Some things and ideas: May 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 (from the Diff) and I did our monthly book club; April’s book was Clashing Over Commerce (you can find the episode here); we already recorded May’s episode on The Snowball but it’s in editing / won’t be released till later this week. If you haven’t listened yet, I think you should give it a try; we really started to hit our stride in the last one, and it’s filled with both thoughts on the current market and lots of little financial historical asides.

• We’re always looking for recommendations on new books for upcoming months; if you have any ideas or suggestions, please hit me up!

I mailed this one in

• I’ll admit it; outside of brief thoughts on the market (below), I mailed this monthly links in! My bad…. I’ve posted a ton this month, so just didn’t have a crazy amount to add in the monthly links. Still, traditions must be upheld, so the post goes out and the blog spins on!

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 “fear” territory as the markets recovered from their tariff scare. Early April sure feels like ancient history now….

• I continue to think it’s a weird market. On one hand, AI plays (and mag 7) remain the absolute dominant drivers of the market, and speculative stuff is getting bid up like crazy (see all the bitcoin treasury companies). On the other side, “real world” stocks have been bid up a bit this month, but they continue to trade at prices / future outlooks that is hard to reconcile with where the more speculative stuff is trading.

  • I realize I’m far from the first person to say this, but when you reread stories about the early 70s (the nifty fifty years) or the late 90s (dot com bubbles), you can find an incredible amount of parallels between those markets and these markets. Real world economy stocks getting left behind while growthier and/or more speculative stuff get bid up to extremes.

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’ll be honest with you- just a lot of dry holes. Nothing I’d strongly recommend!

• 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 (monthly recurring piece)

• Kohl’s CEO fired for funneling money to romantic partner

• Universal antivenom may grow out of man who let snakes bite him 200 times

• Creatine is all the rage. Should you take it? (probably yes)

• Where have all my deep male friendships gone

  • Not to get all cheesy on you, but this article definitely hit me. I have lots of guy friends (or at least I like to think I do), but time and families have definitely caused me to drift apart, and I haven’t spoken to some people who I used to feel like were brothers in years. I’ve been trying to course correct that for years, and this just makes me want to try that much harder.