All Posts By

Casey Clarke

Oct 15

Ask Cadence: What’s the deal with the Fed? Does all this raising and lowering of rates actually help the economy?

By Blog
Short Answer: Not really. The true role of the Fed is to orchestrate and backstop the banking system. By encouraging lending, money supply rises, and economic activity follows. Unfortunately, so does inflation. Therefore, inflation – or as the Fed calls it, stable prices – is part of the deal. Control over short-term interest rates is more of a side show and arguably does more harm than good. Full Answer: The question of whether or not the Federal Reserve actually has the ability to steer the economy and influence the wellbeing of the average American has been a debate ever since…
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Aug 17

The Big Guys Want Your Shares

By Blog
I don’t feel our clients hire us to repeat industry talking points or to project perpetual sunshine, because since forming Cadence, we haven’t. Don’t get me wrong, we are fun-loving, positive people at the office, but we have no interest in ignoring important details that could impact our clients’ lives. Being too myopic in view or playing ostrich in the sand just to keep comfortable helps no one. I do think our clients hire us to help them evaluate the financial world, investment landscape, and achieve and maintain financial freedom – regardless of how unique or seemingly unorthodox that process…
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Jul 22

Why the Japanese Yen Carry Trade Matters

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One thread from the complex sweater that is global finance to keep an eye on is the reversal of the Japanese yen carry trade. As a refresher, for decades investors have been conditioned to borrow in cheap, low-interest yen, buy foreign assets (U.S. assets) that yield or earn more, then eventually sell them and pay off those yen loans at a profit. A declining yen gives the carry trade an additional boost to profits. Sell dollar assets at higher prices, convert those dollars into a cheaper yen (getting more yen), then pay off the loan with money left over from…
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Jul 17

Understanding Today’s Commodity Cycle

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A colleague asked some good questions about a dollar cycle/commodities chart I shared last week (first chart below). The chart showed commodities (gold line) rising over the last five years while the dollar (black and red line) has been rising and stocks (gray line) have also been rising. This is abnormal, as historically the broad commodity cycle tends to be inversely related to stocks and dollar strength. This aberration could be explained by the enormity of passive investing, indexation, and intense actions to keep stocks afloat by the powers that be in an effort to stave off a very messy…
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Jun 05

The Gathering Divide

By Blog
Below are the changes in share of net worth for the following socioeconomic categories between 1990 and the end of 2025: Bottom 50%: -26% 50-90%: -18% 90-99%: -4% Top 1%: +39% Top 0.1%: +67% It’s not so much the share of wealth that matters most—it’s a common debate where the optimal level should be—but rather the direction of that share over time. Those categories at the top of the economic strata that hold the bulk of financial assets tend to be held in check by recessions and market corrections...until they figure out how to commandeer government institutions to minimize them…
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May 20

Chugging Along? The Charts Disagree.

By Blog
I heard a wholesaler tell someone the other day that the economy’s chugging along, all is fairly good, employment is decent, and so long as Hormuz gets opened soon, things should be back to normal in no time. I also heard him say that a Nasdaq 100 ETF that writes covered calls and generates an 11% yield is more on the conservative side.  I told this person after their conversation that if he said this to 90% of Americans, he’d get punched in the nose. Here are three charts that suggest a different story… First, full-time work. Back to negative…
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Jan 15

A Year for the Non-Conformists

By Blog
“Twice two times four is not life. It is the beginning of death.” - Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes From The Underground Cadence was founded with the philosophy that cycles, valuations, and the sentiment of crowds matter far more than mainstream financial services and media would have you believe. Not necessarily at first, or even for most of the time, but eventually with rather abrupt suddenness, they matter supremely. It’s not lost on our clients that we are still in the midst of the biggest stock bull market in history as measured by time and gain – we’ve been guarding them from…
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Dec 15

The Clean Energy Deception

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There aren’t many people out there that don’t care about the environment. There also aren’t many people out there who would willingly pay more for an energy source that didn’t offer clear advantages over less expensive ones, but a narrative can go a long way toward shaping perception and behavior despite the facts underlying it. Take the “clean energy” movement that created almost as much hype among investors as it did profit for Wall Street. The gist, as we’re all very familiar with given its proximity to the Climate Change narrative, is that traditional oil and gas energy is dirty,…
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Nov 14

Questioning Conventional Wisdom – Limitless Market Growth

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If you read our letters fairly regularly, you’ve probably picked up on the fact that we like to question the conventional, especially when our observations don’t confirm it, and even more so when embedded conflicts and incentives provide support for that convention. Take for example the notion that stocks can somehow return double digits even though the economy is growing at a substantially slower rate. How is this possible? Don’t think and just accept, some might say. Thinking only delays your ability and dampens your enthusiasm to invest blindly in something that is good for the goose. And as we…
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Oct 15

Middle of the Night Financial Thoughts

By Blog
Yes, our clients pay us to lie awake in the middle of the night so that they don’t have to – at least when it comes to financial markets and economic matters that could affect them. We’re not talking anxiety-filled nights, but rather quiet, pondering nights where the chaos of the day has subsided, the routine-related boxes have been checked, and the brain can run free. In somewhat random, freewheeling fashion, here are a few of the thoughts I’ve recently spent time spinning. Asymmetry The notion of asymmetry is an important one when it comes to investing: the condition where…
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