Some things and ideas: October 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’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.

Blog and podcast scheduling

• Baby #2 is due in Mid-November; I’ll probably put up an announcement after the big day, but don’t be surprised to see a lot less of me in the last part of this year!

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, the indicator said we were in neutral territory (and I firmly disagreed). This month, I remain in strong disagreement with the index. It says we are in “fear”; I can promise you we are nowhere close to fear in the market right now.

• Look, ultimately the Fear & Greed index is just a silly index, but it is worth thinking about why the index is reading fear when basically every index is at all time highs….

• And a big piece of the reason is breadth is terrible. A few big stocks and winners (largely, anything that touches AI) are screaming higher constantly, while most other stocks are stuck in the duldrums.

• It makes for a really strange market environment. A classic value investor line is “be greedy when others are fearful and fearful when other are greedy.” How do you characterize a market where one corner of the market is going parabolic and almost every other sector is trading like we’re in the middle of a deep recession?

One article that caught my eye (New monthly recurring piece)

• This is a new section. I used to just include a section in this post called “other things that caught my eye”; basically, it was just a bunch of links to interesting articles I’d read over the month….. but as the years have gone by (and I’ve gotten lazier) I got worse and worse at remembering to post interesting articles when I read them and the section got skimpier and skimpier. Thus, a new section…. when I read one article I find really interesting, I’ll post it here with some quick thoughts.

• This month’s article? The latest controversy in chess is the cupcake gambit. I love this article for two reasons:

  • It’s crazy to imagine going to like local or regional tournament in any discipline and suddenly being placed against the best player in the world. It’d be like if LeBron James hoped into a local YMCA weekend tournament or something.

  • I am an absolute sucker for any clever exploit of rules or qualifications (provided they don’t actively harm someone), and I find the use of the “cupcake gambit” a really interesting exploit, particularly given the “cupcakes” he’s getting matched up against seem thrilled to get mowed down (and he seems to be very gracious in playing against them, giving them pointers, etc.).

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’ve been tackling HuntSong. It’s book #2 in the Singer of Terandria series, which is a spin off of the Wandering Inn (now up to 17 books and my favorite series of all time by far). It’s not quite as good as Wandering Inn…. but that’s probably cause it’s early in the story. I just love this world. If you’re really into fantasy, it’s hard for me to believe you wouldn’t love it too.

• 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).