Lethame Capital Notes
Unpublished Letter to the FT: The Fed’s delicate balancing act over liquidity
18th November 2025
The Financial Times maintains a stated policy of publishing letters from any single author no more than once every 8–10 weeks. Nonetheless, I could not resist submitting the following response less than a fortnight after my previous letter appeared in print.
Raghuram Rajan argues that post-QE liquidity has left banks funding low-return reserves with volatile deposits. My letter — ultimately unpublished due to the proximity of my earlier submission — explains why this framing misstates how reserves and deposits are actually created, and why private bank credit, rather than central bank reserves, remains the key driver of liquidity and asset prices.
Letters to the FT: Letter — Axa vs French state: bond differential is not a quirk
5th November 2025
Governments are often viewed as the safest borrowers because they can raise taxes or print money. In France’s case, the latter does not apply...Today I had a letter published in the Financial Times...
Why Bitcoin Could Fail
30th August 2025
Mike Green’s recent discussion argues that Bitcoin’s absolute scarcity—often cited as its core strength—can embed systemic deflation and accelerate defaults. We outline how this intersects with our macro framework on deficits and modern monetary economies.
Strategy Update II
22nd July 2021
In April 2020 Lethame Capital’s first strategy update spoke of the strong returns generated through robust risk premia, diversification and risk management. As of end-June 2021…
Stocks for the long run?
26th August 2020
In “Stocks for the Long Run” Jeremy Siegel argues that equities have delivered ~6.5–7% real over two centuries — a cornerstone of buy-and-hold arguments that we examine and contextualise.
Using option theory to value value — will the drawdown continue?
21st August 2020
Building on a series from Logica Capital Advisors, we challenge the “value is due a comeback” narrative and add an options-based lens to equity return decomposition.
Observations from an unusual sell-off
13th June 2020
Bearing risk resembles the economic exposure of an insurer: investors accept drawdowns to harvest premia. We document what made this sell-off atypical.
Gold futures — “conspiracy theories”
29th May 2020
Gold futures are typically in contango, compensating carry costs and challenging long positions as prices roll down to spot. We quantify the effect and common misconceptions.
Volatility — normalising?
9th May 2020
In a period of extraordinary events, the volatility complex behaved in ways worth dissecting. We map the path back toward “normal”.