The Perversion of Passive Investment

40-45% of the market is now passive. What are the ramifications for market participants? Carson Block and Mike Green sit down to talk about how stock picking is entirely different than it was just 5 years ago. If you’ve miscalculated the available float as a short-seller you can get completely obliterated. According to Green, less than 10% of trading is fundamentally based now and the rest is rules-based investing that creates an insanely convex environment. Green equates the current economic environment as driving uphill with no breaks and it all feels good until you end up going downhill. In the second half of the interview, they discuss Mike’s asymmetric bet in 2016 on the XIV, which was a liquid retail product to short VIX futures.