Some things and ideas: July 2025
My monthly overview (Monthly recurring piece)
I consider YAVB my “empire” with four core pieces: this blog / substack (the free side), the premium side of this blog, my podcast (also on Spotify, iTunes, or YouTube), and my twitter account. You can see my 2025 vision and goals for the empire here. If you like the blog / free site, I'd encourage you to check out the pod, follow me on twitter, and maybe even subscribe to the premium site!
A bonus note: I get asked from lots of people about how to break into the finance industry. I detailed it more here, but my top advice would be to go out and start a substack (substack recently gave me a referral code if you start one; if you use that, awesome! But I’ve been recommending starting a substack long before they offered referrals!). If you do launch a substack, please let me know so I can try to be helpful.
Fintwit Book Club
My friend Byrne Hobart of (The Diff and Capital Gains) continue to do our monthly book club; this month’s episode was on Softwar (Larry Ellison / Oracle). I will admit I didn’t love the book in real time…. but I thought the pod conversation was really interesting, and I found myself listening to management teams / companies discuss tech spend in a much different way after having read the book.
Have a suggestion for a book Byrne and I should read / do a pod on? We’re all ears (well, I guess eyes given we both read the book!); send us a suggestion!
State of markets (Monthly recurring piece)
It’s not a perfect indicator, but I like to use the CNN “Fear & Greed” Index just to quickly quantify where the markets are.
Last month, we were firmly in greed territory, and I noted it increasingly felt like a casino market. We end this month still solidly in greed territory, though I will admit that there were a few days in the middle of the month where we flirted with “extreme greed” territory as meme stocks and crypto treasuries ripped higher.
I’ve mentioned many times that markets certainly don’t feel cheap to me. Valuations feel stretched, and I’m seeing a lot of signs of mania creeping in (to name one: I’m seeing people who are generally pretty cautious value investors through caution to the wind and talk about how crypto treasury companies deserve to trade for premiums to NAV. I suspect, and I believe history agrees, that people suggesting crypto companies should trade for NAV premiums will look very foolish / caught up in the moment in the long run)…. but I’ll note that it’s hard to put today’s valuations into historical contexts. Why? Because how can you compare the multiple of today’s markets when the largest companies are the best businesses in the history of the world that seem to find new ways to accelerate growth out of nowhere (yes, I’m writing this just after META and MSFT reported blow out quarters) versus the markets of yesteryear when the dominant companies were asset heavy, cyclical, and basically GDP growers (if that)? If a market headlined by GM and Exxon in the 70s should trade for 15x earnings, why shouldn’t today’s market trade for 25x?
Dimon’s warning and the uselessness of rich prognosticators
I got a lot of emails on Jamie Dimon’s the “market ignores red flags” warning. And (as I’ve publicly admitted several times on the blog, including in my state of the markets above!) I’m increasingly cautious on the overall amrket just given the degree of euphoria / stretched valuations we’re seeing…. but I will provide a word of caution to that word of caution!
One way I’ve seen investors fail is to go into an echo chamber. They take a position (any position, whether it’s long, short, or just raising cash), find a few friends with a similar mindset, and then email any confirmatory news around to themselves every day celebrating it regardless of what the market does. So when I get a ton of emails from people saying, “look how bearish Jamie Dimon is,” what I kind of picture in my head is a ton of investors who are underinvested looking for someone to tell them that they’re right and kind of implicitly believing a big crack in the market is imminent. I doubt either are true:
Markets don’t really “crack” just because valuations are getting stretched. Valuations can stay stretched a very, very long time, and often valuations issues get resolved not with the market cracking but with the market just kind of stalling out for a few years so earnings / valuations can catch up to the stock price.
Jamie Dimon is a lot of things. Namely, he’s the best banking CEO of this century, and it’s not a particularly close call between him and anyone else. But just because he’s a brilliant manager and CEO does not make him any type of market forecaster. Don’t forget he said Bitcoin would blow up back in 2017, or that he forecasted an economic hurricane back in 2022. Perhaps he’s right this time, but history shows his crystal ball is just as murky as the rest of ours!
