Finance Trends Letter

Noted hedge fund manager, John Burbank of Passport Capital talks oil, investing in Saudi Arabia, stockpicking in 2012, and global macro in this recent Bloomberg TV interview.  A few key points from Burbank's interview:  1 . Oil prices are up 16% YTD, which hurts the average oil-dependent consumer ( chart ). Burbank feels global QE operations and "liquidity" boosts are pushing up oil prices. If gold goes up 10-20%, it doesn't cause problems for consumers the way rising oil prices do. 2 . Rising oil prices are benefiting Saudi Arabia. Passport now has 15% of its capital in the Saudi stock market, a country which is slowly opening up to foreign investors.  Passport started investing in Saudi Arabia in 2008 (through notes & swaps) and Burbank feels the potential there is similar to India in the 2003-2004 period. Here's a chart of India's SENSEX over the 1998-2012 period. 3 . Liquidity is coming into the market because "things are really bad...

We're wrapping up some of your favorite posts (and mine) for this Finance Trends "Best of 2010" features edition. You'll find key interviews with leading businessmen and investors, along with the best of this year's posts emphasizing the strong trends and events that are shaping our country, our investment markets, and our world. Without further ado, here are some key posts highlighting the big picture trends we've witnessed in 2010, some of which may continue to unfold in 2011 and beyond. 1. On a Return to Classical Education . Your educationally-deprived editor muses over the benefits of a Classical education, and how such a foundation in thinking might help us as investors and as citizens of the world. 2. Marc Faber: Final Crisis Yet to Come . Wonderful presentation by Marc at this year's Mises Circle in NYC, offering a crucial take on US monetary policy and the likely outcomes of the Fed's "quantitative easing" experiments. Video and pres...

Jay at Marketfolly is currently at work providing notes from the Value Investing Congress in New York ( Update : see also, notes from VIC - day 2 ). Some of the well known speakers at this event include Kyle Bass, John Burbank, David Einhorn, Mohnish Pabrai, and Lee Ainslie, among others in the hedge fund and investment management world. These investing all-stars will be presenting their views on the markets and the global economy to the VIC audience, while sharing some of their current investing ideas. You can check out Marketfolly's continually updated notes at the link above. In addition, Jay has posted some recent notes from the Ira Sohn West Conference , including some big picture thoughts from John Burbank of Passport Capital regarding the US and its current investment climate. If you'd like to hear more from John Burbank on the theme of "US as an emerging market economy", please check out this excellent (and rare) interview with Burbank on Benzinga's rad...

Earlier in the week, we posed this question: who are the top global macro investors of today? We started on the road to answering that question first by posing it to you (we're always interested to hear about up and coming investors from our many industry-savvy readers), then followed up by spotlighting Michael Burry's emergence as a global macro investor. Today we shift gears by sharing an excellent Benzinga interview with an established star of the macro hedge fund world, John Burbank of Passport Capital. You may already know that Burbank and Passport were thrust into the limelight when, like Michael Burry, their 2007 returns were boosted by short positions in the subprime housing market. What you'll hear in this interview ( transcripts : part 1 , part 2 ) is how Burbank got his start in trading and investing and how he arrived at his global macro approach. There are too many interesting points to outline here, but be sure to listen to the full interview to he...