In episode 05, recorded Friday, September 7, 2018, Rob and Aaron dive short into China’s debt and the rise of FAANGs, before finishing with a long chat on recently controversial sports and apparel company Nike (NYSE:NKE)

China: growth has been unparalleled for the Middle Kingdom, financed in large part by both traditional debt and more opaque, off-balance-sheet arrangements via special purpose vehicles (SPVs). Can China balance economic expansion with debt contraction?

FAANGs: these five US tech companies - Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google (Alphabet) have seemingly driven the entire stock market upwards the last several years. Each share similarities, such as using cheap debt, while each has also found ways to protect long-term differentiation and shareholder value (NASDAQ:FB, AMZN, AAPL, NFLX, GOOG)

Nike: they just did it - actively wading into the ongoing American discussion of what it means to be patriotic. A short-term sales bump and an overall well-balanced geographic segmentation imply they knew what they were doing

Ep05: China | FAANGs | Nike

Guys Being Dudes, the Long and Short of Financial Markets and the Global Economy, is a podcast co-hosted by Aaron Chow and Rob Kazmarek. Both UC Berkeley students – Aaron an undergrad double-majoring in economics and material sciences, and Rob a Berkeley-Haas MBA – the two interned together at a short-bias hedge fund in the Bay Area the summer of 2018. Their love of finance, the macro economy and general irreverence spurred an idea to create a podcast and share the knowledge they gain with all that are interested.

Guys Being Dudes will be released weekly and ‘go short’ 2-3 topics before ‘going long’ one final topic, with total length between 20-30 minutes. Each short topic will be 5-8 minutes and the long topic will be 10-15 minutes.

Send us a mail with any feedback to guysbeingdudes2018@gmail.com. We’re happy to hear from you!

Cheers,
Rob and Aaron