The Professional Bear Years
It’s been quite a ride. My investment management career began in earnest in 1990. It was a lucky break to be hired by successful San Francisco-based hedge fund manager Gordy Ringoen, a wonderful man and one of the most brilliant individuals I’ve known. Working as a short-side trader, analyst, and portfolio manager for a short-biased fund during the great nineties bull market was fascinating, incredibly demanding, and, in the end, quite grueling. I wouldn’t trade such an invaluable learning experience for anything.
After Gordy closed his fund in 1997, I had stints at Fleckenstein Capital in Seattle and East Shore Partners in New York. In January 1999, I joined David Tice in Dallas, beginning my 16-year run with the PrudentBear short equities fund and Prudent Global Income international bond fund, working as an analyst, strategist and portfolio manager. When the two funds were sold in December 2008 to Federated Investors, I worked six years in Pittsburgh as Senior Portfolio Manager and Vice President head of alternative investment strategies.
In November 2016, I joined David McAlvany’s McAlvany Wealth Management (MWM), as portfolio manager for the Tactical Short strategy and market strategist for the hard asset SMA long investment strategy. I left MWM at the end of 2025 to focus on my writing and other interests and opportunities. I appreciate David’s ongoing CBB support.
"The great Dr. Richebacher opened my eyes to Austrian economics and solidified my lifetime passion for economics and macroanalysis."
Austrian Economics & The Richebacher Letter
In 1990, I became an impassioned reader of The Richebacher Letter. The great German economist, Dr. Richebacher, opened my eyes to Austrian economics and solidified my lifetime passion for economics and macroanalysis. I had the good fortune to assist Dr. Richebacher with his publication from 1996 through 2001. It was my introduction to Mises, Hayek, Rothbard, Haberler, Anderson and other brilliant thinkers.
I succumbed in 2001 to the crazy idea of completing a research PhD in economics during the day (in Sydney, Australia), while working with the Prudent Bear funds at night. It was an awesome opportunity to study under the supervision of iconoclast and astute Dr. Steve Keen, a leading authority of the work of Hyman Minsky and author of “Debunking Economics.” After 15 incredibly fruitful months in the library with dusty books detailing the checkered history of money and credit, I made the difficult decision to put my PhD ambitions on hold to focus on investment management.
Early Career & Education
Prior to my career in investment management, I worked as a treasury analyst at Toyota’s U.S. headquarters in Southern California. It was working at Toyota during the Japanese bubble period and the 1987 stock market crash that I experienced my “love at first sight” epiphany for macro analysis.
Fresh out of college, I was employed as a Price Waterhouse CPA. I graduated summa cum laude from the University of Oregon, with a double major in Accounting and Finance (1984). I later moved from sunny California to Bloomington, receiving an MBA from Indiana University (1989). And before all that, I was (forever proud to be) a small town, working class kid from Oregon.
The Credit Bubble Bulletin Mission
By the mid-nineties, I had become convinced that momentous developments were unfolding throughout finance, the markets, and policymaking, which were going unrecognized by conventional analysts and the media. The bond crisis year 1994 was integral to the development of my analytical framework, followed by extraordinary financial happenings in 1997, 1998, and 1999. I was compelled to start my blog, which became the Credit Bubble Bulletin, by the desire to shed some much-needed light on developments. At the time, I thought “bubble” might be in the title for a year or two. It’s year 27…
Esteemed analyst Benjamin Anderson penned The Chase Economic Bulletin from 1920 until 1939. There is great value in contemporaneous analysis, and I’ll point to Anderson’s brilliant writings that meticulously chronicled the historic “Roaring Twenties” and Great Depression eras.
Ben Bernanke has referred to understanding the forces leading up to the Great Depression as the “Holy Grail of Economics.” Over time, historical revisionism and the passage of decades conspired to obscure what should have been enduring lessons. I’m doing my best to see that the “Grail” is discovered through knowledge and understanding of our era’s historic global bubble period.