In this installment of "In The Arena," host Daryl Jones is joined by Macro and Housing analyst and former body builder Christian Drake. Christian was pursuing his PhD in molecular biophysics when he replied to a Craigslist add for a start-up company in New Haven and the rest is sort of Hedgeye history. In this episode Christian gives his unique perspective on the beginning days of Hedgeye, being a macro analyst, what he would personally invest in right now and the $20 trillion asset class Housing.
Below Christian describes the early days of Hedgeye and Keith's relationship with the media.
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"It was definitely a grind. I mean in the early days it was just a handful of us. Sometimes the heat didn't work. You're in there all bundled up, hat on shivering. I think we had squirrels living on the third floor, they'd come down and run through the office. Keith was just getting on the (TV) networks, we were getting kicked off of some the prime financial media networks because he would go on and tell the truth, then we'd get brought back.You know, the network people hated it. The audience loved it." |
Christian provides an overview of Hedgeye's macro process and how it overlays our fundamental sector research.
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"The domestic macro data shapes a lot of our bigger calls. There's a lot of curating, a lot of measuring, mapping and contextualizing. It's not an easy thing to do and it takes time to get good at it. You have to understand what the data is, what matters, what doesn't matter, how it all fits together. What else is happening globally? What does it mean on an absolute basis? What does it mean on a relative basis? How do you translate this high frequency fundamental data into practical or tangible investments/conclusions across asset classes." |
He got his start in trading early on in his career as a fifteen year-old.
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"I opened my first investment account when I was 15 or so. I remember my first investment after I poured through a bunch of different literature, a bunch of different recommendations parsed through it. What do I think makes the most sense here? I think I had like $300 and my first investment was in Duke Energy. I made something like $30 on $300 in a short period of time. I thought, you know, man, you know, this is great." |
Keep your eyes (and ears) open as we release a new "In the Arena" podcast every other Tuesday morning.
