Top Traders Unplugged19 Jul 2025

SI357: Liquidity, Leverage, and the Lie of Calm ft. Cem Karsan

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 Clothes moment

58:05 - Addressing Paul Jones' asset allocation

01:03:35 - Will AI make us all unemployed?

01:10:13 - Is Libertarianism is a bigger threat to the US than Socialism?

01:13:28 - Where are markets heading according to Karsan?

01:28:27 - What is up for next week?

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2. Daily Trend Barometer and Market Score

One of the things I’m really proud of, is the fact that I have managed to published the Trend Barometer and Market Score each day for more than a decade...as these tools are really good at describing the environment for trend following managers as well as giving insights into the general positioning of a trend following strategy! Click Here

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Disclaimer

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