Curated Financial Insights
Access the thinking that guides families with substantial wealth— sophisticated market analysis, portfolio strategy, and conversations with leading thinkers. Insights from someone who's worked for Forbes-listed billionaire family offices and global institutions.
TREUSSARD TALKS Podcast
Long-form conversations exploring markets, risk management, and wealth strategy with prominent economists, portfolio managers, and industry thinkers.
Jane Buchan on Alternatives, Diversification, and Investor Agency
Examining "alternatives" by mechanics rather than labels. Private equity as levered equity, private credit as floating-rate credit, and hedge fund strategies as instruments that change payoff shape. Plus why separate accounts, custody clarity, and transparent execution are first-order risk controls.
Economics That Matters: From Academic Theory to Real-World Solutions with Larry Kotlikoff
A conversation with Jonathan's former mentor about what economics really means for families and investors. Covering Larry's path from Harvard to Boston University leadership, the Auerbach–Kotlikoff model, and why fiscal language can mislead real-world decisions.
Defining FinTech: Innovation, Risk, and Financial Transformation with Michael Imerman
What truly counts as FinTech? Mapping the ecosystem, tracing the post-GFC innovation cycle, and separating durable signal from hype across AI, cloud, and blockchain. A conversation with UC Irvine Professor of Finance and author of The Economics of FinTech (2025).
Purpose, Access, and the Modern Investor's Journey with Anna Paglia
A conversation with State Street Global Advisors' Chief Business Officer about investing and purpose-driven leadership. From waiting tables in Rome to executive leadership at a $4.7T asset manager—exploring how ETFs opened market access and why investing is as much about behavior as strategy.
Fear, Not Risk: Rethinking the Equity Premium with Rob Arnott and Ed McQuarrie
This episode reframes asset pricing by replacing symmetric "risk" with asymmetric fear. Using evidence from the 19th through 21st centuries, Arnott and McQuarrie show that equity premia depend on cycle and starting conditions—and can go negative when FOMO dominates fear of loss.
David Kotok on When History Meets Markets: Geopolitics, Civility, and Capital
Kotok traces lessons from a decade in his family's grocery store through a principled career in money management. The shift from post-pandemic to war-finance dynamics, and what geopolitics and debt-funded military spending mean for asset allocation.
WEALTH, EMPOWERED Newsletter
Sophisticated market analysis and wealth strategy delivered twice monthly. Insights on risk management, behavioral finance, and building durable wealth—crafted for families managing substantial capital.
Fear Moves Markets. Keep It From Moving You.
Risk is measurable—you can quantify it, hedge it, diversify it. Fear is omnidirectional, contagious, and keeps you up at night. Drawing on experience managing risk during the 2008 crisis, Jonathan explains why distinguishing fear from risk matters more than ever for protecting wealth and avoiding emotional decisions.
What Are We Going to Tell the Kids?
Wealth makes some things easier and others far more complex. Drawing on experience working with Forbes-listed billionaire families and conversations with financial education expert Joline Godfrey, Jonathan explores how families can start talking about money ten years earlier than most parents feel ready—and why that matters for building lasting legacies.
A Little Perspective Goes a Long Way
When markets feel chaotic, data provides clarity. Examining Treasury yields, dollar strength, and economic indicators against historical ranges reveals whether we're facing a tremor or an earthquake. A framework for maintaining perspective when survival instincts shrink your mental horizon to hours and minutes.
Hey Boss, Have We Tried Boiling the Frog Instead?
When do tariffs actually make economic sense? Drawing on training with UCLA economist Earl Thompson, Jonathan explains the defense externalities behind import taxes, why globalization created winners and losers, and what high-yield bond spreads reveal about whether market stress is a tremor or something worse.
