Investor in emerging market real estate, equities & bonds. In Eastern Europe since 2015. I also work with clients to access superior opportunities abroad.
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Joined March 2012
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Thank you for the new (and existing) follows 🫡 Sharing a bit about me.
Background
- No formal background in finance. Worked in tech startups (2015-2021). Quit during the 2021 crypto bull market to focus more on private investing.
- Was in crypto 2019-2025. Did OK and learnt a lot on how finance works in the DeFi world. xitter.twitterapi.xyz/MacroJason/status/2019…
- Early 30s. Lived across 3 parts of the world. A multilingual and multi citizenship 'globalist' who ironically distrusts globalism and buys into a good amount of associated conspiracies.
What I invest in now:
I'm a top down macro investor. I identify themes and countries I believe in, then select the most assymetrical investment instrument to express that view.
1. Romanian and Polish real estate: my primary position. 20%> AAR since 2018. xitter.twitterapi.xyz/MacroJason/status/1887…
2. High yield fixed income: began investing after the Ukraine war started in 2022 and yields spiked especially in Eastern Europe. From Hungarian, Romanian and Kazakh sovereign debt to Uzbekistan corp bonds at 29% YTM
flagventures.com/blog/xycf30…
3. Global equities: concentrated portfolio on energy, shipping and Kazakhstan banking. I attribute a good amount of my high returns to date to beginners luck. Will be happy if my returns averages out at ~20% AAR overtime. xitter.twitterapi.xyz/MacroJason/status/2039…
📩 I have a private newsletter which you can subscribe to for free. I do the opposite of spamming. I'm lazy with newsletters and sent out around 4 last year. flagventures.com/
Wrapped up first quarter 2026 with 91.23% YTD returns on my equities portfolio.
Current holdings (not much changes since start of year):
Oil & Gas: $PBR, $VAR, $ARX.TO
xitter.twitterapi.xyz/MacroJason/status/2029…
Coal: $TGA.L, $YAL.AX
xitter.twitterapi.xyz/MacroJason/status/2031…
Kazakhstan banking & fintech: $HSBK and $KSPI
xitter.twitterapi.xyz/MacroJason/status/2028…
Shipping (RoRo): $HAUTO, $WAWI
xitter.twitterapi.xyz/MacroJason/status/2018…
Chinese shipping ports: 1199.HK, 144.HK, 6198.HK
xitter.twitterapi.xyz/MacroJason/status/2038…
Got rid of small positions in $CIG and $NVO.
The 'Dumocrats' are helping Brazil. Trump allowed Russian diesel imports but Democrat run states like New Jersey is refusing Russian tankers. So Russian tankers are U-turning from the US to Brazil. If the US doesn't want it's diesel - it will sell to Brazil.
Brazil imports 25% of it's diesel which is quite a healthy figure.
Buying S&P 500 before or at the peak of the dot-com boom vs buying EM government bonds.
EM government bonds won either way and paid you a double digit yield (tax free in most cases). Giving you optionality and dry powder for moments like 2002 and 2008.
My view is that an EM fixed income portfolio (with some skills) can yield you similar to the headline rate of SPX over the long run (7-10%). But with less drawdowns and predictable cashflow - offering you optionality, which is super valuable and what proponents of equity index DCA do not consider often enough.
E.g. many would have been unable to sell (without taking a realized loss) during that 10+ years, even if an exceptional opportunity presented itself. And many such opportunities did appear in the 2000s.
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0.68% of Brazil has an IQ above 120. Given that, I’m impressed by the quality of Brazilian twitter which I had the pleasure of accidentally stumbling into this year. Ironically it all started when my posts about Brazil’s low median IQ went unexpectedly viral.
I would give up everything to be teleported back to 1999 Moldova as a junk bond trader. Chisnau was a great place before Maia Sandu ruined everything.
POV: you're an expat in Chisinau in 2001 and invested in Moldova's 10 year government bonds when yields were at 21% (Russian banking crisis).
By 2003 (when Dragostea Din Tei was released) yield normalized to 10.5%. You doubled your money within two years.
Now you rotate to Romanian real estate, which went on to doing a 4x between 2003 to 2008 (one of the most incredible real estate bubbles across CEE region). You exited at the peak and EURUSD was 1.58. Life is good.
It's true that SPX has delivered 7% over time. But it's equally true that there are 10+ year periods where you would have been at an unrealized loss in nominal terms, not to account for inflation and opportunity cost.
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When some people hear about emerging market local currency - their knee-jerk reaction is that there is too much ‘currency risk’. They seem to forget holding USD has plenty of risks too.
Know several Western European expats living in EU Eastern Europe. They never bothered getting permanent residency as they ‘don’t need it’.
Technically true with their EU passports but the cost and effort of getting permanent residency is near zero. Local language test requirements are also exempt for EU citizens. It’s one of those things with very little downside but potentially huge upside in coming years / decades. Especially for those who only have a Western passport. You don’t want to find yourself trapped on the wrong side of the new Berlin Wall.
My daughter is under 6 months old and just got residency in Croatia. That makes three countries so far. She’s getting her fourth in April.
A lot of people ask why you’d bother getting residence in another Schengen country when she’s already a Schengen passport holder.
There are a few reasons.
