Nuggets | Curated insights across markets, macros, AI, tech & geopolitics

AQR Perspective: I Did Not Predict What Is Going on in Privates (March 25, 2026) - Cliff Asness (Founder)

Excerpt from The Economist:

The fate of ancient coins offers uncomfortable lessons about dollar dominance

The coins largely moved one way, from Rome to India, and goods moved the other. Whereas Romans bought Indian wares, Indians accumulated monetary claims on Rome. Evidence points to high external demand for Roman assets: the coins bore a particular pattern, came in sealed bags and travelled via…

Executive Summary

India has emerged as a major bright spot for global Limited Partners (LPs) in private markets, contrasting with the broader investment contraction across the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region. Driven by strong macroeconomic fundamentals, a slowdown in China, and solid exit performances, India has become the top-ranked private-market destination in APAC. However, to sustain this momentum, India must…

"even if you believe that political instability or economic uncertainty might arrest China’s upward climb, that might not change the trajectory of Chinese science. All of those Chinese scientists and engineers will still be there. Their labs and facilities have already been built. Their equipment and instruments have already been bought. Their technicians are already trained. That will still be true if Xi Jinping…

Excerpt from the article.

The ongoing crisis can be viewed in two main ways: - Iran and its nuclear program as the central focus of the conflict. In this narrow lens, the war revolves primarily around containing or neutralizing Iran’s nuclear ambitions. If that’s the case, any impact is short-lived. Regardless, the US will benefit, even in the long term, from the closure of the Hormuz strait - *Iran as…

Jamie Dimon's End Game - Barron's | #Article

China's technology long game | High Capacity by Kyle Chan

Read the entire article @ Colossus

"Any method for building a startup, once widely known, causes founders to converge on the same answers." - Jerry Neumann

"I shall not dare to think myself a true Naturalist till my skill can make my garden yield better herbs and flowers." - Robert Boyle

Views on AI and the Software Sector: Sixth Street Letter

The Aggregation of Marginal Gains | This Coach Improved Every Tiny Thing by 1 Percent and Here’s What Happened - written by James Clear #AtomicHabits #DaveBrailsford #BritishCycling

"Each attempt to tax the massive profits booked by Irish-shored multinationals has only expanded the system that allows them to be booked there in the first place."

...The net result has been, well, a steady rise in the profit the world’s multinationals report in Ireland, and a steady march up in Ireland’s corporate tax take. The Irish balance of payments data now shows that foreign multinationals (almost all…

History.com: State Department official George Kennan, using the pseudonym “Mr. X,” published an article entitled “The Sources of Soviet Conduct” in the July edition of Foreign Affairs. The article focused on Kennan’s call for a…

Six business models piloted in Asia offer lessons for global leaders in any market—and just might be the key to the next wave of sustainable growth. | March 4, 2026 | Mckinsey & Co

Jamie Dimon’s mantra for Gen Z: ‘Learn, learn, learn, learn, learn, learn, learn’

Fortune: Before he became the most powerful banking chief in America, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon set himself a simple career rule that sounds almost radical in the age of personal branding: Keep your mouth shut. As a 28‑year‑old Harvard MBA working as an assistant to American Express president Sanford “Sandy” Weill,…

Berkshire’s Performance: Compounded Annual Gain [1965-2025] - 19.7% | Overall Gain [1964-2025] - 6,099,294%

Stocks Tend To Go Higher Over Time, Even With Bad News #CarsonGroup

How Do Stocks Do After Major Events? S&P 500 Index Performance After Geopolitical And Major Historical Events

Excerpt:

“Stop worrying about the world ending today. It’s already tomorrow in Australia.” – Charles Schulz, cartoonist and creator of “Peanuts.”

Excerpt:

Productivity growth is essentially the sum of “real” or inflation-adjusted wage growth and margin expansion. In other words, companies can pass through productivity gains to workers (in the form of higher wages) or they can take it all and boost profit margins (which will reduce worker’s share of total income). Expanding margins will also show up as inflation and drive real wages lower (since real wage…

Following is an excerpt from the substack. For the entire substack article visit - The Rebirth of Mining

Neither the macro regime nor industry fundamentals point to late-stage conditions. Seen through this lens, recent price moves in hard assets are not signs of excess. They are the opening act of a…

~100 years between Faraday's electric motor and a leap forward in productivity

a16z: It took ~100 years from when Faraday and Henry first began talking about electric currents to unleash the industrial productivity wave in the first half of the 20th Century.

Cycle times have sped up since the 1820s, for sure, but there’s still an awful lot of moving parts involved in a platform shift, like this one.

Summary

"The current debate around artificial intelligence conflates the recursive potential of the technology with expectations of recursive economic deployment." - Frank Flight (On the fallacy of exponential adoption) [Section: Recursive Technology ≠ Recursive Adoption]

"If the marginal cost of compute rises above the marginal cost of human labor for certain tasks, substitution will not occur, creating a…

Jeff Currie, formerly the head of commodities research at Goldman Sachs and now at Carlyle, provides a macro-thematic framework explaining why we have entered a new "physical capex super-cycle" where the "Old Economy" (commodities, manufacturing, and infrastructure) is reasserting its dominance over the "New Economy" (asset-light tech and financial services).

**1. The Central Thesis: The Physical Capex…