Macro Optics
Introducing and time to wear the Macro Optics.
Highlights
Get started with the landing page and sign-up: macro-optics.com
Macro Optics is an investment strategy platform and community that also offers a free course to review/ teach basic fundamental financial principles, and macroeconomics along with its relationship with various types of assets/ markets.
The community is hosted on the “circle app”, which is where my team and I will publish/ communicate our investment research/ strategy. The team currently consists of my longtime friend, Johnny Szerdi, my father, Mark Garfinkel, and myself. There is a mobile app and a website as well. Find out more information through our team’s page with this link: https://macro-optics.com/team
Introduction
I have a very strange recollection of wanting to wear glasses when I was a kid (around first-grade age). For whatever reason, I remember seeing other kids in my class wearing glasses, and thinking, “Wow, those people all look super cool”! There was even a short period of time when I acted as if I had bad vision so that I could get one of those “sheik” pairs of glasses. I realize that this was not cool or the right thing to do, please do not cancel. This resulted in me having a pair of glasses that I wore one or two times at school to “look cool”, before realizing that now while wearing this pair of glasses, I actually can not see shit. As I write to the audience today, sorry to disappoint, but I am not physically wearing glasses. Now, the only glasses that I wear are my Macro Optics.
How it Began
The first publication on this Substack expressed my passion for investing (link here). This applies to both Real Estate and equity-related investments. Throughout my life, I have been blessed with incredible teachers and mentors who have taught me the majority of what I know today. My father was an early role model in my life, and I wanted to be just like him. He would always make time for me whether it was sitting down with me after dinner to learn how to read Hebrew, or teaching me about investing. I vividly remember my dad taking me with him into his investment team’s office on a summer day when I was in elementary school. He would ask me, “Which of these stocks do you like”? Blindly, I would point at a chart on his screen, and he laughed quietly as I picked stocks. A couple of years later, my analysis became more advanced. All excited, I told my dad, “You need to invest in EA Sports! They have this new Madden game that is going to be incredible”! This was the version that had Michael Vick on the cover. He let me have my moment, “Sure Aaron, I will take a look at it”. I felt happy to be able to contribute. Now, I may not be just like him because I am also taking my own path, but I am grateful for the opportunity to work with him every day and share the passion for investing.
As I went to college, I became more interested in Real Estate. The tangibility is something that resonated with me. Real Estate is something that can be touched, seen physically as a structure, and also witness the positive impact that a project makes on a community. There was no shortage of mentors here for me to learn from. Individuals such as Rob Rakusin and Chris Riley gave me very early guidance and also helped me to expand my network. Eventually, I became interested enough to seek my first Real Estate internship during a summer in Gainesville, while attending the University of Florida. I worked under Nick Banks at his firm, Front Street Real Estate. Nick was also a great teacher and I will always be thankful to him for helping me get my start in Real Estate. He even introduced me to the University of Florida’s MSRE program (Masters of Science in Real Estate). This is where I met Dr. Ling, who was among one of the best professors that I ever encountered during my time within the US educational system. He led the path for me to learn basic Real Estate underwriting. The collective impact of this incredible group of people contributed to me achieving my first job out of college in Real Estate Capital Markets where I learned technical Real Estate underwriting from Russell Phillips. All have played an equally important role in my life and in getting me to where I am mentally today. I even met with Rob for coffee earlier this week and at the end of the conversation he told me, “Aaron, no matter what, always remember to be yourself and keep doing you”.
After I left the University of Florida, I began taking control of my investments and creating my own investment strategy/ process. The journey has been far from perfect, but any negative results along the way have been learning lessons. My dad and I started sitting down for hours where he would teach me about technical analysis. Hours turned into days, which turned into months. We can argue about technical analysis later in the circle group because I find it to be a funny topic to discuss. However, this was the start of my dad and I’s investment partnership. Every day after work, I made time to learn anything that I could from his experiences in the markets. I always wanted to know more.