During COVID I was a resident, so I could still come and stay here, which had some of the most relaxed rules in Europe back then.
Foreign neighbours without any paperwork confirming the right to be there got stuck. Countries like Austria and Germany wouldn’t let them drive through, and Croatia wouldn’t let them in either. Yes, even Schengen “citizens.”
I’m also starting her clock towards citizenship. I’ll be eligible for Croatian citizenship in about 2.5 years.
It should be easier to get hers along with mine. If that doesn’t work, at 18 she can claim it on the basis of 8+ years of residency. A very strong path.
Total cost was €7 for ID pictures, €5 for birth certificate, €13 application fee and my time filling out a 4 page form.
Time will pass anyway, so use it to your advantage.
Rules may change for the worse or for the better, but she’ll have a very good shot at citizenship with 18 years of residency and fluent Croatian since we spend time here.
The biggest gift you can give your children is options.
Looks like I almost called the exact top of $KSPI and the exact bottom of $GAZP on the 1 year chart.
The lesson is to keep an open mind on other people's trade ideas - rather than getting overly emotional and be 'married to your bag'. @vladimirdotcom didn't learn this lesson though as he has now blocked me :D
Bottom fishing opportunities in Russian stocks such as #Gazprom - which nearly no one in Europe apart from Serbs (and a few others) can take advantage of
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EM currency basket lost 0.8% against US in the last month. Kazakh tenge and Uzbek som were amongst the very few that outperformed (whilst paying you a risk free government bond yield between 13-16%). $HSBK $KSPI $UZNF
Brazil is the new Uzbekistan btw. $EWZ $EWZS
Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan were contrarian bets pre 2025. Unfortunately they went from 'but is it safe?' to 'wow that's cool'. Russia is the new Uzbekistan.
It's funny how uncourageous and unimaginative GFC / Global South funds & HNWI are. There's a gated opportunity right now in Russia that they can access but Western & developed world can't. 17% risk free yield on OFZ as a baseline. But they ignore it and chase the same AI & growth stonks stuff where they have negative edge. Really no hope with these people.
$EMLC is the largest emerging market local currency government bond ETF in the US. But EM fixed income is so overlooked that ChatGPT thinks its jewelry.
Why I prefer local currency government bonds over corporate USD bonds in emerging markets. In short - better risk reward and less work to do. With EM corporate bonds - you take on both country risk and company risk, for too little premium over the risk-free UST yield. With government bonds - only country macro to monitor.
Large funds only have a mandate to invest in USD denominated bonds, hence asset managers and ETFs including VanEck $HYEM bought Ueno. But as private investors and family offices, we have the flexibility to do otherwise. Learn more about my favorite high yield bonds and how I can help you access them remotely: flagventures.com/fixedincome…
$CEMB $EMCB $EMHY $EMCR
One of the negative Turkish traits you occasionally see in the Balkans is people leaving their shoes outside the door - even in new buildings.
Also saw a Turkish grocery shop owner in Bucharest sweep dust and dirt from inside their shop to the pedestrian side walk. Was slightly startled, you don’t see these third world behaviour in Eastern Europe much.
I spoke too soon. Requested my CPF at 10:24 and got it by 19:14 Brasília time on the same day - all remotely via email. Turned out to be the easiest tax ID I got in any country. Two weeks into Lula's re-election and he's already turned Brazil into the Singapore of LatAm. SELIC to converge with Singapore's benchmark interest rate of 1.74% very soon.
I was told that 80% of Middle Eastern men (plus Pakistanis) are gay / bi.
Turkish men, for all their problems, probably aren’t. Mainly because Turkey doesn’t segregate or cover up women. The devil doesn’t want you to see light and beauty.
I have sympathy for American patriots. They tried Ron Paul, Tea Party, MAGA. None worked out as none targeted the root cause of America’s decline (Israel and demographics). Meanwhile they only have a few election cycles left until their country becomes majority non White.
Homes in Romania became 43% more affordable relative to local incomes in the last 10 years. Exact opposite in Portugal, where it became 61% less affordable.
Real estate investors in both countries did very well in recent years. What's special about Romania vs Portugal's market is that investors achieved identical upside with much more downside protection (significantly less leverage in the system and strong fundamental value relative to local income and demand).
El Salvador's government debt to GDP is 85%. Their government borrows USD at 7-8.5% per year (expensive) - due to weak credit rating on par with Pakistan, Egypt and various African countries.
Considering this - their bitcoin investment has been terrible. Should have bought Gold like other smart EM central banks (Poland, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan). But good that no other central banks were foolish enough to copy El Salvador.
Highly indebted poor people should not be investing. They should prioritize building skills and income stream. Same for poor countries - El Salvador is 32% poorer than Ukraine on per capita basis in PPP.
Lula's Brazil is ranked similarly to Milei's Argentina in rule of law and corruption perception, though both are superior to Paraguay and El Salvador.
Brazil's credit rating is also superior to Argentina's and El Salvador's. This is reflected in the EMBI spread (extra interest a country pays to borrow vs the US government).
So whilst LatAm passport bros prefer 'libertarian' Argentina, Paraguay to El Salvador to 'communist' Brazil - global pension funds, insurers, sovereign wealth funds and asset managers (managing trillions of dollars) see things differently. Let's see how this plays out in Lula's 4th term.
