The Blunt Dollar

In this episode of The Blunt Dollar, I sit down with Jai Jacob, veteran investment strategist and former leader at Rockefeller Asset Management and Lazard Asset Management, for a fascinating conversation on career reinvention, risk management, quantitative investing, and the future of finance.

Jai shares his unconventional journey from pursuing a career as a professional jazz musician in New York to becoming a respected voic...

In this episode of The Blunt Dollar, I sit down with Jamie Halse, founder, Managing Director and Chief Investment Officer of Senjin Capital, to explore Japanese small caps and an investment approach that goes beyond simply buying cheap stocks.

From studying law in New Zealand to spending more than a decade at Platinum Asset Management, Jamie shares the journey that led him to launch his own firm. We discuss why he sees compe...

What happens when you combine mathematics, engineering, and finance for nearly three decades?

In this episode of The Blunt Dollar, I sit down with Robert Thorén, partner at Algorithmica Research, quant engineer, entrepreneur, and someone who was building what we now call robo-advisory before the industry even had a name for it.

Robert’s journey into quantitative finance started in the 1990s, when quants were far...

In this episode of The Blunt Dollar, I sit down with Kai Wu, founder of Sparkline Capital, to explore how AI is transforming investing from the inside out. We dive into quant investing, unstructured data, large language models, AI financial analysts, and what the future of finance might actually look like as machines become more capable.

Kai shares how he went from working at GMO under Jeremy Grantham to building Sparkline Capital a...

In this episode of The Blunt Dollar, I sit down with Shelby Nicholl, founder of Muriel Consulting and The Muriel Network, and host of the Kick It Open podcast. 

After 25 years climbing the ranks at Edward Jones and LPL Financial, Shelby took a major leap, leaving corporate life to empower financial advisors to break free from restrictive environments and take control of their futures. We talk about why so many advisors ...

In this episode of The Blunt Dollar, Ignacio sits down with macro strategist and researcher Alex Dryden to explore how markets really work beneath the surface. After more than a decade as a global investment strategist at JP Morgan Asset Management, Alex stepped away from Wall Street to pursue a PhD and dig deeper into the forces shaping sovereign debt, financial markets, and risk. The conversation moves from bond market structure ...

In this episode of The Blunt Dollar, I sit down with Lupin Rahman, a leading voice in sovereign debt and emerging markets, with over 25 years of experience spanning institutions like the IMF and World Bank to the investment world at PIMCO. We dive deep into how sovereign debt really works behind the scenes, what investors consistently misunderstand, and why today’s macro environment is changing the rules of the game. 

In this episode of The Blunt Dollar, I sit down with Ben Ashby, Chief Investment Officer at Anderson Rowe, CFA Charterholder, podcaster, and one of the most direct voices in UK asset management.

Ben brings a rare mix of fixed income experience, macro skepticism, financial history, and contrarian thinking to a conversation about markets, risk, AI, and why the next decade may look very different from the last one. 

In this episode of The Blunt Dollar, I sit down with Saira Malik, Chief Investment Officer at Nuveen, to talk about her unconventional path into Wall Street, what it really takes to build confidence, and why the best investors are often the ones willing to think differently. 

Saira shares how she went from being told she might not make it through a four-year college to becoming CIO at one of the world’s largest in...

Michael Green has seen markets from the inside at the highest levels, from managing capital connected to some of the biggest names in finance to building his own frameworks around how markets really function. In this episode, we go deep into the forces shaping modern markets, the unintended consequences of passive investing, and why he believes the structure of markets today may be setting the stage for a major turning point. ...

In this episode of The Blunt Dollar, I sit down with Andrew from 8FIGURES to talk about how technology, psychology, and better education could reshape the future of investing. We explore what risk really means for everyday investors, why so many people still make costly mistakes, and how AI can act as a powerful second opinion when managing your portfolio. 

This conversation goes beyond theory and dives into practical w...

In this episode of The Blunt Dollar, I sit down with Vitaliy Katsenelson, CEO of Investment Management Associates and author of Soul in the Game, for a wide-ranging conversation that goes far beyond traditional investing.

Vitaliy is not your typical investor. He blends classical value investing with philosophy, music, writing, and deep introspection. In this conversation, we explore how stoicism, creativity, and self-awarene...

In this episode of The Blunt Dollar, I sit down with Vincenzo Riflesso, Head of Risk at Maverix Securities, former equity derivatives trader at BNP Paribas, Intesa Sanpaolo and UniCredit, and a thought leader at the Certificate in Quantitative Finance. With 10 years on trading desks and another decade leading risk teams, Vincenzo brings a rare perspective that bridges adrenaline driven markets and disciplined quantitative portfolio...

What if you could forecast GDP from space?

In this episode of The Blunt Dollar, I sit down with Jake Schneider, Founder of Atlas Analytics, to explore how satellite imagery, artificial intelligence, and economic modeling are converging to create a completely new way to measure economic activity in real time.

From working directly for former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan to building proprietary algorithms tha...

In this episode of The Blunt Dollar, I sit down with Simon Evan-Cook from Downing Fund Managers for a deep and refreshingly honest conversation about what investing really looks like in practice.

Simon brings a unique engineering mindset to markets, challenging the industry’s obsession with precision, models, and certainty. We unpack how real investors navigate uncertainty, learn from mistakes, and build systems that a...

In this episode of The Blunt Dollar, I sit down with Sebastian Lewis from Vanguard, one of the most influential investment firms in the world.

We explore Sebastian’s journey from Morgan Stanley during the dot-com era to a 15-year career at Sanford Bernstein and ultimately to Vanguard, where he helps bring investment research and market insights to financial advisors across Europe. Along the way, we dive into indexing, ...

In this episode of The Blunt Dollar, I sit down with Thomas Veillet, one of Switzerland’s most recognizable financial voices and a pioneer in making markets understandable, entertaining, and brutally honest.

With more than three decades in finance and thousands of market columns under his belt, Thomas shares how he went from trading floors to building a media brand that challenges the traditional tone of financial comm...

In this episode of The Blunt Dollar, Ignacio sits down with Gina Martin Adams, Chief Market Strategist at HB Wealth and one of the most recognizable voices in financial markets.

After more than two decades on Wall Street spanning firms like Wells Fargo and Bloomberg, Gina shares how she built a disciplined, model driven approach to understanding markets and why combining macro, technicals, fundamentals and behavioral insight...

In this episode of The Blunt Dollar, Ignacio sits down with Andrew Wells, Chief Investment Officer at Sanjak Alpha and a veteran fixed income investor with decades of experience navigating bond markets, hedge funds, and ETFs. Andy shares his journey from small town Texas to running trading desks and hedge funds, while breaking down how today’s bond market is fundamentally different from the last four decades of falling intere...