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Selected Academic Research
2020
Forecasts or Nowcasts? What’s on the Horizon for the 2020s
Research Affiliates, with Rob Arnott
2020
Oh My! What’s This Stuff Really Worth
Research Affiliates, with Chris Brightman and Amie Ko
2019
Game Changed, Problems Remain
Investments & Wealth Monitor, with Rob Arnott and Brent Leadbetter
2018
Hobbled by Benchmarks
Journal of Portfolio Management, with Rob Arnott, Mike Aked, and Omid Shakernia
2008
Contingent Claims Analysis and Life Cycle Finance
American Economic Review, with Zvi Bodie and Doriana Ruffino
2007
Making Investment Choices as Simple as Possible, but Not Simpler
Financial Analysts Journal, with Zvi Bodie
2007
The Theory of Life-Cycle Saving and Investing
Boston Fed Paper, with Zvi Bodie and Paul Willen
2005
The Non-Monotonicity of Value-at-Risk and the Validity of Risk Measures Over Different Horizons
Boston University Working Paper
2004
Predicting Bubbles and Bubbles-Substitutes
UCLA Economics Working Papers, with Earl A. Thompson and Charles R. Hickson
Selected Guest Appearances
Financially Fit Families with Joline Godfrey
Beyond piggy banks: preparing children for lives of true abundance—not just in dollars, but in community, curiosity, and resilience. A conversation about teaching kids how the world really works, including money.
Economic Matters with Laurence Kotlikoff
The 2024 market outlook with Jonathan's former mentor. Analyzing 2023's remarkable soft landing, potential risks ahead including commercial real estate and inflation, and why protecting capital matters more than chasing returns.
The Meb Faber Show with Meb Faber
Value investing, market cycles, and the psychology of long-term wealth building. A discussion about why common sense often disappears when investors approach financial markets.
Thoughtful Money with Adam Taggart
Market valuations, bubble dynamics, and irrational exuberance. Drawing on his UCLA bubble research, Jonathan examines whether recent market strength is durable or requires caution.
Full Archive Below
You Call That Easy Money, Huh? (Part 3)
The Fed is tightening, mortgage rates are at 20-year highs, and that’s if you’re lucky enough to get the loan. And then, there is the renewed realization that “it’s not easy being green," as Argentinians can attest and Crypto fans refuse to accept.
You Call That Easy Money, Huh? (Part 2)
Educated students of the economy and markets were preparing for a recession and a decline in corporate earnings in 2023. At the risk of mis-quoting former public servant George Tenet, the “slam-dunk call” was for tough markets and a tough economy in 2023. Then around the end of 2022, the stock market started climbing and it just kept going…
You Call That Easy Money, Huh? (Part 1)
For over a decade, earning interest on relatively low-risk securities, like US Treasury bills and bonds, has been elusive. This has caused investors to do all sorts of scary things like “chasing yield.” But now, after a year of relentless interest-rate hikes, investors can earn over 5% on T-bills. Cash is no longer trash and there is honest interest on tap for anyone willing to invest in a portfolio of relatively low-risk securities.
Private Credit’s “Muppets” Moment?
Blackrock is launching a private credit offering for retail investors. Is private credit asset management’s new “Muppets” show? I hope not, but there is a bit of yuck in the air, especially if you’re a student of incentives in “product innovation” in the asset management industry. As Bloomberg put it, this is a “tricky time” for private credit. Let me explain.
Meet on the Corner of Main and Bond
Interest rates will stay up as long as the economy is strong, was Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s basic message. The part of the sentence that goes unspoken is that interest rates can be expected to come down if the economy goes bust (and we’ll know that’s happening when jobs are lost, the stock market drops, and so on and so forth). And as interest rates decline, the value of bonds will rise. That windfall is the hedging component of bonds’ returns.
My Name is Bond, Janet Bond
Now that the US debt ceiling crisis, which was both serious and silly, has joined Y2K as the latest disaster that never actually happened, the US Treasury, led by Janet Yellen, is focused on replenishing its bank account. This account is called the Treasury General Account (TGA), held at the Federal Reserve.
You are the Dancing Queen - or the Surprising Life of Assets
For this first note, you might think that I would lead with something serious—and seriously impactful—like the debt ceiling mess or the rise of AI, and we'll get there, I promise…
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The content provided on this webpage, including links to YouTube videos featuring interviews where Jonathan Treussard is a guest, is for educational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Treussard Capital Management LLC does not take responsibility for the comments or opinions expressed by others on these programs, including the hosts. We do not control and do not take responsibility for the graphics that shows and their hosts use. The information presented in these recordings is believed to be accurate at the time of recording; however, market conditions are subject to change. Viewers should conduct their own research and consult with a qualified financial advisor before making any investment decisions.