As we look back on the first year and almost 100 episodes of the podcast, I can’t believe how much we’ve covered. We’ve had nearly 200,000 downloads, supported by over 1,000,000 views on the website and had some truly remarkable and amazing guests. To reflect on 2020, we have some “best of” episodes, of which this is the first. We tried to cover everything that was 2020 from Coronavirus to gender and climate issues, capital raising, industry advocacy and the...

Last year, I posted my “what to expect when you are expecting: 2020” predictions. I wish I had said “mayhem, chaos and the breakdown of society as we know it.” That would have been more correct. The year itself, therefore, underscores the point NNT says in his book “Black Swans”. Black Swans have three attributes: unpredictability, consequences, and retrospective explainability. Check. What did I predict, you may ask? Due to space limitations, it's in the link above, but on reflection,...

I have to hand it to Match for their witty interpretation of dating this year as Satan and 2020 get matched on the app and have a wonderful date stealing toilet paper, exercising in empty gyms and watching a movie. If you can’t laugh about this year, well, the light at the end of the tunnel will be turned off until further notice. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmb5ENInqVk   In related news, we release a timely podcast today where we talk student debt, college choices, higher...

This week on the #hottakeoftheday podcast, we tackle student debt, higher education and how college needs to/will change in the future. A year ago... I wrote this post on the cost, and with inflation from printing money, and people’s willingness to pay exorbitant tuition without considering ROI, Covid is likely to change all of it with half of colleges expected to close in the next 10 years. Betsy Mayotte is the President of TISLA and joins us. Enjoy!   #hottakeoftheday podcast Episode 93...

The topic of share buybacks dominated the news in 2019. In that year, S&P500 companies bought $480 billion of stock, and led to strong stock demand, masking some of the cracks in the underlying economy as we headed for 2020. COVID came and... well, to be frank, fundamentals flew out the window, as did cash flow, debt covenants, and pretty much everything else and we stopped thinking about financial health. Your financial advisor would tell you: “don’t worry! The stock...

'Twas the day before Christmas and all through the house, everyone was home working, from a spot on the couch. The work clothes were hung in the closet with care, in hopes that when needed, there would be room to spare. The elderly were snuggled all alone in their beds, while visions of the dotcom bubble danced in their heads. And Daniel in his ‘kerchief and me in my tunnel, we had just settled down for a 2020 pummel. When out of the Fed there arose such...

I used to use the ‘F’ word a lot. It can be incredibly useful when making a point and, quite frankly, it’s fun to say. But 2020 has been challenging, and in many ways, has defied logic. As such, whenever I even think of the ‘F’ word (Fundamentals) whilst the Federal Reserve is printing money and screaming ‘YOLO’ at the top of their lungs, I wonder when they will matter. That thought scares me. While SEC pricing isn’t the sexiest topic,...

A friend sent me a text this morning and asked if I was as bullish as some of the analysts on Wall Street have gotten about oil prices late next year. My response: If you want optimism, get a dog. When it comes to oil prices, I remain befuddled. With 7 mmbo/d still shut in by OPEC+, more cheating of quotas expected, and friction from the UAE, the “don’t worry, demand is right around the corner” argument doesn’t fly. Back of...

As some have noticed, I’m back on LinkedIn. As much as I would like to tell you that “the good guys prevailed” and that logic won in the battle against censorship, unfortunately, to date, that has not been the case. However, the view was that if one side doesn’t have to follow the user agreement they have in place, one can live by the saying “What’s good for the goose...” When I started writing the hottake, the goal wasn’t to...

Oh. My. Word!!! It’s #mergermonday and I couldn’t be more happy to be back.  Diamondback Energy did a twofer... QEP, the public company long seeking a mate since the rejected $8.75/share offer from Elliott at the beginning of 2019 (oh, those were the days!) and Guidon, a Blackstone backed PE company who followed the “some cash and some stock” model. This kills a lot of birds (in a humane way...). G&A reductions and other synergies save $80 mm. But equally important...