About this podcast
Learn from market history
www.backtestpodcast.com
Episodes
The newest 20 of 26 episodes
- Making High-Stakes Decisions during Times of Extreme Uncertainty · 56 min · Season 2 Episode 12In the darkest days of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln learned that Confederate cavalry had captured a Union general and a hundred horses. Lincoln knew what was scarce, and it…
- Sebastian Mallaby on Artificial Intelligence, Railroads, and Transformative Changes · 1 h 17 min · Season 2 Episode 12From iron horses to infinity machines, every great technological revolution starts with a curious mind chasing discovery for its own sake. Discoveries lead to technological…
- The Rail Revolution: Jay Cooke and the Northern Pacific (Part 4) · 1 h 5 min · Season 2 Episode 11By 1869, the transcontinental railroad is finished, the Civil War debt is refinanced, and the business that made Jay Cooke reach the pinnacle of private banking in the US is…
- The Rail Revolution: Cornelius Vanderbilt and Market Power (Part 3) · 1 h 10 min · Season 2 Episode 10Description In the 1860s, railroads are rewiring the American economy. The old value chain built around steamboats, canals, and local commerce is coming apart, and nobody knows…
- Financing the American Revolution: Robert Morris and Independence · 1 h 6 min · Season 2 Episode 9You think you know the history of the American Revolution. George Washington crossing the Delaware. Thomas Jefferson writing the Declaration. But there’s one founder you’ve…
- The Rail Revolution: George Hudson and Railway Mania (Part 2) · 1 h 7 min · Season 2 Episode 8In the 1840s, Britain deployed more capital in railways than any nation had ever invested in anything outside of war. At the peak, capital invested was more than 7% of GDP… in a…
- The Rail Revolution: George Stephenson and the Birth of Railways (Part 1) · 1 h 9 min · Season 2 Episode 7Every so often a technology arrives that changes everything. For over 5,000 years, the fastest a human being or a ton of freight could move overland was the speed of a horse…
- The 80s on Wall Street: Howard Marks and Bruce Karsh Cultivate Cycles (Part 5) · 1 h 11 min · Season 2 Episode 6The final chapter in our 80s on Wall Street series bridges the story from the rise of high yield bonds and leveraged buyouts to the birth of modern distressed debt investing. At…
- Bob McNally on Oil Price Volatility, OPEC, Energy Markets, and the Strait of Hormuz · 1 h 7 min · Season 2 Episode 5Oil is one of the most important commodities in the world. Despite that, it’s probably one of the most misunderstood and underappreciated markets even by sophisticated market…
- The 80s on Wall Street: Fred Carr Bankrolls the Boom (Part 4) · 1 h 12 min · Season 2 Episode 4In the first three parts of this series, we covered Michael Milken building the high-yield bond market, Ross Johnson triggering the RJR Nabisco bidding war, and KKR winning the…
- The 80s on Wall Street: KKR and The RJR Nabisco Battle (Part 3) · 49 min · Season 2 Episode 3We pick up where we left off in Part 2. Ross Johnson, CEO of RJR Nabisco, presents a management buyout bid for $75-per-share—a number he’s certain will get the deal done without…
- The 80s on Wall Street: Road to RJR Nabisco’s LBO (Part 2) · 1 h 7 min · Season 2 Episode 2In 1987, America is riding one of the greatest bull markets in history—until it all comes to an abrupt end on Black Monday, October 19th 1987. Portfolio insurance, a fragile…
- The 80s on Wall Street: Michael Milken Makes a Market (Part 1) · 1 h 14 min · Season 2 Episode 1The 1980s were an iconic decade on Wall Street. Michael Milken and his team at Drexel were key players in sparking the wave of buyouts that were emblematic of the era. Before all…
- The Shale Revolution: EOG, OPEC, and Profits from Shale Oil (Part 3) · 1 h 12 min · Season 1 Episode 12In Part 1, George Mitchell unlocked shale gas. In Part 2, Aubrey McClendon fueled the boom with a capital and land machine at Chesapeake. In Part 3, we tell the story of one of…
- The Shale Revolution: Aubrey McClendon & the Natural Gas Boom (Part 2) · 60 min · Season 1 Episode 11At the end of Part 1, Devon had just bought Mitchell Energy for $3.5B and locked in the technological innovation behind the shale revolution. But the real boom in drilling, debt…
- The Shale Revolution: George Mitchell’s Natural Gas Moonshot (Part 1) · 1 h 11 min · Season 1 Episode 10George Mitchell and his team—people like Nick Steinsberger—through relentless experimentation and financial pressure targeted natural gas in the Barnett Shale and unlocked…
- The Dot Com Boom: Max Levchin, Peter Thiel, and Elon Musk Walk into the Fire and Create PayPal (Part 4) · 59 min · Season 1 Episode 9Imagine starting a company to change the world of finance right before an epic stock market crash. Elon Musk famously said that PayPal wasn’t a hard company to create. It was a…
- The Dot Com Boom: Bezos Sees the Wave, Rides the Crest, Survives the Crash (Part 3) · 60 min · Season 1 Episode 8Technology waves are easy to see in hindsight, but often hard to see before they arrive. It’s even harder to build enough conviction to take a risk, ride the wave, and build…
- The Dot Com Boom: A Tale of Two Telecoms (Part 2) · 1 h 1 min · Season 1 Episode 7In the late 1990s, the internet grew exponentially to become an enormous engine for technological progress and economic disruption. The existing telecommunications infrastructure…
- The Dot Com Boom: Netscape Lights the Fuse (Part 1) · 58 min · Season 1 Episode 6Description Gold-rush energy meets browser wars. In mid-1994 Silicon Graphics legend Jim Clark sits down with a 22-year-old programmer Marc Andreessen in the heart of Silicon…
