SI357: Liquidity, Leverage, and the Lie of Calm ft. Cem Karsan
Top Traders Unplugged
Niels Kaastrup-Larsen
4.8 • 670 Ratings
🗓️ 19 July 2025
⏱️ 90 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
As summer sets in, Cem Karsan joins Niels Kaastrup-Larsen to trace the contours of a market that feels calm but isn’t. What looks like low vol masks a crowded hedge fund ecosystem and a structural vol compression regime few understand. From a VIX spike driven by unexpected Call activity to the slow-motion political pressure on Powell, the signals are subtle but mounting. They cover China’s resource diplomacy, AI’s quiet dislocation of white-collar work, and the rising fragility from concentration across assets, brokers, and narratives. This is a conversation about setup, not outcome... and the traps hiding in plain sight.
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Episode TimeStamps:
01:19 - What has been on our radar recently?
03:30 - Stay tuned for the latest UGO episode!
05:04 - China is taking the long view - and succeeding with it
07:04 - Tech companies are starting to buy into rare earth
08:30 - The risk of high stock trading firm concentration
11:01 - Industry performance update
13:33 - Q1, Rick: What other asset class volatilites besides gold are mispriced at the moment?
24:59 - Karsan's thoughts on the current macro environment
30:33 - What could trigger a deleveraging/degrossing event?
32:28 - The impact of tariffs - what do the numbers tell us?
41:21 - Is a firing on the horizon for Powell?
46:53 - Inflation is becoming hard to hedge
56:15 - The Emperor's New
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're about to join Neil's Kostrup Larson on a raw and honest journey into the world of systematic investing and learn about the most dependable and consistent yet often overlooked investment strategy. |
| 0:13.0 | Welcome to the Systematic Investor Series. |
| 0:33.2 | Welcome, welcome, welcome back to this week's edition of the Systematic Investor series with Jim Kassang and I, Nils Castro Blast, where each week we take the pulse of the global market through the lens of a rules-based investor. |
| 0:37.8 | Jim, it is really great to be back with you this week. Very excited for our conversation. |
| 0:40.8 | I'm thinking it's going to be a little bit more free-flowing than what we normally do. |
| 0:44.4 | But first of all, how have you been? |
| 0:45.9 | Doing well. |
| 0:46.7 | It's summer in Chicago, so always nice. |
| 0:49.1 | Kids are away camp. |
| 0:51.1 | So also have some time. |
| 0:53.5 | I haven't had much time like this in a long time. |
| 0:57.4 | So my son's off to school soon. |
| 1:00.1 | That's kind of what's next. |
| 1:02.8 | It's a big change. |
| 1:03.8 | Are you also having some time off before the autumn starts? |
| 1:08.7 | Yeah, not really any vacation. but again, Chicago in the summer, |
| 1:13.3 | No Kids is kind of like a vacation for me, so. I know what you mean. Now, as I said, in terms |
| 1:21.5 | of the topics, we'll see where we go on that today. I'm sure it's going to be a great lineup, |
| 1:27.4 | as I always say, but I'm not entirely sure what the it's going to be a great lineup, as I always say, |
| 1:28.5 | but I'm not entirely sure what the lineup is going to be. But that only makes it more fun, |
| 1:32.2 | I think. Anyways, what I do want to know, as always, is a little bit about what's been on your |
| 1:38.5 | radar, what you've been thinking of, not necessarily to do with the markets or whatever, |
... |
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