Wealth comes in different shapes and forms.
My friendships are among my most prized possessions.

Friends have changed my life.
Over and over, and over again.

Before I decided to launch Treussard Capital Management, a friend said to me:

That was over 2 years ago.

He was absolutely right.

Things take a while to become clear.

Here is something I can tell you now that I couldn’t have explained to you two years ago.

• Of course, my clients benefit from my being a Ph.D. economist who learned finance from the people who turned the field into a science.

• Of course, they benefit from my experience working in risk management and investment strategy for the family offices of highly sophisticated billionaires, including through the worst of the Global Financial Crisis.

• And of course, there is value in understanding the business of asset management like I do, having spent years running the business unit of a $150B global asset management firm.

(We’ll get back to that last one below - incentives are an ugly beast).

But the thing that I do for my clients that’s really different?

→ I obsess over execution.

Because there is a wide gulf between having an investment strategy on paper

and getting your portfolio from where it is to where we want it to be,

carefully and intentionally.

All the while, not knowing what markets will look like tomorrow.

To put it bluntly:

If you want a relationship manager who hands trading instructions to a 27-year-old in the back office of a large bank to jam a bunch of trades in and move on, have at it.

They’ll happily take your money.

My decades of experience have taught me something else:

→ Details matter like mad.

→ Sometimes patience is virtue.

→ Then the next day, the time to act is now.

And because in the real world, we don’t know what happens next, it helps to approach the whole thing as partners.

Weighing the pros and cons of decisions together and in real time.

Brick by brick, taking measured actions to move your portfolio closer to our vision for it.

Are These Torpedoes or Are They Sharks?

Or are these "sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads?" — Dr. Evil.

After I had decided to start TCM, a close friend and mentor greeted my decision with the following words:

Here is why I love that so much.

It's NOT that there aren't torpedoes.

There ABSOLUTELY are torpedoes out there.

→ It's that you have to act knowing that they're out there.

(They say courage is not the absence of fear. It's doing what's worth doing despite the fear.)

Same is true with financial markets… Glorious waters filled with torpedoes and sharks "with frickin' lasers attached to their heads."

Markets are close to the eighth wonder of the world.

Under ideal conditions, there is no more obvious way to do well while doing good

than to fulfill the fundamental economic function

of providing capital to fund worthwhile human endeavors.

They call that capitalism. It’s pretty great.

Now it does work better when you remind yourself to be “long-term greedy” at all times.

The moment you slip into thinking “short-term gains,” someone will come up with a clever way to part you from your money.

If you think I’m exaggerating, let me enumerate some of the more “modern” ways in which this happens today.

I talked to William Edwards at Business Insider (behind a paywall) recently about this.

0DTE Options.

What on G-d's green earth are "0DTE options," you ask?

Let's start with the easy(ish) part.

An option is a thing that you spend money on that allows you to make a profit IF markets move in the direction that you're hoping they'll move over a given period of time.

But if markets don't move in your favor, the clock runs out and you've lost your whole investment.

Now imagine if someone created a market for options that expire within a day.

Either you're right today or your money is gone.

Does that seem like a good idea to you?

That's what zero-day-to-expiry (0DTE) options are.

You would be shocked how popular these scratch tickets are among retail investors and gamblers (huh… I mean “day traders”).

Leveraged ETFs.

Here's another fun one.

Imagine that you've convinced yourself that you can predict which way the market (or your "favorite" stock) will move.

If you are convinced that the thing is going to go up 20%, would you rather make 20% or borrow a bunch of money to load up on the investment and make 60% instead?

That sounds pretty sweet.

Except, if the thing goes down 20%, you're down 60%.

And that might be the least of your problems (because that's the understood problem)…

In leveraged funds, bouncing prices become your enemy (because leverage has to be adjusted after every move, which can severely erode wealth over time).

Going out of your way to make volatility your enemy is a very dangerous thing to do.

Private Investments in Public Vehicles.

As much as I enjoy the process, I can’t die on every hill that’s worth dying on out there.

Fortunately I have friends. People like Dave Nadig. People who still seem to care.

So… If you have an itch to buy exposure to private businesses (like SpaceX) in a public vehicle (like an ETF), please go read Dave here.

I could go on for a while longer, but we’re all getting a little fatigued.

Before we close out, I have to remind everyone that pump-and-dumps are dangerous, even when they involve crypto.

I know it’s shocking.

And yet…
(See here and here, for examples from the U.S. and Argentina).

My point is simple in the end.

Reality is complex.

Investing is not only a personal necessity.

It's part of a fundamental process by which we make things around us better.

→ It's jet fuel for human progress.

And yet, incentives matter and it's not all puppies and ice cream out there.

We've entered an era where there are more torpedoes and sharks in these waters than we've seen in a long while.

I hope you'll be safe.

I hope you're undeterred.

It's a time for both vigilance and courage.

Be well, Jonathan 👋

📌 Whenever you are ready, here’s how I can help you:

• Connect with me on LinkedIn for daily market insights: Jonathan Treussard, Ph.D.

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• Ready to take the next step? Schedule a strategy session at this link.