Some things and ideas: March 2026

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’ve done an entire podcast on how to get a job in investing I’d encourage you to listen to…. but my top advice would be to go out and start a substack yourself! If you do launch a substack, please let me know so I can try to be helpful.

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.

• In last month’s links, I noted that it was strange market as “basically every index is hovering near all time highs” despite the index reading “fear.” The market has certainly gotten no less strange this month, as the index currently sits pretty far into “extreme fear.”

• Why do I find this market strange? It’s not because we’re in “extreme fear”; since my last post, we started a war with Iran with potentially far reaching and unknown consequences. Energy prices are skyrocketing, and we seem on the brink of a true energy crisis. Those energy prices are causing inflation expectations to rise, bringing with them the prospect of going from an interest rate cutting cycle to an interest rate hiking cycle and the possibility of stagflation?

• So, no, I don’t find an extreme fear reading particularly strange given what the world look like. What I find strange is that we’re getting an extreme fear reading and I don’t really see “extreme fear” in the market.

  • As I write this, the Russell is down ~3.7% for the year. The S&P is down maybe 7.5%. Yes, both are down substantially on the month (they’re both down ~8% on the month), but we’re barely into correction territory on the Russell and not even in correction territory on the S&P. Given stocks were at all time highs coming into the current almost correction, it’s tough for me to look at these moves and square them with “extreme fear”.

  • Of course, on the other hand, I try to follow the stocks / positions of investors I know and like…. and I think this quarter has has, by far, the largest amount of “blows up” (stocks down 25%+ on earnings). So perhaps the overall index composition is masking some of the pain underneath the hood?

One article that caught my eye (monthly recurring piece)

• The threats and bare-knuckle tactics of MAGA’s Top Antitrust Fixer

• I’ve found myself in a weird state when it comes to antitrust with this administration. Honestly, I’m an anti-trust skeptic; we live in a really dynamic economy that’s rapidly evolving, and I think anti-trust historically has been blind to a lot of that evolution. Often, it was fighting yesterday’s wars (blocking office depot / staples in 2016!) or living in a fantasy (Spirit has now gone bankrupt twice since JetBlue was prohibited from buying them; given JetBlue is currently exploring a sale because they are kind of distressed, I’m sure the combination would have been a true market behemoth). So color me a huge skeptic…. but, despite that skepticism, I find the complete inconsistency of anti-trust decisions coming out of this administration to be really crazy¹, and I worry that letting any merger through if the buyers can cozy up to the right people and hire the right lobbyists is going to create some very negative long term consequences / results in a very, very brittle economy going forward.

  • Note that I say this about anti-trust, but I think the same could be said a whole host of regulations in this administration where relationships and patronage seem to tilt the playing field towards a select group of partners. Great for those companies (and their shareholders) in the short run; potentially ruinous for the economy as a whole in the long run.

• Anyway, aside from that rant, I post this article for two reasons

  • It is a really wild / gossipy article that is a lot of fun to read, and you don’t get that combo much in antitrust!

  • I’ve been hearing for months from people who are better at antitrust than me that the most important thing in buying deals is analyzing the companies’ lobbying strategy / who they have working for and against them. I absolutely did not pay enough attention to those tips (which is one reason among many why those people are better than me at antitrust!)

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 Tess and the Emerald Sea is basically a standalone book and might be my favorite book he’s written

• I’m about halfway through Guards! Guards! It’s book 8 (out of 40+) in the Discworld series². Some of the prose is absolutely top notch and the characters are pretty interesting…. but I will say the downside of having standalone books is it doesn’t have that multi-series mystery / plot reveal that I love in fantasy books. So I’ll finish and give a review next month…. but I’ll probably be returning to my standard fare after this!

• 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.

    • I’ve been pitching it for months (hate to say I was early, but….), but it’s not just me! It’s so popular it got an NYT piece describing it as a “global blockbuster” in 2025.

  • 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).

1. I’m not the first to say it, but the Live Nation settlement (and the way it was handled) was truly bonkers.

2. As a completion-ist, it hurt me to start reading a series in book 8…. but apparently you can pick up most of the books in this series in any order, and I have not found myself wondering “what the heck is going on” or “who is that” at any point.