a healthy thing, it keeps you sharp - having this concept front of mind for myself over the years has drastically helped in terms of my development as an analyst/investor.

Derivative markets and their pricing structures are kind of important at times, only because they tell us different things about dynamics in the broader system. When you are looking at the broader system and markets, one of the main aims is to try to get a sense for 'what is in the price' within different markets, which then lets you then test the reasonableness of those pricing assumptions, which really is the beginning of an investment process. Meaning is frequently defined by ‘context’ – change the context and you change the meaning. So with regards to the derivative question – basically ‘yes’, there’s lots of information content in derivatives markets and pricings of different things, but at the end of the day it’s not so much what you observe in isolation (i.e. some derivative related pricing structure or whatever), but how it all fits together in the broader context that determines what is important or not. How do you orientate or start to organise your thinking in a broader more complex environment?? There’s two Eli Goldratt books that I find I keep recommending to people – “The Goal” and “It’s Not Luck”, the first book is great and is a must read, but it’s the second book (in light of the first) that’s actually the more profound one in terms of gaining an understanding of some of the principles that need to be underpinning the way we think about a somewhat complex environment. Derivatives and their pricing structures are often important ‘symptoms’ within a broader system, and have some informational content because of that, but as always the focus needs to be more on the context and how everything fits together and is evolving (i.e. what is ‘core’ within a system rather than what is simply ‘symptomatic’).

Sophie just loves her hometown boys! Agree, Daniel is one of my RV favorites.