Anyway, this blog has been on the more bearish / cautious side recently. And I am cautious! I do think now in particular is a great time to be raising a little cash! But because I’ve said that so publicly, I get a ton of emails from bears who I think want me to join the echo chamber, and that Dimon quote is just absolute crack for bears who want justification / vindication. I certainly get the appeal…. but just noting that one bright CEO saying anything macro is generally worth less than nothing in terms of predicting where the market or economy is going (even if I kind of agree with him overall)!
Nerd Corner (Monthly recurring piece)
There’s no hiding it; I’m a massive nerd. I read 3-4 fantasy books a month, my favorite pastime is playing board games with my wife and friends, and I was an eager supporter of the Brandon Sanderson (original) Kickstarter (yes, I splurged and went for the hardcover books).
I didn’t support Sanderson’s DND-style board game…. but only because my wife would murder me if I bought another board game when I have a whole Dungeon Master kit collecting dust. Still, I wanted to highlight it because between the two Kickstarters Sanderson will have raised >$50m for new projects; if you’re a fan of fantasy and that type of fan enthusiasm doesn’t encourage you to give him a try, I don’t know what will! As I mention below, if you’re trying him out, I’d probably start with Mistborn, though Tress and the Emerald Sea is basically a standalone book and might be my favorite book he’s written
This month, I continued with the Riftwar Saga and finished book 2 (Magician: Master). I quite enjoyed it, and I find the larger world really interesting…. but I’m not sure if I’m hooked on the series enough to get any deeper into the world. Plus, Wandering Inn 16 and Brandon Sanderson’s new book are on deck!
PS- outside of my monthly recs, I constantly get asked what my favorite fantasy books are. So I’m just going to throw this list out monthly:
Anything Brandon Sanderson writes; he’s by far the best fantasy author out there. I’d probably start with Mistborn, though Tess and the Emerald Sea is basically a standalone book and might be my favorite book he’s written. The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England is also a standalone book and a very fun and fast read. Most of his works are interconnected through something called “the cosmere;” if you’re feeling crazy, here’s how to read the cosmere in order.
Kingkiller is probably the best series I’ve ever read; waiting for the third is agony.
Gentleman Bastards is right up there with Kingkiller; the mix of fun and world building is outstanding.
Red Rising series is more sci-fi, but my god is it good. I would literally stay up all night to read every book the day they came out (note: I’ve only read the first trilogy; I’m going to read the second when the last book comes out later this year).
If you’re looking for something a little more under the radar (most of the books above are widely regarded as some of the best fantasy books / series ever), the Licanius Trilogy was fantastic.
First Law trilogy is excellent. It can get a little brutal / graphic though; there are a bunch of sequels and spins, but I’ve never been able to finish them because one of them got so brutal I just put the book down and never picked it up again. But the first trilogy is really, really great.
The Cradle series probably isn’t as “good” as the books above, but I binged them and every fantasy fan I’ve recommended them to has said something along the line of “I read all ten books in two months after I opened the first one.”
I’ve also really enjoyed that author’s newest series, Last Horizon!
The Wandering Inn series isn’t for everyone, and the first ~150 pages of the first book need to get powered through…. but, if you can power through them, the world building here is incredible, and I’ve had so many friends get hooked by this series. If you like hard fantasy, I can near guarantee you’ll like it.
Similarly, Dungeon Crawler Carl won’t be for everyone, but it’s probably the most fun series of books I’ve ever read, and some of the scenes in the later books carry a surprising amount of emotional weight.
The Silvers Epic (Flight of the Silvers, Song of the Orphans, War of the Givens) is more sci-fi than fantasy, but it’s one of my favorite series I’ve ever read and I think is wildly creative in how they use time travel / multiverse as a plot point (the last book was a little slow, but the ending wrapped everything up beautifully / it got a little dusty in the room I was reading).
Other things that caught my eye
The best video games of 2025 so far
It’s interesting how few of these are on the Switch
I’ve mentioned this a few times on the blog, but I’m an enormous fan of David Bars. I’ve lost ~15 pounds so far this year, and David bars are a huge reason why.
Funny calling out the echo chamber and the top post below this one is on $SAVE and mentions: "obviously I was quite publicly bullish (as well as a few other notable fintwit friends)"
Oops.