Around the fall of 2020, my father and I began learning from Keith McCullough and Hedgeye Risk Management. For years, we have studied their Macro-investing process. This is when we introduced Macro into our investment process. As time passed, the effects of the shifting macro environments became apparent within the market structure and the movement of asset prices. They are the best on Wall Street and I want to be the best. I was dedicated to learning, so I made time every day to study Keith and his team’s process, strategy, and research. Mike Green is another economist/ strategist that I have studied. His research and published work on passive flows has also impacted my investment style. Whether Keith and Mike realize it, I consider them to be amongst my most important mentors.
For approximately 2-years, I did some work as a consultant for an investment community. Altogether this was a positive experience where I underwent a tremendous amount of personal and mental growth. This is where I truly learned about the importance of community and helping others. The experience gave me a passion for building up communities around me, particularly in the world of basic financial principles. It is crazy to me that some of these topics and subjects are not taught earlier or more frequently in the US educational system.
However, this experience as a consultant is where I cultivated knowledge about the negative side of the investment world. People will do anything to make a quick cash grab, whether that is a Wall Street banker selling worthless stock for their fees or YouTube/Twitter “influencers” selling their investment ideas for clicks. Collectively, I saw hundreds of thousands or more of hard-earned dollars lost by people who could not afford to lose that money. I observed people who could not afford to lose be deceived by those promising to make them rich and promising to change their lives. This was a painful experience for me and hurt my heart. I became inspired to do something about these financial atrocities.
I previously mentioned that I am shocked that our US school systems do not spend more time teaching our youth and communities basic financial principles. From a cynical point of view, I can say that the reason that this information is not been widely taught for years within the US school system is because there is too much money to be made by Wall Street and investment managers by taking fees off people who have no idea how to invest or are clueless about the way markets operate. Okay, I apologize, taking off my tin foil hat. This culmination of events discussed above is what led me to create the Macro Optics investing course. I want to empower people to be in control of their own financial lives and to make their own decisions. This starts by learning the basic principles of Markets, Macro, and Investing.
About Macro-Optics
My goal is to take everything that I have learned in my journey and from all of my great mentors over the years and condense it into a video course that can be shared with others in an effort to build up communities that surround me. One of the hardest parts of creating an investment process is knowing where to start. I tried to keep the starting point as basic as possible, so users will be able to layer knowledge on top of knowledge. This course is a starting point for those who want to understand how macro affects markets. Ideally, the course will save users hundreds of hours of research because these are all concepts and lessons that I have learned over 15-20 years. The Macro Optics platform will also involve our team’s strategy and the process that we create. This works hand in hand with the course because whenever there is a topic of conversation that is new or unknown, it will be easy to refer back to the course and watch some content to get up to speed. Additionally, the community exists to ask questions and learn together.
If it was not already apparent, I value giving credit to those who have made an impact on my life. Everyone learns from someone or from somewhere and it is important to acknowledge. All of these individuals within this discussion have taught me a tremendous amount of knowledge, and lessons, and have impacted the way I operate. Importantly, I would not have been able to create this course without their guidance and expertise throughout the years.
Part of acknowledging where I came from is based on my code of honor. Rickson Gracie frequently discussed the Japanese, Samurai, Jui Jitsu, and his code of honor in his book Breathe: A Life in Flow. It made me think deeply about what I value in life and how I want to live in this world. Code and rules are also important for investing. As many will find out throughout the Macro Optics course, part of building an investment process is building and maintaining a rules-based approach.
Founding Principles of Macro Optics
Accountability
Honestly
Visibility
I understand that I have to earn respect and build a track record. As one of my mentors once said, “Who cares what a 26-year-old has to say about anything”. Good thing that I am 27 now. If I do not earn it, then it will be time to move on because that is the way capitalism works. That is perfectly fine with me. Thankfully, I have a team around me that I will go to war with any day of the week. Spectacular businesses take time to build and I am dedicated to leading a team that wins its role within the financial world.
Conclusion
Sign up for Macro Optics. Everything is free for now. We look forward to creating new professional strategies and sharing our research with the community.
Happy Friday,
Aaron David Garfinkel
Can’t wait to check macro optics