The Rise of Carry: The Dangerous Consequences of Volatility Suppression and the New Financial Order of Decaying Growth and Recurring Crisis

The authors make a pretty bold claim: carry (think: holding assets for differences in interest rates) has become so pervasive that the global equity market is one giant carry trade, backed by the Fed and other central banks. In short, with every market turning into a carry trade (from "buying the dip", volatility selling, share buybacks, etc), a growth and low volatility obligation is established that disguises real systemic risk in the system.

The book was published in 2019, I read it in 2020, and am writing this review in 2023. The book completely nailed what would and did happen to financial markets during COVID: policymakers launched aggressive equity-support tools that "stabilized" markets while shifting real, deep, systemic risk elsewhere.

If you care about systemic risk or monetary policy, read this. It's quite good.