The Anonymous Meme Account Chronicling Credit Market Craziness

Tracy Alloway (0:09)

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast. I'm Tracy Alloway.

Joe Weisenthal (0:14)

And I'm Joe Weisenthal.

Tracy Alloway (0:15)

Joe, we're about to do something we've never done before.

Joe Weisenthal (0:18)

I'm very excited about this. This is something that I've always sort of like wanted to do. Maybe even before we had a podcast, like even since I was like a little kid watching TV.

Tracy Alloway (0:29)

What?

Joe Weisenthal (0:29)

No, like seeing like some like news show, because we're gonna talk to like someone disguised, right?

Tracy Alloway (0:35)

Yes, we are going to talk to an anonymous source, an anonymous person, someone who's anonymous online, but will also be doubly anonymous on this podcast. And we're going to be disguising their voice.

Joe Weisenthal (0:47)

Yeah, I'm really excited. I've always wanted to do that, because, you know, like those old like, I don't know, like investigative shows where they have the shadow, the shadow, you see the silhouette. Yeah, they sound like a robot and stuff like that. And it's like, oh, it's so cool. And, you know, it's like there's no reason we can't do that.

Tracy Alloway (1:03)

OK, yes, that is exactly what we're going to do. I'll just go ahead and say it. We're going to be speaking with High Yield Harry, who runs a couple of different accounts on social media. He's on Twitter and also on Instagram. He also has his own newsletter where he's basically chronicling some of the craziness that happens on Wall Street in various ways, but also in the credit markets specifically. And listeners know that private credit and its sort of differences to traditional public credit markets, so publicly issued junk bonds or leverage loans has been a topic of interest for us. But in general, credit markets are always interesting things. And we have been at a sort of interesting juncture in them where last year turned out to be a fantastic year for credit if you got in at the right time. And that is despite lots of people expecting that this would be the area where you would see the impact of higher interest rates. This was the frothiest area of the market in some respects, certainly leverage loans. And that would be the place where you would see trouble from the rate hikes. And yet early 2024 haven't really seen that.

Joe Weisenthal (2:17)

So we talk, obviously, as you said a lot about credit, we talk about a lot in the macro sense. Where is the investor demand coming from? What is the effect or not effect of higher interest rates? What is the effect of Dodd-Frank in shifting lending capacity from banks to other non-bank institutions, et cetera? And all that's great and all that's important, but you can't really understand it just from the sort of numbers without understanding someone who would just talk about the world of actually making the loans and making the deals.

Tracy Alloway (2:47)

Right. The incentives that go into doing this and who are the players in this market. Yes. So without further ado, I am very pleased to say we have High Yield Harry with us. As mentioned, this isn't his real voice. I think it will be obvious when the episode comes out. But Harry, thank you so much for doing this.

High Yield Harry (3:06)

Yeah. Hi Tracy. Hi Joe. Thanks for having me. You know, glad to be the exception. I'm interested in hearing how my voice is going to sound. You know, I might be sounding like the Riddler, you know, holding Gotham for ransom, but it will be interesting to hear how it works out.

Tracy Alloway (3:22)

So first question, I want to give you the space to explain who you are without giving too much away and doxing yourself. But who are you and what do you do?

High Yield Harry (3:33)

Yeah. So I'm a junior professional within the world of public credit. You know, I did the typical stint from the sell side to credit. And I've experienced wearing different hats in terms of public credit and private credit. Right now, my focus is on public credit. You know, I like the opportunity set there. And I'm more of a market-based individual as opposed to a deal team guy. So that kind of drew me to public credit. But, you know, I've dipped my toes in both and have done plenty of investment committee memos for both types of offerings.

Joe Weisenthal (4:09)

I'm really excited about this. I want to get into, you know, the world of credit and what you've seen from the inside and all of that. But now, before we do, talk about, like, your public persona, the High Yield Harry persona on Twitter and Instagram. What prompted you to adopt this persona? And what, you know, what did it come from? And why are you one of the only good ones?