Dear Reader,

Yesterday was a high-energy day at the Virtual SIC 2020, in more than one respect... from dynamic speaker pairings to a literal energy panel on the future of oil.

We started out with one of my favorite speakers, Felix Zulauf, a 30-year former member of the Barron’s Roundtable and one of the most brilliant macro thinkers I’ve met. Over the years, most of his forecasts have proven to be spot on.

Grant Williams, editor of the popular macro newsletter Things That Make You Go Hmmm..., interviewed Felix. As they discussed the future of global economies, Felix predicted rather mild inflation for the next one to two years and possibly higher inflation thereafter.

He said Argentina, Brazil, Turkey, and South Africa are currently the greatest danger zones for hyperinflation: “For the industrialized world, we are not there yet, maybe in the second half of the decade if things go downhill.”

Felix suggested investors should be short the euro and long the US dollar. He said we’ll see a continuation of the bull market in tech, healthcare, biotech, and some consumer staples, but thinks cyclical and value stocks will be losers because “they need economic growth to prosper.” He also stated that he is “currently more trading than investing” and that he owns “a lot of gold.”

In our panel with energy specialists Amy Jaffe and Mark Cutis, moderated by René Aninao, the conversation spanned topics from the future of the American shale industry, to “stranded assets” and ESG investments.

Both agreed that oil won’t be obsolete anytime soon, but Amy revealed that the University of California Pension Fund is about to divest from fossil fuels, even in its passive funds. This is a huge step mirrored by other pension funds and will force energy companies to be more proactive in transitioning to renewables.

Next came a spirited fireside chat between economic historian Niall Ferguson and well-known Irish economist David McWilliams, moderated by John Mauldin. As a plausible scenario for the aftermath of the pandemic, both David and Niall agreed that we might see a “Japanification” of the West, with low interest rates, a highly managed economy, and prolonged low economic growth.

The problem is, said David, that Japan is an ethnically and culturally homogenous country with a high household savings rate. The US, on the other hand, is extremely diverse and politically divided, and savings are low—so it is not clear that we could survive a Japan-style, decades-long slump.

He also noted that “trust will make a massive comeback.” In the last two decades, multinationals replaced trust with price, and relationships with algorithms, but we will see a reversal of this toward “relationship capitalism.”

Then we were treated to a rapid-fire powerhouse presentation by Mark Yusko, titled “Life in the Post-COVID-19 World—10 Surprises for the Year Ahead.” When you watch Mark’s slides whiz by—each of them packed with staggering data you won’t see anywhere else—it just takes your breath away.

Did you know that 19 different economies had inverted yield curves a year ago, a sure sign of a looming recession... that the UK is seeing its worst economic contraction since 1709... that Chinese long bonds currently have the highest yield... or that we’re probably still 18 months away from the bottom of the market?

To see this tour de force for yourself, get your Virtual SIC 2020 Pass here.

In this time of pandemic, of course, we couldn’t hold the Virtual SIC without a health panel. Dr. Mike Roizen and Dr. Dan Culver from the prestigious Cleveland Clinic joined Dr. Rochelle Walensky, chief of Mass. General Hospital’s Division of Infectious Diseases, and moderator Chris Wood, our own senior healthcare and biotech analyst.

The good news is that COVID-19 hit only three groups really hard: people over 70, elderly patients in long-term care, and people in the 50–70 age range with severe comorbidities. However, the consensus of the panel was that until we have a vaccine, we can’t be 100% sure that we’ve beaten the virus.

Luckily, several promising drug candidates are on the way, among others Gilead’s remdesivir and Moderna’s novel RNA vaccine that “teaches” the immune system to make proteins that mimic a native infection and thus elicit an immune response.

The day ended with an intriguing interview between Barry Ritholtz and Catherine Wood, CEO and CIO of ARK Investment Management. Catherine’s firm has a unique business model called “radical transparency” that involves openly sharing all of their research online and in social media. She said that data and research they receive in turn from volunteer collaborators make it all worthwhile.

The firm’s portfolio includes many wildly successful long-term investments, from Nvidia to Tesla, which ARK held through the tough times Elon Musk saw recently. She’s “as bullish as ever” on Tesla, which has been investing capital more aggressively in recent months. She also likes fintechs as disruptors of the traditional banking industry and bitcoin as an insurance policy for wealth confiscation.

I could go on and on. Instead, I hope you’ll get your Virtual SIC 2020 Pass today and join us for the ride.

You can still catch the final day of the Virtual SIC live—with billionaire investor and former Goldman Sachs partner Leon Cooperman... futurist Peter Diamandis... a fireside chat with TV personalities Doug Kass and Jeff Saut... and John Mauldin’s “Returning to the New Normal” panel.

And it’s not like you could miss anything. All presentations and panels have been captured on video and audio, plus full transcripts and presenters’ slides... all available on your passholders-only webpage.

Order your Pass now to save 50% off the retail price. This offer ends, by the way, at midnight of June 4.

Sincerely,

Ed D'Agostino
Publisher