Select trades that are favorable under current market conditions but will also benefit from long-term secular trends if the initial thesis is wrong. This creates a resilient portfolio where if one part doesn't perform now, it's likely to become a valuable holding for a future market cycle, providing an embedded optionality.

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The 0-12 month market is hyper-competitive, while quantitative models lose predictive power beyond five years. The 2-5 year timeframe is ideal for value strategies like special situations and mean reversion, offering a balance of predictability and reduced competition.

For today's high-uncertainty economy, a barbell strategy is optimal. It involves playing safely in liquid assets like front-end government bonds while making long-term private market investments that solve geopolitical vulnerabilities in areas like rare earths, drones, or domestic chip manufacturing.

Gurevich opposes the mechanical application of stop-losses to every position. Risk management should be at the portfolio level. Some positions become more valuable as they move against you and should be held longer. A trader must preserve the freedom to exit a trade based on a changed thesis, not an arbitrary price level.

Instead of predicting specific companies, identify irreversible macro-trends, or "directional arrows of progress." Examples include the move towards higher energy density (carbohydrates to uranium) or more compact data storage (spinning drives to flash). Investing along these inevitable paths is a powerful strategy.

A more robust diversification strategy involves spreading exposure across assets that behave differently under various macroeconomic environments like inflation, deflation, growth, and contraction. This provides better protection against uncertainty than simply mixing asset classes.

Instead of using current market-cap weightings, a "forward cap" strategy allocates capital based on extrapolated macroeconomic trends. This means overweighting a sector like tech based on its projected future dominance, essentially "skating to where the puck is going."

The modern market is driven by short-term incentives, with hedge funds and pod shops trading based on quarterly estimates. This creates volatility and mispricing. An investor who can withstand short-term underperformance and maintain a multi-year view can exploit these structural inefficiencies.

Many commodity funds make bold macro predictions (e.g., on inflation) but take timid, diversified equity positions. A superior strategy is the reverse: maintain a neutral macro view while making concentrated, 'bold' bets on specific companies with powerful operational catalysts that generate alpha regardless of the macro environment.

Rather than using today's market capitalization, this novel approach builds a portfolio weighted by the expected future market cap of sectors and economies. It's an attempt to "skate to where the puck is going" based on long-term macro trends.

Long-term economic predictions are largely useless for trading because market dynamics are short-term. The real value lies in daily or weekly portfolio adjustments and risk management, which are uncorrelated with year-long forecasts.