Some things and ideas: January 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 2024 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 first fintwit book club this month (on More Than a Numbers Game). The reviews were generally quite positive, so we’re going to do another one for February. This month’s book is Advanced Portfolio Management; I believe we’ll be taping towards the end of the month (tentatively Feb. 25), so feel free to read the book and lob in questions / thoughts during the month and we’ll try to address them on the pod.
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 was tilting pretty hard into fear, as small caps in particular had just been smoked in December. This month, we’re firmly in neutral territory:
I’ve said it a few times recently, but I continue to think the market is bifurcated, and neutral doesn’t quite do it justice. Things that touch a few super growthy themes (AI in particular, even post the deepseek news) are getting awarded enormous multiples and seem priced for relative perfection…. while most things I follow that are cyclical or have some commodity exposure are pricing an imminent, deep, and prolonged recession (at least IMO). Just strange, strange market.
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
Anyway, I figured a few of you are nerds like me, so I started this segment to give recs of what I’m nerding out over currently, with the hope that you’ll either try it and enjoy it or recommend me similarly nerdy things that I’ll enjoy. This month’s recs:
Had a lot of reading this month, which unfortunately left very little time for fantasy books! I managed to get through ~80% of Stormlight book 5 (for those of you who read it, it’s structured as 10 days, and I’m right at the end of day 9). It remains a masterpiece. On top of that, I read Alex Morris’s new Buffett book to prep for our podcast, and More Than a Numbers Game to prep for the January fintwit podcast. Still have the rest of Wandering Inn book 14 and Dungeon Crawler Carl book 7 to hit once I finish Stormlight!
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.
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)
Thanks for the shoutout Andrew - and great pod!